Forget food security ‘at our peril’, warns NFUS president
Martin Kennedy © NFUS NFU Scotland president Martin Kennedy has called on farmers and crofters to join a rally at Holyrood that will put pressure on the Scottish government to make food production the focus of its forthcoming agriculture policy.
Politicians, including rural affairs secretary Mairi Gougeon, are due to address farmers and crofters at the rally outside the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh on Wednesday 2 November from midday to 2pm.
Mr Kennedy urged as many farmers as possible to attend the rally amid concern over a lack of details about how the new powers within the proposed Agriculture Bill will be used.
See also: Scots government sets out plans for future farm support
Speaking at the NFUS’s autumn conference on Thursday 27 October, Mr Kennedy said the rally could send a powerful message to policymakers about the pressures facing farmers and crofters in Scotland, and the importance of having a thriving rural economy.
“Success for me is making sure that the government understands the strength of feeling within agriculture that food security needs to be first and foremost of any future agricultural policy,” Mr Kennedy said.
“[The Scottish landscape] has been created, delivered and enhanced for generations by agricultural production and if we forget that, we forget it at our peril. That is why we need to be at this rally at Holyrood next Wednesday.”
Mr Kennedy said he was “fed up” with people making decisions “who do not understand the unintended consequences”.
‘Blinkered approach’
“I understand where Scottish government is coming from. We know we’ve got to meet challenges with climate, with biodiversity, but all too often we have a blinkered approach,” he added.
Farmers and crofters are being consulted by Scottish government on the new Agriculture Bill. The government has said it continues to work closely with the industry on key issues such as food security.
The food security and supply taskforce has been created to respond to disruption caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Farmer gives away blueberries ‘worth millions of pounds’
A Scottish farmer is giving away a crop of blueberries because he can no longer compete with cheaper imports from countries such as Peru and South Africa.
Perthshire farmer Peter Thomson has about 24ha of blueberry bushes, from which the fruit would have been worth about £3m. But its value had fallen by about £1m this year.
New varieties grown in sub-tropical countries and imported at this time of year mean the Scottish blueberry crop has lost the advantage it once had of being ripe now.
Mr Thomson, from Blairgowrie, told BBC Scotland’s Landward programme it was now unviable for his business to meet the costs of growing, picking, packing and transporting the blueberries.
“They can grow them at any time of the year, so this special season that Scotland had has disappeared,” he said.
“Instead of the high-price bit of the season, it’s the low-price bit of the season. The labour in these countries costs one-tenth of what it costs here and we can’t compete.”
The fruit will now be donated to local charities and given to a food bank.