MSPs demand better support for crofters

While the Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF) welcomes the statements made by MSP’s in support of crofters and other small businesses in the Stage 1 debate on the Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill, the organisation believes that recently updated route map by the Scottish government does not live up to these aspirations.

They highlighted the need to better support crofters and other small producers, including those under three hectares currently excluded from the system. In the stage 1 debate on the Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill held on March 27, SCF’s asked for better support for smaller businesses and for the redistribution of direct payments from larger towards smaller producers.

Scottish Labour, Highlands and Islands MSP, Rhoda Grant said: "At the moment, 50% of the entire agricultural budget goes to the top 7% of recipients and that cannot be right.

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"We need to make sure that this legislation is in keeping with other legislation such as the land reform bill, seeking to make our pattern of land ownership more diverse, yet the payments we are giving out at the moment encourage larger holdings and that simply isn’t right."

SNP, South of Scotland MSP, Emma Harper pointed to the importance of ‘supporting our local producers, whether small-scale enterprises, or small-scale market gardeners, who can produce and provide food to local communities and short supply chains’, and that capping and frontloading of area-based payments ‘is certainly something I will be engaging in hearing the feedback from everybody’.

Other MSPs, too, reiterated the calls for redistribution and better support for crofters and small producers.

SCF chief executive Donna Smith said that smaller producers didn’t have the economies of scale to reap the benefits of many of they proposes elements, and that in many of the country’s more remote areas the lack of vets and other professionals would make it almost impossible for the requirements to be met.

Ms Smith said: “Not only do these place disproportionate financial burden upon small businesses and potentially eat up most of the funding many crofters are getting, but they are also likely to come with additional administrative hurdles.

“On top of this, in remote locations, the experts required for the auditing procedures are often not available in time – leaving crofters unable to comply with the entry requirements in the first place."

She added that there was no indication how the future framework would deal with the complexities surrounding common grazings.

“Once again there are problems when it comes to meeting the requirements of the whole farm, including who is responsible, who pays for the measures required – what happens if some shareholders refuse to participate?”

Ms Smith said that the SCF was asking for better support for smaller businesses and for the redistribution of direct payments towards smaller producers – including proposals for the introduction of 'frontloading’ of payments.

Despite SCF insisting on a derogation for smaller herds, the Scottish government has decided to apply a calving interval conditionality to the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme (SSBSS) from 2025 which means that calves will only be eligible for funding if their dam has a calving interval threshold for 410 days or less. This disadvantages crofters who very often do not have their own bull, but rely on hired bulls from fellow crofters and farmers or the Scottish government’s bull hire scheme.

If those bulls have fertility issues, the calving interval conditionality cannot be complied with - without any fault on the respective crofter’s part.

Cabinet secretary for rural affairs, land reform and islands, Mairi Gougeon, conceded in her concluding remarks that ‘I absolutely agree with the points raised on how important our smaller producers are’.

Ms Smith concluded: "However, as encouraging as these statements are, we need to make sure the rhetoric is followed by action."