Years and years and years – that’s the amount of time the Scottish Government had to devise a replacement upland support scheme.

But no plan B seems to be on the cards for upland and hill farm support.

Wherever possible, farmers don’t put all their eggs in one basket, but it seems the Government’s unwillingness to invest resources into devising a potential alternative scheme will hit farming hard.

This is an agricultural department which has been denied increased resources to fight Brexit by the Holyrood Government.

We must remember upland and hill farmers were given likely the lowest payment rate per hectare in Europe on the understanding they’d receive LFASS.

The Scottish Government fights hard for convergence money to support these farm businesses, but has failed to make alternative plans to ensure the £65m LFASS budget can get to active businesses.

Speaking to one LFA farmer, he confirmed that LFASS was a built-in funding stream for disadvantaged businesses.

Any promised new scheme or replacement needs to be announced now – with iron guarantees. This is not just to give confidence to farmers and crofters, but to get understanding from the banks. Many bankers will be envisaging thousands of pounds of cashflow vanishing from farm accounts.

A new method to get support to active producers needs to be devised swiftly to allow finance to continue in confidence.

Otherwise the engine room of Scotland’s livestock sector could start to stall as loan conditions tighten and proposals get turned down.