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The future for tenant farming in Scotland
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie,
Perthshire
Filed 02 Feb 07
©www.land-care.org.uk
A meeting was held at the Huntingtower
Hotel, Perth on the evening of 29th January 2007 to discuss the
future of tenant farming in Scotland. It was one of several such
meetings held throughout Scotland under the joint auspices of the
Scottish Tenant Farmers Association (STFA), the Scottish Estates
Business Group (SEBG), the Scottish Rural Property and Business
Association (SRPBA) , and the National Farmers Union of Scotland
(NFUS).
The SRPBG ha s replaced what was
previously called the Scottish Landowners Federation (SLF). Since
partial devolution in Scotland, the political scene in Scotland
has been, and continues to be, hostile to the concept of anyone
owning land: unless it is owned by what the politicians perceive
to be "the people of Scotland".
The situation was not helped by the
manner in which the old SLF conducted its business. In the view
of some it was too autocratic, failing to take adequate account
of the views of the owners/occupiers of more modest sized farms
who made up a substantial proportion of its membership. It could
be that the replacement organisation (SRPBA), with its new Chief
Executive in post, is running things better, and hopefully no longer
acting as a rich landowners private club.
The SEBG continues to be the lobby
group for those who own large estates in Scotland. And it is important
that they do have such a lobby group, provided it is clearly defined.
There can be no doubt - irrespective of the typical chip on the
shoulder among those who don't possess such assets - that the large
estates in Scotland do contribute very substantially to Scotland's
economy and to the care of the Scottish environment. While, as in
every walk of life, there may be a few bad apples, by and large
the big Scottish Estates are well managed - often at great expense
to their owners.
The Land Reform (Scotland) Act of
2003 was largely born out of this essentially unjustifiable, envy-motivated,
political resentment towards landowners: an attitude actively promoted
by the ruling Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition whose attitudes
are largely based in the west central belt of urbanised Scotland.
Part of that Act was the provision for a "Community" to
have the "Right to Buy" land that came on the market if
they wished to do so - with the public purse paying most if not
all of the cost, the price being fixed by a single District Valuer
appointed by the Scottish Executive. The compulsory selling price
is supposed to reflect the price of the land on the open market,
but that must be very difficult to judge in the absence of the property
actually going on the open market. When an Act is created out of
resentment, rather than reason, it is likely to be a bad Act. And
so it is proving to be.
In the same year, the Scottish Parliament
created another poorly constructed Act: the Agricultural Holdings
(Scotland) Act. Central to this Act are the new rules on agricultural
tenancies.
The STFA has evolved from the Scottish
Tenant Farmers Action Group which was formed in 2001 in response
to the Scottish Executive’s tenancy reform proposals in the
Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Bill.
Leading up to the passing of the
Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 2003, daggers were drawn between
the NFUS, representing tenant farmers, and the SLF and SEBG, representing
the landowners. The outcome was a crazy Act which decreed that farm
tenancies would either be short-term for 5 years, or long term for
15 years. Nothing in between was to be allowed, although the average
length of tenure over the years had been about midway between 5
and 15 years. It suited nobody, and as a result the letting of farms
came to an abrupt halt.
Four years on, efforts are now being
made to try and make the best out of a bad job. These include trying
to get the different parties to talk to each other. That is what
the present series of meetings is all about.
Hamish Lean,
an agricultural law specialist,
described the intricacies and pitfalls
of the current legislation
Photo ©Kimpton Graphics
Hamish Lean is a partner and head of Blackadders' branches in Blairgowrie,
Carnoustie, Forfar and Kirriemuir. Hamish is accredited as a Specialist
in Agricultural Law by the Law Society of Scotland. He has a national
reputation in respect of advising in relation to all aspects of
agricultural law, and in particular issues arising from agricultural
tenancies. He is regarded as an expert on the Agricultural Holdings
(Scotland) Act 2003 and the new fixed duration tenancies created
by that Act, and also in respect of the changes to existing traditional
tenancies introduced by the Act.
His message was clear and well justified.
