Sir, – Jenna Whyte makes some valid and poignant points regarding shortage of farm tenancies, but in pointing the finger of blame at the STFA is sadly mistaken. Our unreformed feudal land system is the culprit.
What the letter does show is the success of Scottish landed estates propaganda campaign in turning the blame for the situation away from their members and onto the STFA, who, like Oliver Twist, dared to ask for a little more justice for tenant farmers. 
The tax breaks and subsidy grabbing reasons for not letting are conveniently forgotten.
Similarly, the Lairds have run a very successful campaign against “slipper farmers” who were mostly evicted tenant famers who had no other choice than to continue to claim SFP as their end of tenancy compensation was zero or very close to it.
The result of that successful campaign is now all too clear, the Scottish government have swallowed it whole and whole tracts of grazing and other land are now being ‘farmed’ by Dubarry wearing agents in Edinburgh who claim the new subsidy while the land is either vacant or is being cropped or grazed by a different sort of ‘contractor farmer’ who most definitely won’t ever have time to don a pair of slippers, or even afford them as the new system denies the actual ‘farmer’ the vital LFASS payment as well as the BPS, while keeping the landowner in golden slippers.
The best opportunity for would-be farmers was the vote for Brexit on June 23, which will reduce rents and land values and free up a vast area of land to actual farmers to rent or buy, as the office based land and subsidy hoarders sell off their portfolios.


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