In this guest blog, Andrew Midgley, our Senior Land Use Policy Officer, highlights new analysis that suggests there is a desperate need to increase investment in nature-friendly farming and crofting and that forthcoming UK government decisions will be crucial.
Although farming and environment policy are devolved—and the Scottish Government is currently designing its own agricultural policy framework—the UK government is still important. Why? Well, there are lots of reasons, but the most important one right now can be summed up in one word: money.
Now that we have left the EU and the Common Agricultural Policy, the UK government holds the purse strings and UK government decisions on the amount of funding available and how it is distributed will have big implications for Scottish policy.
While the last UK government committed to maintaining the farm budget until the end of the last parliament, we now have a new government and the big question for those of us in nature conservation is whether the government will invest enough funding in nature and climate-friendly farming to meet environmental targets and commitments, such as halting biodiversity loss and reaching Net Zero.
New analysis commissioned by the RSPB, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts suggests that a big increase in the UK farming budget is required if nature restoration and climate targets are to be met.
Our analysis suggests that an annual investment in the region of £5.5-5.9 billion a year will be required for at least the next ten years at the UK level.
This is substantially higher than investment in recent years, which has been around £3.5 billion each year. But, as the nature and climate crises worsen, we are calling on the new UK and the existing devolved governments to urgently commit to this long-term annual investment in nature and climate friendly farming because any delay to future proofing the agricultural sector will only mean that it costs more to fix in future.
Highland cattle graze at RSPB Scotland Insh Marshes nature reseve. Sam Turley
If we look at Scotland on its own, this analysis suggests that public investment in the region of £1.5-1.8 billion a year for at least the next 10 years is needed to deliver nature and climate objectives. This means that Scotland needs to more than double farm funding over the next ten years.
This sort of increase in Scottish farming investment would be very welcome, but only if most of any increase went to help farmers and crofters do more for nature and climate. A boost to direct payments along existing lines would do little for nature or climate.
This is where another UK government decision comes in because there is also the issue of how the UK budget is distributed to the different countries of the UK.
At the moment, the farming budget is split between the four countries of the UK based on historic spending patterns that emerged under the EU Common Agricultural Policy and, since Brexit, the UK Treasury has ring-fenced the funding and maintained the same proportions as previously.
The new UK government now has to decide how it wants to deal with the agricultural budget, but this new analysis suggests that Scotland needs 26-30% of the total investment needed to meet environmental objectives. This is a figure that reflects the area of land, the area of priority habitat and the restoration potential.
It is clear that investment in nature and climate-friendly farming needs a major boost if we are to meet our nature restoration and climate targets. At the moment, a very small proportion of the budget goes to support this sort of activity, but with more funding we could achieve so much for nature and climate.
We could replicate the good work of farmers in the Clyde valley and Orkney who have been exploring ways to help waders or the work with crofters in Lewis to help corncrakes.
Corncrake by Graham Goodall
So, our big plea to the new UK government is that we need to see a big increase in public investment in farming. And our plea to the Scottish Government is that, if an increase is secured, it invests in nature and climate-friendly farming.
There is so much we need to do, and we know that there are many farmers who are keen to do it. We just need the UK and Scottish governments to make the decisions that help us get on with it.
Main image: Yellowhammer by Ben Andrew,