Farming: Pass marks for Brian Pack but with reservations

Speaking in Perth yesterday on his first public outing since the report was issued last week, Pack outlined his thoughts which are, as far as he considered possible, are based on productive agriculture.

"This is an exciting set of proposals and it moves as much as possible into Pillar one which deals with productive agriculture," he said, urging Scottish farmers to believe this and exhorting them "to get on with it".

He quickly nailed any thought that there should be a top limit to the amount of subsidy cash going to any one farm business. That was not just a penalty on large efficient farms, such a limiting policy would also be impossible to control as all the big farms would just break up into smaller units all owned by the same original business.

One feature of the proposals which met with approval was the link to standard labour units. These, he explained, would not be based on how hard or for how many hours people worked but on standard labour figures that are required to look after cattle or sheep.

Jim McLaren, the union president, asked whether pigs and poultry farming in the less favoured areas would also be included in the labour calculation.

Pack was initially cautious, saying it did not seem right to support what he called "concrete farming". However, both McLaren and vice-president Nigel Miller, came back and asked him to think again

Pack retreated and put the issue into his pending tray with its "decision still to be made" tag. However, he did point out that by including all the pigs and all the poultry into the labour equation, it could dilute the package quite considerably.

However, there was some nervousness over his proposal that would see most of the cash transferred from the less favoured areas support scheme where it mostly goes into environmental objectives, into a direct production payment.

This brought Sandy Tulloch, the chairman of the union's LFA committee, to his feet to describe the proposal as a "bitter pill" and to urge him to "leave things as they were".

But Pack was not for changing and advised that his policy was actually stronger in "greening the agenda" than LFASS.

There emerged a paradox, with Pack admitting that he had chosen what some might see as a complex set of solutions to the CAP reform package while at the same time he was also asking the EU makes life simpler for farmers.

"They (the EU] should have a big ambition to have a lighter touch," he said. "Every year, they seem to come up with another hurdle. One year it is the Court of Auditors looking into payments.Next year it will be some over restriction. They face quite a challenge to simplify their systems."

He feared further regulation was constantly being added to when it should be left to what was essential.