What will 2023 hold in store for Scotland’s tenant farmers and farm businesses in general? If 2022 has taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected and try to build some resilience into our farming systems.

While the drivers of the current economic climate are outwith farmers’ and apparently Governments’ control, we do have the opportunity and power to design new ‘fit for purpose’ Scottish agricultural policy for the future.

The latest Agricultural Bill consultation was disappointingly light on details of potential policy measures. Like many other stakeholder organisations, STFA were frustrated by this, the impact the policy vacuum was having on members’ ability to plan their businesses and the fact that, as an organisation, we had little insight into or involvement with, the government’s much heralded co-development and co-design process.

Born of this frustration, FAST, a new Food and Agriculture Stakeholders Taskforce came into being in October, bringing together senior representatives from 19 membership organisations including STFA. In response to a question at AgriScot, Cabinet Secretary Mairi Gougeon, committed to meaningful engagement between this group and Scottish Government going forward, as more detailed measures are considered. We look forward to this in 2023!

On a more positive note, the consultation’s section on 'modernising agricultural tenancies' did contain some detail about proposed changes to tenancy legislation, which STFA, along with other members of the Tenant Farming Advisory Forum, have been discussing with Government officials for some time.

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Future policy is likely to require farmers to deliver environmental and climate mitigating measures, which currently could be a challenge for tenant farmers restricted by agricultural leases and the rules of good husbandry. The consultation included legislative proposals that will ensure fair access to such future support measures for tenants without risking a breach of lease conditions.

Current agricultural leases are restricted by the definition of agriculture, the rules of good husbandry and a limited Schedule 5 list of recognised tenant’s improvements, so changes are needed to give farm tenants more flexibility to adopt the new measures.

To that end we welcomed the inclusion of questions around enabling powers on diversification, the rules of good husbandry and estate management, and inclusion of a wider range of activities on Schedule 5, to be taken into consideration at waygo.

There is also recognition that the process of agreeing end of tenancy waygo claims is often protracted leading to difficulties for tenants retiring or moving to a new holding without clarity around their final waygo claim. The consultation proposed a stricter timetable so that tenants have certainty about payments due for their improvements when they leave the holding.

STFA supports the findings of the Tenant Farming Commissioner that the current rent review system places too much emphasis on the open market and that a new system should be based on negotiations around three elements – comparable rents for secure or fixed duration tenancies; assessment of the farm’s earnings potential by means of a farm budget; and consideration of the economic outlook for the next three years.

These are all welcome changes to tenancy legislation which STFA has been lobbying for and look forward to their inclusion in the Bill.

So, 2023 will be a pivotal year in terms of policy development and STFA remains committed to working closely with Scottish Government over the coming months to help co-design policies and support measures, appropriate for tenant farmers, which will drive sustainability, both economic and environmental, in our sector.