The lumbering process which is moving Scottish farming towards the new Common Agricultural Policy has taken another step forward.
Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs Richard Lochhead announced some progress with the European Commission on the difficult area of creating a sufficiently flexible National Reserve of entitlements to the Basic Payment Scheme.
Mr Lochhead claimed that the newly negotiated flexibility will benefit farmers frozen out under the old CAP and enable them to receive basic payments at the regional average from day one of the new system.
He also announced progress on action to put an end to so-called ‘slipper farming’. This would be achieved through implementing what has become known as the ‘Scottish clause’ on minimum activity rules designed to keep poor quality unfarmed land out of the payment system.
These rules will require active management on all rough grazing land if it is to qualify for CAP payments.
In the case of active management by grazing, there will be a choice of meeting a minimum stocking density or undertaking other annual activities.
Slipper farming will be further discouraged by opting for a windfall profit clause which would stop historic payments from being temporarily maintained on a new, smaller area of eligible land, and the siphon on the sale of entitlements without land, which should discourage the trading of entitlements for the purpose of subsidy-chasing by reducing their value.
Mr Lochhead said: “We have already won flexibilities in Europe for a National Reserve that goes beyond the mandatory categories of young farmers and new entrants.
“Thanks to our success in the negotiations last year, past new entrants all the way back to the reference period for the SFP hardworking farmers who were wholly or partly frozen out under the old CAP will receive basic payments at the regional average from day one of the new system.
“This approach will immediately address the unfair treatment faced by hundreds of farmers over the past few years, whilst respecting the strict conditions contained in the EU regulations” he said.
“We are also providing the best possible support for young farmers, who will be able to claim top-ups to their basic payment on the maximum number of hectares allowed.
“We will also pay out on the best land first.
“Of course, all farmers disadvantaged under the old CAP will be eligible to apply for the full allocation of other elements of support such as greening and coupled support, which are the same for all farmers, as well as SRDP funding, our proposed rates for which will shortly be published on the Scottish Government website.
“The Scottish Government has a strong track record in making farm payments on time or ahead of deadline, with typically 90% of farmers receiving their SFP by the end of December and that is what we are aiming for this year.
“For 2015 onwards, the Futures Programme remains on track to give us a new online system for CAP in Scotland, called Rural Payments and Services, that will deliver nearly £4 billion of support to our farming, food and rural sectors in the next five years alone.
“Under the new, more complex CAP, we will aim to pay as early as we can in the payment window set by Europe and will keep the implementation timetable under constant review to ensure farmers receive their payments.”
NFU Scotland chief executive Scott Walker commented: “A condition of having a transition from the historic payment system to the new area payment system was a National Reserve that catered for businesses disadvantaged and left behind by the historic payment system.
“What has been announced today doesn’t address all the issues we have taken to the Scottish Government.
“However, there has been movement by Government in the last few weeks, and what has been announced today is better than what was originally proposed.
“We welcome the fact that Government has listened to the concerns expressed by us and other stakeholders and made moves to broaden the National Reserve to include some of the businesses who were still developing when historic entitlements were first allocated,” he added.