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SAC Outlook Conference 2006:
making positive choices
14th November, Murrayfield , Edinburgh
Part 1:
keynote address -
Peter Russell, Head of Rural Group, SEERAD
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie,
Perthshire
Filed 24 Nov 06
©www.land-care.org.uk
The annual SAC conference has become a potentially
important feature of the Scottish land management calendar. But
it loses some of that potential when their paymasters, the politicians,
fail to turn up to give the keynote speech.
Ross Finnie, who is hopefully unlikely to continue
his long spell as Scottish Minister for the Environment and Rural
Affairs Department (SEERAD) after the May 2007 Holyrood elections,
decided instead to attend a conference on Climate Change in Nairobi.
Apparently, neither his deputy, or any other politician of the ruling
Labour/Liberal Democrat Coalition, was available to stand in.
Perhaps they were all off to a junket in Kenya.
Or were they just not wanting to face the wrath that Ross Finnie's
actions have recently unleashed? There was complete harmony between
all the bodies representing farming in Scotland over his recent
handling of the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) payments,
so essential for Scotland's hill farmers (1).
Ross Finnie and his cohorts had just announced
that Scottish hill farmers were not going to receive their LFASS
payments until much later in 2007. According to the EC they were
supposed to be paid in the Spring. A delay of some nine months would
cause serious cashflow problems to many hill farmers, especially
in the present climate of rising bank interest rates.
So SEERAD came up with what looked like a supplementary
£10million sweetener, supposedly to achieve compliance from
the hill farmers. But this device was allegedly to achieve "voluntary
modulation" (i.e. reduction) across the board for the Single
Farm Payments made to all types of farmers.
Strangely, this sweetener disappeared as fast
as it appeared. The truth of the matter would appear to be that
SEERAD's little trick did not fool the European Parliament, who
emphatically rejected the UK's application for voluntary modulation
as being unfair to farmers in an individual member State - which
indeed it is. And that, ironically, will not be the first time that
the Europe has tried to come to UK's (including Scotland's) rescue.
The sad, and very undemocratic reality is, however, that the EC
does not have to listen to what the European Parliament says. So
Mr Finnie may yet get his mean little way of robbing the farmers.
To make matters even more difficult for Ross Finnie,
he was supposed to have addressed the conference on the subject
of the highly controversial Rural Development Programme (RDP). This
is a plan whereby money taken from the CAP Reform Single Farm Payments
(SPS) was up for grabs for a wide range of rural development schemes,
very few of which have anything to do with farming.
This could have been particularly embarrassing
for SAC, with a previous chief of SNH and with a leading protagonist
for RSPB on its board of directors. The former is a geographer by
training with allegedly no experience of farming, while the latter
is a Lord of the land with massive inherited wealth and estate -
hardly relevant to the average Scottish farmer.
But the Scottish Executive wants to strut on the
world stage as leaders in matters concerning Climate Change and
Global Warming, using renewable sources of energy, based on technologies
largely developed by other countries (such as wind turbines developed
by Denmark). Although the total actual effect Scotland can possibly
achieve in terms of overall global warming is miniscule, the Scottish
Executive wants to give the impression that it is to the fore in
telling everyone else how and what to do.
And of course the Scottish Executive has ambitions
for Scotland to have the best wildlife in the world, which it already
has in terms of Europe. But this is being done at the cost of neglecting
those at home, the farmers, who make the most contribution to the
care of the very countryside that the politicians outwardly seem
so keen to protect.
It therefore fell to the lot of the civil servant
who is now head of the Rural Group at SEERAD, Peter Russell, to
give the keynote speech. But he had just taken up said post within
the last few months having been transferred from looking after the
Northern Ireland Prison Service. Apparently he has no particular
knowledge of land management, let alone farming. As a result, by
the end of his talk (the only one with no handouts) few of the conference
delegates would have felt that were much the wiser as to what the
Scottish Executive had in mind in terms of its Rural Development
Programme.
Peter Russell, Civil Servant
current head of Rural Development Group, SEERAD,
recently transferred from Northern Ireland Prison Service,
reading his presentation to SAC Outlook Conference 2006,
in the absence of the Minister - or any other politician
(Photo ©Kimpton
Graphics)
Sadly, the UK government has got itself into a
serious mess in its negotiations with Brussels regarding rural development.
