Landowners back subsidy move

SCOTLAND'S landowners have thrown their weight behind a proposal to move future farm subsidies on to an area-based system but they are not convinced that the proposed use of the Macaulay Land Capability classification should be used without further assessments being carried out.

Luke Borwick, chairman of the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association, said that the landowners supported the proposal in the initial report by Brian Pack, where it suggested a move in farm subsidies to area-based payments.

But his members expected to see much higher levels of support on the ground as they also rejected the other main plank of the original Pack proposals – of there being a top-up fund which could help achieve specific targets in the agricultural industry.

Borwick described the top-up fund as adding another "layer of complexity and administrative burden to the existing structure". They also noted that the scheme would depend very much on European Union rules actually allowing it to happen.

The SRPBA response also comments on the "little acknowledgement" there was in the original Pack papers on the role of both forestry and the renewable sectors.

They were also concerned at lack of concentration on the issue of wider rural development.