OUTGOING NFUS PRESIDENT POINTS TO POSITIVE FUTURE

McLaren’s Final Address hits at Defra Mixed Messages on CAP

NFU Scotland’s retiring President, Jim McLaren, used his final address to the Union’s AGM to point to a positive long-term future for Scottish agriculture with strengthening demand for food and opportunities in new areas such as renewables.
However, in the short-term, Scottish farmers are concerned about future support arrangements and mixed messages from Defra on its position regarding the future of the CAP is fuelling uncertainty.
The CAP is the main policy in Europe for delivering support to farming businesses. Negotiations on reforms to the CAP begin in earnest this year and new arrangements are intended to be in place from 2014 onwards. Although devolved administrations will have their preferred options for reform, Defra will be the lead negotiator in these discussions.
Recent political statements from the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Caroline Spelman have suggested that the new CAP needs to be fundamentally different and that rising global demand for food and rising food prices make it possible to not only reduce support to farmers but plan for its abolition. However, NFU Scotland believes that with ongoing market volatility and rising input costs, the justification for continued support to agriculture, targeted at active producers is stronger than ever.
The UK’s Farming Minister, Jim Paice accepted an offer to address the NFU Scotland AGM, the first Defra minister to attend a Union AGM since devolution, and was in the audience to hear Mr McLaren’s speech.
Mr McLaren said:
“A bright and prosperous future surely exists for an industry which not only provides the very food we need to live, but increasingly the energy we now take so much for granted. We protect the natural environment, provide access to the countryside and we deliver the many wider benefits to society, brought about by a vibrant and properly supported rural economy.
“Given the important role of support, I am deeply concerned that as we enter a period of crucial negotiations on CAP, we have a UK Member State position from the new coalition government that has continued the old rhetoric of the last administration. Calling for the abolition of direct payments and immediate cuts to the CAP budget will find no support here in Scotland and runs the risk of isolating the UK government from other key Member States in Europe before the debate has even begun.
“The good news is that Scotland’s voice is being heard loudly and clearly through the work of Brian Pack and others, and we are leading much of the thinking in the whole of Europe.
“The UK is a diverse food-producing nation, with areas in Scotland and Wales at real risk of land abandonment if support is reduced or withdrawn. This risk is one of the key European drivers for continued targeted agricultural support, and Caroline Spelman should be using it as a lever to maintain payments to the UK with those payments targeted at active farmers.
“Of course, some sectors can aspire to a future with less support – indeed, some sectors receive no support now - but until the market place finally delivers a return for all, it must be recognised that large areas of Scotland are a very, very long way from surviving with less support.
“As the global demand for food and energy continues unabated, Scottish producers remain well-placed to benefit.
“Presumption in favour of small-scale renewable energy generation on farm should be the default position of our local planning authorities. The prospect of a return to energy-independent farming is a very real one indeed.
“I remain hugely confident about the future of our entire industry. That future is in our hands, as farmers, and we must grasp it.”