The Westminster government, under Tony Blair, has failed to ensure
that the UK gets its share of EU rural development funds. As a result,
the UK allocation for 2007-2013 is only a quarter of what its fair
share should be.
So in the face of the Treasury walking away from
its responsibilities for funding the increased need to ensure a
properly funded rural development plan over the next 7 years to
farmers, the UK has landed itself in the situation of being the
only EU Member State that wants to use the device of voluntary modulation
of the Single Farm Payment to make up the shortfall.
But Ross Finnie at SEERAD cannot lay all the blame
on Tony Blair. Scotland has considerable independence through devolution
as to how it uses its share of the funds that remain available to
the UK. He put his recommendations out for consultation, whereby
the small numbers who remain in Scottish farming have to compete
with the interests of largely urban based, highly funded, lobby
groups that operate under the banner of Scottish Environment Link,
which is so generously funded by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH)
- a government quango.
It is all rather reminiscent of the consultations
that took place prior to the Land Reform (Scotland) Act and its
associated Scottish Outdoor Access Code. Even when there was a strong
response from farmers, they were ignored (2).
The result was a bad Act, linked with poor legislation. An Act which,
at great expense to the taxpayer, has done little to benefit anyone
compared to what was already available, and done much to harm those
who do the most in caring for the countryside. The fear is that
we are in for the same with Scotland's Rural Development Plan.
But Peter Russell was gracious enough to say that
the rate of modulation would not be as high as the possible 20%
- which would have crippled many hill farms - and many others as
well - as it applies to all Single Farm Payments across the board.
But then he was not party to knowing what the rate might in fact
be, even for next year!
The only other useful piece of information included
in the Peter Russell presentation was that anyone (including farmers)
applying for rural development funding, through monies removed from
farmers' Single Farm Payments through modulation, is likely to have
their applications decided by one of 11 new regional groups that
are to be set up across Scotland. More bureaucracy and scope for
the introduction of corruption that many perceive taints local government
- it's whom you know rather than the merits of your case that matters.
The reality is that the UK is the only EU Member
State who wants to go down the voluntary modulation route. In so
doing it puts its farmers at even greater disadvantage compared
to its EU neighbours. The author of this article challenged the
new head of the SEERAD Rural Group that SEERAD's policy was seriously
wrong, with its exaggerated emphasis on "biodiversity"
and "conservation" whilst compromising those - the farmers
- who do most to look after the countryside, and have done so for
generations to both national and international acclaim.
His reply was frankly pathetic.
"The taxpayer needs to see a return for
his money"
as if the contribution farmers make to the care
of the countryside did not do this in spades. Farmers manage 80%
of Scotland's land mass, to the chorus of acclaim from international
tourists if not from the bureaucrats at Pentland House or dysfunctional
VisitScotland.
"Having a nice countryside with walks attracts
people to come and work in Scotland"
as if there had ever been any great obstacle to
people taking access to rural Scotland.
Then of course he was apparently too new to the
job to familiarise himself with the size of the failure of the Land
Management Contract Scheme that SEERAD has been operating these
last two years (3). That scheme
is also due to change next year, but as yet nobody knows how.
And of course he had nothing to say about the
collapse of the Rural Stewardship scheme.
While one might be expected to be sympathetic
to a man new to a job, this is business and serious business at
that. But not only is it business: it is to do with the land we
love. It sticks in the craw to witness it being so mismanaged.
When farmers are being unjustifiably castigated
- as in the first address of the morning (to be reviewed in Part
2 of this series) - for not being sufficiently efficient, perhaps
the Scottish Executive through SEERAD could give a better example.
Somehow, with such an uninformative keynote speech
from the Scottish Executive, characterised by an almost total lack
of articulation of the immediately relevant ground rules as to their
strategy for agriculture, the title of the conference, "Making
Positive Choices" seemed a touch out of place.
©www.land-care.org.uk
References
1. Joint News Release (2006).
Unanimous concern expressed to Scottish SEEERAD Minister over his
announcement that Scottish Less Favoured Area Scheme Subsidy (LFASS)
would be delayed. Click Here
to View pdf
2. Editorial (2003). Re-drafted
SNH Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC) pays little heid to consultation
responses.
See SOAC Homepage, filed 02 Dec 03, www.land-care.org.uk
Click
Here to View
3. Irvine, James (2005).
Land Management Contracts analyzed: item 10. Biodiversity cropping
on in bye. Surely the stupidest of them all.
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 14 Mar 05,
ww.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
Finis
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