THE atrocious weather of this winter shows no sign of abating and misery seems to be the order of the day for everyone.

Please pardon the pun, but agricultural commodity prices are very much in the same boat.

It is at dire times like these that palliative care from the government of the day is expected - and necessary - to encourage any sort of return to wellbeing.

Yet nary a week goes by without another revelation of delayed payments and missed deadlines by ScotGov, the latest this week being a bypassing of the opening of the 2016 agri-environmental climate scheme application process. Indeed, 2015 claimants are still in the dark as to whether or not their application has been successful or otherwise.

This is simply unacceptable!

And what would be even more unacceptable would be for ScotGov to simply shrug its shoulders over the shortfall in its payment schedule for December 2015, and simply do nothing between now and March when its 70% payment target falls due.

Certainly, there is a growing viewpoint within Scottish agriculture that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has, at the very least, less empathy with farming than her predecessor Alex Salmond.

And it's not as if she has a potential closely fought election to win. It will be a minor miracle if the SNP is not returned to Holyrood in May with a massive overall majority.

As an astute, pragmatic politician, she knows fine well that, in this forthcoming election, the farming vote matters not a jot to her and her party's election prospects.

And Scottish farming plc might just have to learn to live with the consequences for the foreseeable future. More's the pity!

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