Holyrood ‘must take rural sector seriously’

Despite calls from rural organisations to increase agricultural funding in Scotland, spending is set to fall following the latest budget. 

On 4 December, the Scottish government announced its proposals for the 2025 budget and has allocated more than £660million in funding for farmers, crofters, land managers and rural communities. However, the Scottish Countryside Alliance (SCA) claims the day-to-day spending by the Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands budget is set to “fall by 3.1% in real terms”. 

The money is meant to cover farming, food production, peatland restoration, forestry creation and to enhance essential infrastructure and innovation in the industry, but future funding will likely only be guaranteed until 2026. With incoming land reform legislation and farm inheritance tax changes also set to have a detrimental impact on the countryside, the SCA and National Farmers’ Union Scotland (NFUS) protested the changes to the budget during a rally at Holyrood on 28 November. 

The SCA says it supported calls to retain multi-annual funding for the agricultural sector, however, “this has not been taken forward by the Scottish government”. 

Jake Swindells, Countryside Alliance director for Scotland, commented: “When every aspect of farming and land management costs more year on year, it is disappointing that funding has been cut overall, and that support for farmers just does not seem to be there. It appears that, UK-wide, some grants have also been placed on hold, and the only explanation for this is that the pot is empty, as not enough money has been allocated to such a vital sector in the first place. Holyrood needs to start taking rural Scotland more seriously.” 

Scottish Conservative shadow rural affairs secretary Tim Eagle said: “The SNP’s budget falls short of what rural Scotland requires to thrive. Hundreds of farmers stood outside Holyrood to demand fair funding but it looks as though those concerns fell on deaf ears within the SNP. 

“Having snatched tens of millions from the rural budget previously and then providing a ‘cast iron’ commitment to return it, they are still short-changing the sector by kicking almost half of that into next year… It looks initially that rural Scotland is going to pay a heavy price for the SNP’s skewed priorities and gross financial incompetence,” he added.