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17 October 2002Scottish Agricultural College - what is going on?Editorial© www.land-care.org.uk
The Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) website (www.sac.ac.uk) announces that the SAC Board has confirmed the appointment of three new Non-executive Members to its Board of Directors. It states that these appointments have been made following an openly advertised recruitment process which attracted over 90 applicants. One of the three appointed is Professor Roger Crofts, CBE, who was the first Chief Executive of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), a position he held from 1992–2002. Prior to that he spent 17 years at the Scottish Office (now the Scottish Executive) advising on rural policy development.
Why should this be a cause for concern to those who care for the land?In the view of many, SNH ran a so-called consultation exercise on Land Reform in Scotland, but ignored the significant worries of many of those land managers that are mainly concerned with agriculture. Thus, in spite of token claims that they had taken on board the submissions from the NFUS and from the SLF in fact SNH had ignored most of the logical arguments put forward by these bodies and by individuals concerned with the agricultural aspects of land management (1). The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill as it currently still stands has little to do with logic, science or common sense as far as effective farming is concerned - especially livestock farming. Indeed, SNH has been formerly criticised for its care of the land (2). The SAC is trying to get out of its present difficulties - likewise the farmers that the SAC was initially set up to help. Will the appointment to the SAC Board of a recently retired chief executive of SNH really help? SAC used to be a great assistance to farmers. Excellent advice was free and was of much benefit in terms of how land was managed, including environmental aspects. Now that advice is only available at open market rates: i.e. highly expensive. Now it is used by many largely as a means of getting the various government forms into order so as to avoid penalties on account of their complexity. In many ways the SAC has degenerated into a bureaucratic branch of government. The perception is that the SAC is largely concerned with seeing that government policy is implemented rather than helping to shape that policy. But then government does not seem to know or care much about agriculture. It is the “environment” they are interested in, not appreciating that it is agriculture that determines so much of that environment. Sadly they are putting the cart before the horse. Not surprisingly SAC has run short of funds. The government was not paying its errand boy enough, and the farmers were getting ever poorer. It is government policy that the funding for agriculture to such establishments as SAC is being markedly reduced, while they are asked to concentrate on other aspects which the government thinks is more related to human health and the "environment". Farmers can buy the services of SAC, but they have no say in its organisation or what it does. The SAC, like farmers who are short of cash, is endeavouring to diversify out of farming into business management in general, so-called "functional" foods (3, 4) human health and "sustainable agriculture" (whatever that means) (5). What the SAC should be doing is helping Scottish Agriculture through extremely difficult times by concentrating on agriculture, integrating with it effectively so that it can once more restore its international image and be successful. That cannot be done through hype and diversification, but by applying good science to an agreed goal. As far as livestock farming is concerned the eye is well off the ball - it surely should be high quality livestock and as much of it as possible. It is not primarily the value of the pound against the euro that is the trouble, but the confusion of direction. Through appalling misapplication of science with regard to matters veterinary, the UK became the dirty man of Europe. After repeated crises it is beginning to get its act together and the export markets will open up for Scottish beef and lamb. But please let the livestock farmers produce it, rather than inhibit their efforts by legalising serious threats to biosecurity of farms (Land Reform Bill, Scotland) (6) coupled with inadequate protection (7), encouraging low output (extensification) and no incentive (indeed the reverse) to produce quality products. SNH is a massive quango, not known for its efficiency or for its scientific integrity (8, 9). Why does SAC (another quango) want to import more of that? Why is it that these big quangos have the top brass rotating in tight little circles between them? After all the SAC says they had 90 candidates to choose from. © www.land-care.org.uk
References1. Mylius, Andrew (2001) 2. Scottish Parliament, Public
Petitions Committee, Sept 2002, 3. Berry, Colin (2002) 4. Meisher, Kathleen (2002). Facts about “Functional Foods”. A Report by the American Council on Science and Health, April 2002. www.acsh.org 5. Trewavas, Anthony (2002) Which
Way for Sustainable Development? Paper at LEAF Conference, Battleby,
Perthshire, Scotland 26th Sept 2002. 6. Draft Land Reform (Scotland)
Bill. 7. Animal Health and Biosecurity
Protecting Scotland’s Interests 8. Scientific Objection to the
Sound of Barra pSAC 9. Scientific Objection to the
Arran Moors pSSSI and pSPA |