Andrew Arbuckle: Old farmers are a myth created by bureaucracy and forms

In A scene that is replicated up and down the country, the family are seated around the farmhouse kitchen table. Talk will have gone past the local gossip, the weather and market prices into the work that has to be done in the coming days and who will do what.

It is soon obvious from the chatter that father is slightly off the pace with the latest technology and is none too sure of just how the GPS system works or, on livestock farms, how to carry out all the recording that is now needed.

There is also the sad fact that a couple of decades or more of hard physical graft on the farm have taken their toll on his body and there is now, to say the least, a stiffness in his bones.

So it is with some relief that the offspring suggest that they go out to get on with the work outside and leave him to tackle the mountain of paperwork that lies on the office desk.

As he trudges office bound, he thinks this is just as it was a generation ago when he persuaded his father that some office work was better than interfering with what he was doing out on the farm.

As he fills in the forms, he wonders why, in this cotton wool society, someone somewhere needs to know this or that and what they will do with all the information. All the time he is hoping he has got the right figures in the right boxes, as mistakes can mean penalties.

At last, he comes to the final page and among the boxes he fills in is one asking the age of the farmer.

He ticks the 55 to 65 age group box. Because the form does not allow it, he has no room to explain the next generation are also involved.

Keep it simple and just tick the boxes, he has been told, and, as simply as that, one of the biggest myths about the farming industry is born.

Because, some time later and in some other place, as the forms are collated, it becomes obvious that a large number of people have ticked the same 55 to 65 year old box and few have ticked the aged 25 to 35 one.

Soon the politicians and farming political leaders have latched on to the statistic and are highlighting as a fact that the average age of Scotland’s farmers is 59 years old and almost with one voice that call goes up “something has to be done about this.”

It could be seen from a different perspective that, with an average age in the 50s, there is a wealth of experience in the farming industry but few comment on that and even fewer actually question the aging statistic, which they interpret as evidence of an industry in decline.

A clamour arises for some positive action to be taken to ensure more young entrants come into the industry. Schemes are dreamed up to entice the next generation into farming.

The latest I see from that factory of bureaucracy called the European Union directorate for agriculture will give 25 per cent more cash to new entrants. As has been remarked before, every scheme where there is money to be gained spawns a dozen ploys to get around the regulation in order to grab the cash.

I am sure this is already happening with experts poring over the commissioner’s words to work out what they have to do to get some of the new entrants’ cash.

As I see it, there are two main barriers to young people coming into farming: the capital needed and the handicap of competing against those with existing financial support.

The first cannot be solved by political deals but should be dealt with by banks. The lack of capital for newcomers in a capital intensive business has been a problem for the best part of a century. It exists in other countries and they get round it by share farming or some other agreement between those who own the land and those who want to farm.

The second barrier is that of existing subsidy schemes supporting those in the business. All that is required is a wise change in Common Agricultural Policy to one where all are treated equally whether they are established farmers or are newcomers to the industry.

And keep any policy simple as anything that is complex will ensure abuse and it will also ensure unfairness.