Young entrants, starter farms and ensuring young people have the right training to see them into the brave new carbon-counted world have been a dream of the Scottish Government almost since the birth of devolution.

That goes back to the referendum in 1997 and the role of young people being given a decent start in agriculture has been a Holy Grail for politicians ever since – particularly those from the SNP. But, unfortunately, it's been a chalice that has become somewhat poisoned. Whether this has been because of a lack of action, too little investment, or because it's just been too difficult to achieve is neither here, nor there. It has not come to much more than, as Jim Walker would put it, 'Two fags and a balloon'.

It's been an unfulfilled promise for all of those years and now it looks like the fledgling scheme that was the starter farm project operated by Forestry and Land Scotland, has fled the ground nest, likely for one up a tree! (see our front page story). It is a sad thing to give someone a hand to get a foot on the ladder, then cut the next few rungs off before they can even step on them.

It is important for farming, because big changes are on the way for the socio-economic spread of population that inhabits Scotland. The mass of rural population spread to urban areas which has been occurring for at least 200 years, is now in reverse and it will be important to maintain an agricultural presence in the face of a new population boom for rural areas.

Read more: Forestry Land Scotland pulls plug on Starter Farm programme

Not the least of which will be to be present in rural areas that do not always have a curtain of trees around them and for that there needs to be a proper and balanced plan that will put the trees where they need to go. There can be no denying that those who have sold out to forestry interests have done what was right for them economically, but conversely, there should be no denying young people the opportunity to be part of a properly funded programme that will put the 'agro' into the much talked about balancing act that is agro-forestry.

Surely enough money has been channelled into tree planting interests that would allow for some philanthropic and longer term encouragement for new farms to be created to be part of the 'new Scotland' and at the same time maintain some level of food production. That might need some prompting, or even come as strings attached to new planting licences, but the key here will be 'long term' in their implementation – for that, there needs to be 'guidance' from ScotGov.

At the moment, it would appear that the only 'new' tenancies up for grabs are those on the Isle of Bute. While these are not actually new, they are a result of tenancies being vacated – in 2017 we reported that seven farms were lying empty – it shows that there remains a willingness to do at least something. Maybe it is time for the Scottish Government to step up to the plate and make its pre-devolution aspirations come true?