Before you move in this minefield of legislation, take advice. It
may well cost you a bit (and some would say more than a bit), but
the consequences of not taking advice could prove to be far more
expensive. Should I be either a potential or existing tenant, or
someone considering creating a tenancy, I would certainly look for
highly competent professional advice to lead me through such a quagmire
of legal ineptitude that the legal division of the Scottish Executive
achieved in 2003. One can only reflect on how could it have come
about that such poor law in Scotland was ever formulated in modern
times. Just who were these guilty people?
Andrew Bruce Wootton,
General Manager Atholl Estates
and Deputy Chairman SEBG
(to enlarge photo Click
Here)
Photo ©Kimpton Graphics
Atholl Estates, which extends to
some 126,000 acres of Perthshire, is the largest privately owned
estate in Scotland. There is no doubting the major contribution
the Atholl Estates has made, and continues to make, to the economy
and to the environment of Scotland, and to the enjoyment of the
many folk who visit it from home and abroad. Most of the large estates
are much better at integrating good farming practice, good environmental
practice and high standards of tourism on their lands than are such
organisations as Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the National Trust
for Scotland (NTS) or the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
(RSPB), all of whom are owners of large amounts of land, but their
interests tend to be focused on some single issue.
The prime objective of the large
estates that are in Trust to families, which may go back many generations
in history, is to keep the estate going for future generations of
the family. On the other hand, the tenant --or would be tenant -
may be interested in getting a tenancy that he might or might not
want to hold for a long time. He may even want to pass the tenancy
on in perpetuity to his descendants, or even to compulsorly buy
the holding from an unwilling landlord. Or he might want to move
on after only five years. It is easy to appreciate how the landowner
may see the danger of his estate being broken up by ambitious tenants
exploiting bad laws.
While much of what Andrew Wootton
said made a lot of sense, his attitude to the supermarkets and the
lack of profitability within the farming sector was well off track.
He took the line that farmers, be they tenants or not, "should
get their act together and be as efficient as the four leading supermarkets,
who do a tremendous job in running their businesses". This
is hardly a fair comment, when through largely uncontrolled monopoly
pressure, the supermarkets force down what they pay the farmer producer.
Such is now the situation that the supermarkets are the subject,
albeit belatedly, of an inquiry by the Competition Commission. I
trust that Andrew Wootton does not take the same attitude towards
his tenant farmers, or would be tenant farmers, on Atholl Estates.
With the big landlords, so with the
supermarkets, there could be a fear among the tenant farmers of
speaking out in a critical manner against those who hold so much
influence. That atmosphere might also have been present at the meeting
in Perth. "There were too many big landowners listening to
what was being said", commented some. But any such apprehension
was not enough to stem a good flow of discussion.
Rob Livesey, Tenant Farmer,
The Firth, Lilliesleaf, the Borders
Photo ©Kimpton Graphics
The next speaker was Bob Livesey. He is a tenant
farmer in the Borders. He told the packed house that he has no
intention of buying his farm, even if he could afford it. His
was the first monitor farm, set up in October 2003 in association
with the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC). The virtue of the
monitor farm system is that a group of farmers in an area pull
their knowledge, including opening their books as to their economic
performance. The figures he presented emphasised how important
it was for bank interest/rent costs to be kept under tight control.
No wonder he did not want to buy his tenanted farm. It was also
clear that none of the monitor farms in his group would be currently
profitable without farm subsidies.
Clearly, Bob Livesey is a successful tenant
farmer. But he was honest enough to admit that he had been incredibly
lucky, with his relatives lending him some £200,000 plus
the luck he had in being able to buy adjacent land at agricultural
rates with planning permission to build a house - a major financial
windfall that is likely to be a one-off.
This luck seemed to colour his judgement about
farming in general, and tenant farming in particular. There could
have been few tenant farmers in the audience who had, or were
likely to experience, such good fortune. Livesey's confidence
was such that he went on to say that "farming goes in cycles
with profitable periods and unprofitable periods: it always comes
round again". But this time the situation is, i would submit,
somewhat different - unless one is prepared to wait a very long
time.
Jim
Smith
Stralochy Farm, Blairgowrie,
recently retired Chairman,
Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs
Photo ©Kimpton Graphics
The fourth and last speaker was Jim Smith, of Stralochy Farm,
Blairgowrie, Perthshire. He represented young farmers. He was
not backward in articulating what he saw as their needs, if not
their demands.
