Better Communication With Farmers Key To Success Of New Agriculture Bill

Press Release

Communicating the benefits of nature and habitat restoration to farming and crofting businesses will be key to the success of the new agriculture legislation, Scottish Land & Estates said today.

The rural business organisation today provided evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Islands Committee as MSPs examined the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill.

SLE said it was imperative that more detail was provided to farming businesses for long-term planning and that the sector was allowed to make a meaningful contribution when secondary legislation, plans and codes of practice are being drafted.

Eleanor Kay, Senior Policy Adviser (Agriculture & Climate Change) at Scottish Land & Estates, said:

“As a framework bill to enable new support systems to be introduced, we believe the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill strikes the right balance between what Scotland needs to achieve in food production, mitigating climate change, and restoring biodiversity.

“However, it will be farmers, crofters and land managers who will be responsible for achieving our ambitions on the ground and that’s why communication is key to the future success of this legislation. 

“We are already seeing the effects of climate change in Scotland, particularly through extreme weather events, and farming businesses are often bearing the brunt of this. Working to mitigate climate change will benefit both wider society and farming businesses, increasing resilience to these events, but communication is vital in bringing farmers on board and not making these policies seem like a top-down imposition.

“The Bill clearly shows where secondary legislation will be required to provide the details that will deliver the Vision for Agriculture and the Agricultural Reform Programme. More must be done by government to ensure true co-design of policy with the sector so that farmers and land managers can provide substantial input when secondary legislation, plans and codes of practice are being drafted.

“Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for those in the sector is also a key provision in the Bill. We support the broad principle of CPD as a tool to help the transition to new farming practices, but we need to make sure it is valuable to those on the ground and is not viewed as a hassle or simply a tick-box exercise. We must also ensure there are enough high-quality and effective advisors to deliver the necessary knowledge for the sector to transition to the new policy.”