SIR, – I read with interest your article in The Scottish Farmer on ‘Flogging a dead computer’. It seems everyone knows it’s dead, except ScotGov.

Just to rub salt into the wounds, the money that has been spent on it is well above 40% of the annual Basic Payment to Scottish farmers.

In the same issue, we learn that LFASS, a payment that is critical to farmers – especially those who have land that is predominantly in Region 2 – is to carry on, but with cuts to the budget and no guarantee that the remaining £13m in the first year will find its way directly to those who most need it.

The deal done on the Basic Payment Scheme for Region 2 may well be the final nail in the coffin for some as money over the next three years is partly transferred away from the hills and onto the lower ground in Region 1.

Any loss of LFASS money to these fragile areas is only going to hasten the depopulation of these once thriving communities in the hills. We seem to be getting very much out of sight out of mind as regiments of trees appear to be of higher importance these days.

What will become of the LFASS money in the final two years of the scheme? I see there is no mention of that in your journal, but understand from chatting to stakeholders it could be a bleak looking few years at least until the Brexit deal is finally done – with no clue as to where we are going after that.

For the last couple of years, ScotGov has looked at ways of implementing a replacement for LFASS, being well aware that time was running out for it to continue. We now hear we have come to the ‘parachute’ plan because government officials were afraid of upsetting the computer. It’s not going to get upset, it is dead!

The esteem of hill farming in Scotland is clearly demonstrated by government’s unwillingness to safeguard the future of our hills. A little bit of forward thinking might have put in place a meaningful scheme to take us beyond our departure from the EU and protected the livelihoods of those of us who live in the hills.

When we do come out of Europe, are we going to get away from the CAP, bearing in mind we still want to trade with Europe and, in a perfect world without trade barriers?

In my opinion, the free trade we want may well come at the cost of us being a part of the CAP, only this time we won’t be included in discussions as to how CAP money is spent.

Maybe just as well when you consider the UK government has, for the past 20 years and more, been trying to negotiate us out of subsidies.

Only time will tell, but we need our government to be looking at what the future might hold and not just sit back waiting for it to happen.

Being totally unprepared on the day will lead only to hasty decisions being taken that are probably not fit for purpose. Just like the bloody computer!

Hamish Waugh

D and E Waugh and Son,

Effgill, Westerkirk,

Langholm,

Dumfries-shire.