WHILST driving around the farm the other morning, I was listening to an interview with the new labour leader in Scotland - she was wittering on about social justice, equality and the like but evidently had no vision, no plan and no idea of what outcomes she wanted for Scotland.

She did, however, talk about umpteen 'initiatives' or 'policies', none of which I can remember if I'm honest, 'but they are really popular you know, especially on the doorstep when I was campaigning' was her standard reply to the exasperated interviewer.

That response encapsulated in a sentence much of what is wrong with politics - 'it's populist so that's what we will do'!

The incumbent governments north and south of the Border are great exponents of this modern type of politics as recent events or announcements in our industry have proved.

Defra minister Liz Truss's response to the woes in the dairy industry appears to amount to a trip to Brussels to tell other ag ministers there is a crisis, then ask them to increase intervention rates, set up a system equivalent to crop insurance for dairy products, and a not very revolutionary plan to introduce futures trading for dairy commodities!

Oh yes, and she would tell those nasty retailers to label UK dairy products more clearly.

Not very inspiring for farmers currently looking down the barrels of the gun.

Back in Scotland, there is also a total absence of a well thought out, coherent strategy for our industry and, consequently, the policy tools to deliver the outcome of that strategy.

What is left as a result is a policy vacuum filled by endless consultations and meaningless press releases making everyone look busy but achieving little. Meanwhile, farmers are left to sink or swim, or, in some cases, drown.

This was coming anyway, but has been exaggerated and accelerated by the collapse of global agricultural commodity prices. Wrapping some Scottish farm produce in a saltire is one way of helping a bit but it can't be the only way.

Allowing some Scottish farmers access to the tools to compete in tough international markets has to be the other. That means the Scottish Government (SG), its agencies and many quangos doing their bit to help reduce on farm production costs and deliver targeted support where a value add can be identified.

But that isn't happening. Instead, we have constant intrusion by these groups with the resultant increases in production costs, the opposite to what is required.

With SG having no grasp of the big picture and the macro policies to address the challenges we face, we have ended with a government that wants to micro manage almost every aspect of our businesses and it just won't work.

The recent SG announcement about the use of GM and the CAP Reform package are both classic examples of this.

On a political whim, SG decreed that they won't allow GM field trials in Scotland. This is a load of outdated, populist, ill-considered nonsense.

Controlled scientific research is how the world will develop safe, economic food production to feed a burgeoning global population (and always has been actually). Scotland could be at the forefront of this if it had enlightened politicians with the gumption and the bottle to argue against the 1990s hysteria about 'Frankenstein Food'.

Frankly, it's pathetic that Lochhead et al can't even engage with world class scientists, whom he should trust to take this fabulous opportunity forwards in a controlled way to the benefit of all, both at home and abroad.

Similarly, Mr Lochhead claims regularly that his new CAP rules have been designed to support the Food and Drink sector in Scotland, but this is also total nonsense. How can interfering in crop rotations or giving extra subsidy to non-productive farms be in any way supportive of this important sector of our economy.

These are no more than empty words and worthless rhetoric as many farmers will, unfortunately, soon realise.

Meanwhile, our lobby organisations, particularly NFUS (or should I say the recently re-named NDFUS - the National Dairy Farmers Union of Scotland) when they should be acting like the political opposition to the present government in the absence of any effective parliamentary opposition, continue to act like an obedient puppy and the information agency of SG.

This started during the recent disastrous CAP changes where they were no more than subservient bystanders. Talking to each other, wringing their hands with other UK unions about how hellish everything is (but mostly right now how hellish dairying is) and that something has to be done is a woeful response to the present problems across many sectors of our industry.

According to the SG there were more than 16,000 cattle and sheep farmers in Scotland last year and 886 specialist dairy farmers. Between 2007/8 and 2013/4 the SG published average farm business income of these sheep and beef producers was about £25,000 pa - the equivalent for dairy farmers was around £75,000.

Now I'm not belittling the current problems in the dairy sector, as there is no doubt there is a global oversupply of milk causing real problems, but what about other sectors in Scotland? A 30% drop in income from £75k is terrible; a 30% drop from £25k is terminal!

Part of the cause of local oversupply of milk is Mr Lochhead himself. If I'm not mistaken, he awarded big quantities of taxpayers' money through the RDR to a few lucky Scottish dairy farmers to build new sheds, slurry lagoons and parlours to help make them be more efficient and produce more milk.

Isn't it ironic the first casualties of this ill-conceived policy are the Scottish dairy farmers who weren't lucky enough to win the RDR lottery or happen to be First Milk suppliers in remote areas.

In a moment of guilt, Mr Lochhead has even had the brass neck to give money to struggling Campbeltown producers by bailing out their failing co-op and worse, much worse, has given money to RSABI, the fantastic charity which will soon be overwhelmed by farmers looking for help to survive the winter.

Isn't this the biggest irony of all that in the absence of any policies that work, SG give money to a charity set up to help impoverished farmers?

But while NFU and NFUS have allowed dairying to capture all the headlines, many other farmers, especially sheep farmers, are quietly drowning - maybe even literally this summer!?

So what's the SG and NFUS plan to assist them? Well, there isn't one, apart from Nicola Sturgeon holding a Scotch lamb tee-shirt in The Scottish Farmer while issuing a press release commissioning a study by James Withers tracing the origin of butter and cheese in Scottish supermarkets. That's actually all that was behind the headline in last week's The SF, despite the spin - it is pathetic.

So it seems, if you didn't already realise it, we are on our own ladies and gentlemen. So we need to sort out our own businesses for ourselves.

Back home we have drawn up our survival plan. First, spread our cost base to try and be more efficient and, second, look at every cost again to see if it offers value add or not.

NFU Mutual, with its insurance services, health and safety and risk based advice, offer excellent value for money, but I'm afraid an outdated lobby organisation that has totally lost all focus on what it is there for does not. So until it does, with great regret, our business won't be paying NFUS a subscription as it is one of a number of costs that simply can't be justified.

I sincerely hope NFUS regains that focus and starts holding SG to account soon because, with such a big majority in the Scottish Parliament and a Cabinet Secretary that has run out of ideas, someone needs to.