Cameron calls for action to challenge CAP plans

John Cameron, who is now the president of the Scottish region of the National Sheep Association and holds a similar position with the Scottish Beef Cattle Association, believed the proposals put forward by current European Union agricultural commissioner Dacian Ciolos would deeply damage Scottish agriculture.

Last week, at an NFUS conference on the environmental proposals, he had heard several speakers estimate the changes that would have to be made to accommodate the new policies which included controls on grassland and also taking land out of production.

Both these would result in reduced numbers of both cattle and sheep and that was serious as far as Scottish agriculture and the Scottish landscape was concerned, he said.

“It has taken us three or four years to stabilise cattle numbers in our upland areas and it is totally unacceptable that we should have these ‘greening’ proposals imposed on the industry,” he continued. “We have to make the strongest representations to our cabinet secretary to have this part of the CAP proposals altered.”

He hoped the Scottish Government understood the implications as any diminution in cow and sheep breeding numbers, both of which he considered to be a central pillar in the viability of upland farms.

Cameron also placed a great deal of responsibility for changing the current proposals on the shoulders of the Irish, who hold the presidency of the EU in the first half of 2013. “I hope they can make progress and get concessions at that time even although it will not be up to timetable. But if we don’t there is increasing credence to the policy of dragging our feet until Ciolos’s time is up and we get a new commissioner in place.”

Cameron was speaking prior to the NSA presenting to MPs the findings of a report into the economic, social and environment role that the sheep industry plays in the less favoured areas of Scotland.