SIR, – I, like many of your readers, will have been incensed by the contents of John Sleigh’s two pieces in last week's The Scottish Farmer. 'Seeing red on greens' and 'ScotGov plays down tick threat'.

To be honest, it beggars belief that First Minister Humza Yousaf should attend the biggest and best agricultural event in Britain and be so appallingly badly briefed on what should have been seen by him and his aides as the hottest topics of the moment.

I am a member of the UK’s Bracken Control Group and so may have a modicum of knowledge on the subject. Clearly, more than our head of government.

For him to say that 98% of bracken is controlled belies the fact that nationally bracken is spreading at the rate of 4% annually which, up until now, outstrips the amount that we have been spraying with Asulox (the trade name for the chemical Asulam).

The fact is that we have been spraying across the UK around 5000 ha a year while this highly successful weed is spreading at the rate of 14,000 ha per year, creating a monoculture devoid of biodiversity and harbour for an ever increasing population of ticks.

In an article published by the British Medical Journal in July, 2019, a graph showed that between 2001 and 2012 the incidence of Lyme disease – which is spread by ticks – increased by a factor of eight, from roughly 1000 cases to 8000 with incidence, as far as I am aware, showing no signs of decline.

My question to the former Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Humza Yousaf, would be: 'How much is our NHS spending on treating a population that are being encouraged to spend more time in our beautiful countryside if bracken, the ideal habitat for ticks, is left to spread unchecked by farmers', and has he any idea how much the NHS is projected to spend as more and more people contract this potentially fatal disease?

When the Bracken Control Group on behalf of affected land-managers put forward their now annual application for the 'Emergency approval' for the use of Asulam back in October, last year, we were awaiting the results of a second chemical that we were hopeful might be used to replace Asulam. Unfortunately, it turns out that Amidosulfuron is not going to be suitable as a replacement for the only selective chemical currently used to control bracken.

It might also be worth pointing out to our ignorant and poorly briefed First Minister that all those farmers who have spent an absolute fortune over the last two or three years, have totally wasted their money in doing so because they have now been denied the ability to carry out follow-up treatment, essential if total long-term control of bracken is to be achieved.

My own suspicion, one that will be shared by the majority of my farming colleagues in Scotland and probably further afield, is that the decision for HSE Scotland to ban Asulam in 2023 was strongly promoted by the Green Party. A party with a minority of the seats who play an active part in governing Scotland, but very much the party with the most powerful voice in Holyrood.

Trawling through the Green Party’s website and manifesto it is instantly clear that they have little if any understanding of the Scotland we live in today.

Their talk of rewilding recognises a Scotland of 1500 years ago, a time where Roman influence was still very strong, only 100 years after their retreat to Italy, but where half Roman, half British people were still living and 200 years before the Vikings invaded.

The pipe dreams of the Green Party fail to recognise the enormous changes in society since then, the massive growth in population since then matched only by an even bigger growth in technology that in my short lifetime has turned science fiction into reality.

Why am I so beleaguered and dumbfounded? We have a minority fairytale party here in Scotland who are wielding incredible power and yet the SNP are allowing the tail to wag the dog.

Perhaps it’s time to reintroduce the tail docking of dogs once again. Metaphorical dogs ... of course!

Hamish Waugh, Effgill, Westerkirk, Langholm.