Mention was made of the offer by the Scottish
National Party (SNP) of £10million for young farmers to
help them get started, should the SNP come into power in May 2007-
a mere three months away. When the question was asked as to how
such a windfall might be used, it was soon realised that this
pre-election gimmick would not go very far.
But it is not enough to bluster that youth with
its energy and enthusiasm is enough to overcome the economic difficulties
in farming in Scotland for the near or for the foreseeable future.
It is not enough to demand that a young lad, keen to try his hand
at farming, who leaves school at an early age with a rather minimal
education, is in fact the way forward for Scottish agriculture.
Farming should be regarded as a profession, based on a good understanding
of science and business management, coupled with an ability and
willingness to put it into practice in the commercial arena.
As in other professions, much is to be gained
from a substantial apprenticeship in a relevant centre of excellence.
Unfortunately, the governments of both Westminster and Holyrood
have greatly reduced the facilities available for quality training
of young farmers. It is my impression that fewer and fewer members
of staff of the SAC have real on farm experience, rather than
just theoretical knowledge. Indeed, many potential teaching staff
are concentrating on the more lucrative micro-environmental subjects
on which the politicians are so disproportionately keen.
It may sound good to boast that "Scotland
has the healthiest cattle in the world". But it fact it doesn't.
Very belatedly, a campaign has at last been started to try and
rid Scottish cattle of many diseases the incidence of which is
much higher than in other developed European countries.
The Tenant Farming Forum was set up by the Scottish
Executive to help involved organisations discuss the after effects
of farm tenancy reform - that is, the mess following the Agricultural
Holdings (Scotland) Act of 2003. The chairman of this cross-industry
group is Professor Jeff Maxwell, which should raise some alarm
bells. No doubt the Scottish Executive would have a say - possibly
the sole say - in his appointment to the chair. Whilst i am sure
that he is a good listener, it is to be remembered that he, along
with his other geographer colleagues at the Macaulay Land Use
Research Unit (MLURI) at Aberdeen, are perceived to be among the
principle architects of the massive damage that the Holyrood politicians
have done to Scottish farming: "finding other uses for the
land", as Jeff Maxwell would put it.
It does not really matter whether you are a
young farmer, a tenant farmer, an owner/occupier farmer or the
owner of a large estate, you are not going to succeed in farming
unless there is at least the potential for farming to be profitable.
There is a growing realisation that Scottish farming - especially
livestock farming in the "Less Favoured" areas which
include most of Scotland's farm land - cannot thrive without subsidies.
Significantly, the Irish have reintroduced farm subsidies for
their suckler herds. They did this under the guise of Animal Health
and Welfare - rightly so, as good standards of animal health and
welfare cannot be achieved unless the business is profitable.
The necessity for Scottish livestock farming
to be supported by production subsidies was clearly pointed out
to the Scottish Executive when the Executive was trying to persuade
farmers, during the consultation on Common Agricultural Policy
Reform, that the best course was to totally decouple subsidies
from production. But these warnings were ignored. Rather, false
promises of a substantial reduction in bureaucracy and of increased
access to a free market were made. But in practice the reverse
happened. The bureaucratic load is bigger and more pervasive than
ever, there is little in the way of a free market, and we cannot
even get adequate labelling of our products in catering establishments
within our own country.
Unfortunately, the politicians who represent
Scottish farmers in the debating chambers of Brussels, Westminster
and Holyrood are not much interested in farming as an enterprise
in its own right. They appear to regard farming only as a useful
pawn for them to trade for some other advantage in an unrelated
area. Or they see farming as an opportunity to nationalise the
land for the purpose of providing a playground for the populace,
or to indulge their obsession with preserving the micro-environment.
Until more constructive legislation relating
to farming can be achieved, and until the economic and environmental
value of farming is better appreciated by our political masters,
then the clamouring of young farmers, tenant farmers - or indeed
any farmer - will be to little avail. And Scotland - especially
Scotland - will be very much the worse for it.
©www.land-care.org.uk
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