‘Food production must be paramount’

With the focus on food production increasing almost daily, the chief executive of NFU Scotland claimed that while the bulk of Scotland’s productive land was open to an increasing list uses, the union believed that producing food should be paramount.

Scott Walker said the production of food had a proven track record in also delivering environmental, social and economic benefits and that this multiple role should be kept to the fore in evolving land use policies.

He was speaking at a debate in Edinburgh on the “squeezed middle” – the land that sits between the very best of Scotland’s arable ground and the highest moors and mountains.

The debate was part of a series launched by the James Hutton Institute to address the core issues and challenges facing the way in which land and natural resources were used in Scotland.

Walker described the “squeezed middle” as the engine room of the increasingly successful Scottish food and farming sector. “However,” he said, “there are an increasing number of competing demands on that land that could take away Scottish agriculture’s capacity for production at a time when demand for food has never been greater and food price inflation is predicted to rise sharply.”

He wanted to see competing demands, whether for forestry, biodiversity or renewable energy, being moulded around the production of high quality food in Scotland.

“Scottish agriculture has a great track record in meeting many of these demands,” he said. “The production of food in Scotland has shaped the landscape and biodiversity that many of us take for granted.

“As a nation, many have now lost the daily direct contact that families once had with farming but all are still benefiting from our farming and food sectors. We take food and the landscape for granted but central to both is the need to keep farmers farming the ‘squeezed middle’.

“No single hectare of Scotland’s ‘squeezed middle’ can meet all the demands that society may place on it but farming is uniquely placed to deliver food production and a host of environmental, economic and social benefits.”