Back to HOMEPAGE RSE Report "The future of Scottish hills and
islands" makes depressing reading
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie, Perthshire
Filed 08 Oct 08
©www.land-care.org.uk
Away back in January 2007 the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) established a Committee of Inquiry into the future of Scotland's Hills and Island areas. As the preface to the Report says
"The inquiry was prompted by concerns at the consequences of changes in the Common Agricultural Policy on farming, especially sheep farming, and the threat to the future of some communities, but it was also to examine relevant economic, environmental and social matters."
The report was published on 8th September 2008. A great deal of further damage to the hills and islands of Scotland has occurred during this long period of incubation.
The full report with its 170 pages and 65 recommendations (plus numerous subsidiary recommendations) makes heavy reading. Even the summary version with its 48 pages needs the mind of a bureaucrat to persevere with it. The report is riddled with the language of those who control land management from distant offices, be they in Brussels, Westminster or Holyrood, along of course with the numerous highly influential lobby groups attached to each. The majority of these lobby groups have little to do with farming, but their representation at "stakeholders" meetings greatly predominates over those who actually work the land.
So what does the Report say in essence? And why is it so depressingly disappointing? Because it basically misses the point.
While paying lip service to the importance of hill farming it continues to seek answers to what public benefit the taxpayer gets from current and future policies concerning land management. It continues to over-emphasise pleas for "conservation", "biodiversity" and "public benefit", while proposing new layers of bureaucratic control over what hill farmers can and cannot do. As in so many areas of endeavour that are in the public interest - such as education and health - excessive government interference (be it at central or local level) has been shown to be severely damaging to effective performance. And so it is with hill farming.
It is at last being increasingly realised that much of Scotland's greatly admired landscape is man made. It is far from being just a natural wilderness, nor should it be left to degenerate into such. But for all the proposed future controls put forward in the RSE Report, that is what is likely to happen as hill farmers leave the hills. The bureaucrats in their offices will find it very expensive indeed to pay a new type of land manager to look after the land to the high standard (with few exceptions) that has been characteristic of Scotland's hills and islands for generations, and which has been the boast of an ineffective VisitScotland initiative.
The Report seeks to have more decisions made at local community levels. But the incompetence and inefficiencies of local government are well recognised. Likewise are the vested interests of local lobby groups that purport to represent the interests of the community but may well not do so. There are currently numerous examples of money being thrown at such initiatives with no clear benefit, whilst those who actually work on the land go out of business, their livelihoods destroyed.
The report extols local markets and encourages the production of food that is locally branded. That may be fine in some areas of production, but is unlikely to be helpful in terms of livestock. It would undermine, for example, the sound basis for the traditional movement of the calves produced by the suckler herds in the hills to better ground for finishing. It could also raise serious problems in terms of consistency in quality. But by any measure, local markets can only meet a tiny proportion of the output of well organised livestock farming in the Scottish hills.
The main failings of the Report are that it does little to curtail the excessive bureaucracy that regulates hill farming through such agencies as Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency etc. There is no mention that I could trace about the decline in funding of relevant research into livestock diseases, whilst the government pushes forward with cost sharing over animal health issues while increasing animal health and welfare legislation.
There is no mention that I could see of the need for government agencies to desist from the practice of conducting public consultations in a discredited manner. Nor do they admonish such public agencies for using poor science in the pursuit of the policies that government has set them to achieve.
The Report is depressingly disappointing in that it continues to support excessive demands by lobby groups over so-called "environmental", "conservation". "biodiversity" and "climate change" issues whilst failing to let the hill farmers get on and do what they are good at: namely, hill farming with the conspicuous, but under-rated, public benefits of food production and care of the landscape. During the time that the RSE has carried out its prolonged Inquiry, skilled workers have been leaving hill farming in their droves. Not only are the sheep numbers drastically reduced, but the number of suckler herds (that are the back bone of the iconic Scottish beef industry) are in serious decline.
The following is a direct quote from the Summary version of the Report (p12):
"Land Stewardship Proofing Test
"We advocate a more explicit recognition of the multiple benefits that can arise from land use and the adoption of some broad principles that reflect the importance of its sustainable use, minimising its impact on climate change, and securing the maximum benefit to the nation.
"It will be essential to ensure that current and potential new policies can meet as many objectives as possible. To achieve this, we propose a Land Stewardship Proofing Test for the integrated delivery of food, biosecurity, biodiversity and landscape conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, water management and recreational access. We identify a series of criteria to be used in applying the test as follows:
"1 Land use should be sustainable, multifunctional, and benefit present and future generations
"2 All land use should be based on an evaluation of its sustainability based on thorough knowledge and understanding; and, wherever possible, contribute to the mitigation of, and/or adaptation to climate change; and
"3 Where conflicts of land use arise, the land use that best meets agreed sustainability criteria, and delivers most public benefit should prevail.
"The major question remains: how should our proposal on a Strategic Land Use Policy Framework and a Land Stewardship Proofing Test be implemented?"
One has to wonder why any livestock hill farmer in Scotland should wish to continue livestock hill farming under such major bureaucratic interference into what he does well, if given a reasonable chance to get on with it: farming livestock and caring for the landscape. While highly skilled livestock hill farmers disappear from the hills like snow of a dyke in summer time, the RSE responds to the crisis with a protracted pedantry that reaches few practical conclusions.
The sad thing about the Report is that it typifies the very problem that it should be solving.
But the character of the Report, and its flawed analysis, could have been predicted. The Inquiry Committee consists largely of persons who have been much involved in their careers with government agencies, or who have held senior positions in establishments that are heavily funded by government, or who had little direct contact with hill farming. Thus the Chairman was an economist, the Vice Chairman was previously head of the Macauley Land Use Research Institute and the Secretary was previously the Chief Executive of Scottish Natural Heritage. And that is just for starters.
The trouble with this juggernaut of a report is that it is out of date by the time it is produced. Scotland, like the rest of the UK, the EU and most of the Western World is heading for economic recession. That in itself will be a major factor in reducing carbon imprints. Government spending on excessive bureaucracy must be reduced. Those who work on the land on Scotland's hills must be relieved of the current massive bureaucratic burden with everyone telling them what to do, and rewarding them for their efforts so poorly. If it is Scottish food production that is wanted and if it is the care of the Scottish landscape that you want, then get this load of officialdom off the back of the hill farmer. He is providing unequivocal benefit for the public good. It is essential that he is subsidised in a more direct and rational way. Please recognise that and support him for what he does: producing quality Scottish food and caring for the landscape in a manner that has been admired throughout the world for generations.
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