SCOTTISH FARMERS and those who have interests in the rural scene in this country will know later today the preferred option for future support for the countryside.

This option signals the biggest single change to farm subsidies for more than 30 years, but it is almost certain that farmers will continue to receive almost all of their previous support.

The announcement will come from deputy rural affairs minister Allan Wilson, who will make a statement in the Scottish Parliament outlining how the Executive would like to see the £400 million or so subsidy cake delivered annually.

It is believed that the preferred Scottish option will be very much in line with that announced yesterday by Welsh Minister Carwyn James, who told their Assembly, “The historic option is the way forward for Wales."

In Scotland, the only clue that emerged from months of consideration of the issues was a statement from Rural Affairs Minister Ross Finnie when he addressed a meeting at Perth in November.

At that time, he said that anything other than paying on a historical basis would mean a major redistribution of subsidies.

This option sees subsidy payments made in a single farm payment to farmers based on the average they received for all their various support schemes in the qualifying years of 2000/2002.

The Welsh also decided that they would not remove money from the overall subsidy package in order to prioritise areas or commodities where more support was needed.

However, the prospect of a national envelope in Wales, as such a fund is called, was not dismissed out of hand and will be subject to future consultation.

Mr Jones also announced that there would be consultation on the new cross compliance regime which would set environmental and farming standards that farmers will need to meet in order to draw down the single farm payment.

The Welsh also discussed the operation of a national reserve, which is the mechanism for payments to farmers who, under the historic model, could not demonstrate a 2000-2002 farming record.

While NFU Scotland has been supporting the historic payment basis as the easiest to implement as well as creating fewer winners and losers in the subsidy battle than the other options, they may be less pleased with the increased accent on environmental cross compliance that will also emerge.

The majority of the 300 or so responses to the Scottish Executive consultation on the reform, that ended in early January, came from environmental bodies who saw great advantages in shifting support cash, or tax- payers’ money, into remote rural areas on an area basis.

They are unlikely to be placated by the cross compliance measures that will be suggested by the minister, as this will not put as much cash into environmental objectives as they would like.

The Scottish option was discussed in cabinet earlier this week. It is likely that the farming versus environment battle was at the heart of a cabinet debate described by a spokesperson for the Executive as “vigorous.”

English farmers will find out their future this morning when Margaret Beckett, the Minister in charge of the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, will announce her decision.

The English debate has, over the past month, centred on what is called the hybrid option.

This is a combination of historic payment and the spreading of all the previous subsidy cash equally over all the English acres.

This option was floated by Lord Whitty last month at Oxford but this “hybrid” preference took a hefty political knock last week from Franz Fischler, the European Union Commissioner for Agriculture.

Mr Fischler opined that hybrids were going against the spirit of the reforms engineered by Europe in order to split production away from subsidy.

He also warned that as all the member states and devolved nations would have to submit their plans for the new regime, some may have more difficulty than others when they come to Brussels.

This may make an interesting conversation piece between Mrs Beckett and Mr Fischler when they come face to face at the annual meeting of the NFU of England and Wales on Monday.

Mr Fischler’s warning did not stop Northern Ireland from going down the hybrid route earlier this week, with Ulster politicians and farming leaders speaking strongly in support of this option.

Not only did they head off in this direction but they compounded it by describing it as a static vertical hybrid, combining 80% of historic payments with 20% of area cash.

This appears to suit their farming and it emerged with support from both farming leaders and Ulster politicians.