The three regions for BPS payments in Scotland need to be updated, according to leading policy academics and advisors, Steven Thomson and Andrew Moxley.

The two influential advisors were speaking at SRUC’s debate at the Royal Highland Show where they admitted that only couple years ago they were happy with the three region model, but with the changes coming through the Agricultural Bill a rethink is needed.

Mr Thomson said: “The current division of the three regions does not fit what is being proposed with conditionality. I believe something along the lines of crops, grass and rough grazing to be better suited than what we have at the moment.”

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John Kerr, head of agricultural policy at the Scottish government, explained that the government intended to come back to the ‘three region question’ but they currently did not have the capacity to ‘do it all at once’.

The 'how to cut up Scotland into different payment regions' had always been a thorny issue and fellow panellist and former NFUS president, Nigel Miller, said it had been key to the decisions in the last CAP last reform. He said: “The three regions were the right decision at the time.

"We had to make the budget work. Farmers with a lower rate did get a top up through the ewe hogg scheme. It focused payments on active farming.”

The previous reform had seen the government seek a few regions in Scotland which would make delivery of the payments simpler, whilst in one union meeting the board of directors had set out plans for up to 13 different payment rates.

Further on in the debate, Mr Kerr explained the first priority for the government was to establish the conditions for Tier 2 payments which aimed to incentives farmers to reduce emissions and improve biodiversity.

Laurencekirk arable farmer, Andrew Moir, questioned the panel about making hill farmers undertake more of the work to support biodiversity and carbon emissions. The Scottish Quality Cereals chair stated that arable farmers currently had 30% of their BPS payments on condition of completing 'greening' requirements which are not imposed on hill or upland farming practices.

Independent policy advisor, Andrew Moxley, explained that hill and upland farmers could be rewarded for many of the ineligible features which had been ruled out of IACS forms in the past.

Professor of Agricultural Ecology at SRUC, Davy McCracken, challenged the panellists to be honest in discussions about biodiversity decline.

NFU Scotland director of policy, Jonnie Hall, who was also on the panel, believed that the whole farm plan requirement which was announced earlier in the day by the Cabinet Secretary, needed to be the right tool to plan for the right measures to support biodiversity. He also took the opportunity to call again for the bulk of farm payments to be delivered directly to farmers under the less onerous Tier 1 measures.

When the Scottish government’s John Kerr was asked how underspends within the future tiers would be dealt with, he admitted that the detail was yet to be ‘nailed down’. But her did admit that the government understood that if conditions for payment were too strict, there would not be enough farmers taking part to achieve biodiversity or climate change benefits.

The impact of cost inflation was highlighted by Mr Thomson, who pointed out the value of government support was falling week on week as prices rose. Mr Miller added it would be ‘madness to believe we can continue to produce food and hit all the targets under the current budget and 2030 timetable.'

Civil servant Mr Kerr responded that the challenging nature of the targets would help bring about change. Estimates showed that proposed measures for Scottish agriculture could reduce emissions by 1m tonnes of carbon, but the sector has a target of 2.4m tonnes.

The final topic in the debate was from the debate chair and journalist, Claire Taylor, who asked if the industry had a diversity issue. Borders farmer, Nigel Miller, felt we had to be careful not to downplay the many women already working and contributing to farming and he cited his work as a vet in the Highlands where he said more than half the crofts were run by women.

Mr Hall finished the debate calling for more to be done to bring about more diversity balance in the sector.