The importance of the next few months was continually stressed at an NFUS roadshow focusing on future payments, held in Perth last Monday night. There was a large attendance of farmers on the night, both young and old, anxious about what model future payments will follow.

“Brexit gives us the opportunity to see what kind of ag policy we want,” according to Jonnie Hall, policy director with NFUS. “The next two to five years are going to be unpredictable and we need a degree of continuity and stability during this period. Change needs to happen and it will happen, but it needs to be controlled change,” Jonnie emphasised.

He continued: “We [currently] have an industry that is bereft of where it is going and people who do not know what to do next.”

The union hopes that this consultation process with farmers can be used as a platform to get future payments right, while also questioning what has the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) actually achieved for Scottish farmers.

“What has the CAP actually done for Scottish farmers if we are honest?” Jonnie asked. “It provided security but never allowed your business to get on the front foot, has it actually improved your business?

“It has stopped young people getting into the industry, we have the opportunity now to recast how we support Scottish farming,” he explained.

Inactivity

The union were not shy in highlighting the inefficiencies of the Scottish Government when it comes to any post-Brexit agricultural policy.

“The Scottish Government haven’t gone far enough,” according to Jonnie. “We (the NFUS) have showed a high degree of vision in what we have presented so far.”

When it comes to the lead-in period during which schemes would be changed, Hall was conscious that there was no dramatic change in any one ear as to what farmers would receive. “We can’t have a situation where farmers are pushed off a cliff edge, because they usually don’t get back up,” he explained.

“We want to be able to support the decision maker and the risk taker. Currently 90% of the CAP is area based. We want to move from an area-based to an action-based support system,” said Hall.

He continued: “How they (farmers) farm should become more important. Payments should not be based on an area a farmer declares on a form.”

There was a call for caution when it comes to sweeping changes to payment rates, outlining that a shock in support payments could lead to land abandonment.

Productivity

The union called for payments to be targeted towards productivity measures and environmental measures.

“The total support going to an individual business doesn’t have to change, but how they access it or unlock it has to change,” according to Jonnie, “but we don’t believe in any sort of capping (of payments).”

This was an area which was questioned by the crowd, with farmers highlighting that no capping will be an issue that will be judged in the court of public opinion, which is a very powerful thing.

Martin Kennedy, vice president of NFUS, conceded that capping would be very difficult to implement, but that not capping has challenges too.

“Public perception has always been a challenge, but we feel no need for capping under this scenario.”

While a future budget is still an area that needs addressing, the Union believes that current funding levels could be maintained, but the system of having a Pillar I and Pillar II payments would be done away with.

Jonnie Hall went into more detail on how they would like future payments to work: “Instead we would like payments to be in tiers, where tier one payments would be based on actively farmed hectares (AFH), where they would not be split into regions like LFA, because nobody understands how LFA payments work.”

An AFH is outlined as a hectare of land that grows a crop, harvests a crop or is eligible for environmental measures. Or it would have a stocking density equivalent of 0.8LU/ha to be counted as an AFH. For example, if a farmer had 500ha of grazing land, stocked at 0.4LU/ha, this would equate to 250ha stocked at 0.8LU/ha, which would then be eligible for payments.

The Union would also like to have the option of voluntary coupled payments to vulnerable sectors as well as being able to front load payments to help new business.

“CAP has been a farm blocker and it never invested in people,” according to Hall.

Hall outlined that the Unions position is to see every eligible hectare receive the same payment regardless of land type or farming system but this would be based on using AFH.

The aim is to move away from farmers getting excessively high payments based on a historical stocking density or system on their farm. “We would like to see some sort of rolling average over three years before the year of claim used to get stocking densities,” he said.

He continued: “Assuming existing budget, we would see a payment rate of £200/ha for actively farmed hectares. Now it is brave to say that we would have the same budget and we have to take that with a huge pinch of salt.”

Simplifying the system

Speaking on the need to simplify the system Martin Kennedy said: “We need to shift from simply occupying the land to actually unlocking a payment. We also need to get a system that’s deliverable. The information that will be required for payments is information that is easily available.”

The Union would like to see environmental payments go from the current 30%, down to 15% of total payments.

However, the other 85% of payments would be split between productivity and financial stability, Martin outlined. The distribution of these payments would alter over a three to five-year lead-in period depending what farmers would prefer.

The financial stability allocation of payments would begin at 70%, dropping by 5% increments over five years, finishing at 50%. At the same time the allocation of payments in relation to productivity measures would begin at 15% on year one, increasing by 5% annually, and finishing at 35% of the total payment a farmer would receive by year five.

The Union would also like to see a coupled support payment that would see a payment of £100/calf, which would be front loaded on a certain amount of calves.

Moving forward

Martin also highlighted the unions frustration with the Scottish Government; “we have nothing coming from the Scottish Government which is very frustrating. We are trying to lead to the Scottish Government because they won’t lead us.”

Securing funding as the country moves into a post-Brexit scenario will not be easy according to Jonnie. “We never really had to fight for funding before, but it is something that we will have to do in the future… We have to show that farmers support a host of other businesses.”

He continued: “For every £1 we get in support payments we pump out £5 into the economy.”

The need to keep support payments is vital according to Jonnie, highlighting that NFU England have been pulled politically very easily to phase out direct support. Feedback from the audience had some young farmers questioning the need for a five-year transition period and if there would be the potential to move the productivity measures straight to 35% in year one to help young farmers trying to increase productivity. While another area of major concern on the night was the availability of labour for the sector.

“There is currently no other plan B out there on the table,” Jonnie, calling on the Government to outline their plans for the future of support payments in Scotland.