Majority of Scots ag budget to be spent on direct support

Rural affairs secretary Mairi Gougeon has committed to spending ‘by far the majority’ of any future agriculture budget on conditional direct support for farmers.  

The Scottish government has set out plans for a post-Brexit scheme made up of four tiers – with tiers one and two paying direct support and tiers three and four indirect support (see table below).

See also: ‘Pitiful’ policy in Scotland forcing farmers to scale back

There had been some concern that cash would be siphoned away from direct support into tiers three and four, leading NFU Scotland (NFUS) to demand that 80% of funding should stay in tiers one and two.

But speaking at the union’s conference this week (26 October), Ms Gougeon said: “I know that NFUS members want to know what the funding envelope will look like in our new framework.

“I will make this undertaking to you: by your AGM in February, I will set out the envelopes for tier one and tier two farm payments.

“But in the meantime, I can offer these assurances. Direct payments will continue in tier one and tier two. The envelope in tiers one and two will take up by far the majority of the overall funding.”

NFUS president Martin Kennedy told Farmers Weekly he had been hoping for a fuller announcement this week.

“It’s an indication of where it’s going to be, but I’d still like to see the figures,” he said.  

Ms Gougeon also promised at the conference that £33m deferred from the agriculture budget was “ringfenced” and would be returned.

The money was awarded to the Scottish government following the 2019 Bew Review into the fair allocation of farm support across the country.

But the Scottish government deferred the funding in its Emergency Budget Review (EBR) in 2022 to support people and businesses through the cost-of-living crisis.

Mr Kennedy said NFUS wanted the money to be spent on capital grants for water storage and slurry storage, among other things.

“The fact we’ve now heard it’s definitely coming back – well, we’ll hold her to that because it’s vitally important it comes back,” he added.