Few will have heard Richard Lochhead as impassioned as he was yesterday when he opened the AgriScot event at Ingliston.
Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary is clearly very annoyed about the allocation of EU convergence funds in the UK.
Referring to Defra Secretary Owen Paterson’s handling of the distribution of 230 million euros of extra funding, Mr Lochhead spoke of “pure deceit” and “sheer hypocrisy”.
For good measure he witheringly said he had “expected more” from new Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael.
Mr Lochhead’s argument is that all of the 230m euros should go to Scotland because the money only came to the UK because of the need to increase the very low per hectare support payments in Scotland.
“Inevitably there will be winners and losers in the new CAP, but fairness will be all the harder to achieve because of this budget allocation,” he said.
“In the old CAP Scotland was third from the bottom of the EU table for Pillar One payments and bottom for Pillar Two.
“Now we are at the bottom for them both.
“It is a terrible indictment of the way the UK Government has handled the negotiations, and goes against all natural justice.”
Owen Paterson had managed to unite all the Scottish political parties in opposition.
“It is not often that happens,” added Mr Lochhead.
He would be “pulling out all the stops” to make sure the rewards went to productive farming.
“But it is incredibly difficult to work with a European Commission that wants food but won’t pay for its production,” said Mr Lochhead.
He would “in a matter of days” be launching the consultation on implementation of the new CAP.
The Scottish Government will almost inevitably want to move some funds from Pillar One (direct support) to Pillar Two (rural development), and there is scope to move up to 15% of the budget in this direction.
Mr Lochhead may choose a smaller percentage, but in any event he was keen yesterday to point out that much of the Pillar Two money at least twice the 15% that could come from Pillar One would be used to support farming through the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme and other schemes.
Turning to the beef position, Mr Lochhead said: “I know the beef processors are struggling to make a profit, and we have to do something to change that.
“Also, the trend of falling cattle numbers has to be reversed.
“I have asked Quality Meat Scotland chairman Jim McLaren to lead a short-term review to look at beef quality and quantity and to report back to me by the Highland Show.”
NFU Scotland president Nigel Miller was equally exercised by the allocation of the convergence funds.
Because the 230m euros had been split evenly between the four UK regions, uneven distribution was to be perpetuated, with hill land in Northern Ireland attracting a Single Farm Payment of 316 euros per hectare compared to 20 euros per hectare in Scotland.
As regards implementation of the new CAP in Scotland, Mr Miller called for the so-called “gateway” to be 2013, with payments based on the hectares claimed by each business in this year.
“My fear is that if the gateway is skewed towards 2015 it will result in everyone trying to grab as many entitlements as they can,” he said.
This could involve grazing and short-term leases not being made available.
Mr Miller also asked for a ”two-speed transition” in 2015.
This would see new entrants moving to the new area-based scheme straightaway and existing claimants being eased into the transition from historic payments to area payments in a phased manner.
epate@thecourier.co.uk