Profitable food production, addressing climate change, and helping reverse biodiversity loss are the three main drivers influencing farming’s future.

Getting the balance right between these three pillars will be key and will require a holistic policy framework that recognises the importance and interdependency of all three if we are to see a truly ‘just transition’.

Accounting for almost a quarter of Scottish farmland, the tenanted sector can play a significant role in farming’s transition to net zero and delivery of wider environmental gain, while at the same time, contributing to calls for increased production of sustainable food.

To that end, one of STFA’s main priorities for the New Year will be to ensure that the new agricultural support policy, introduced to replace the current CAP schemes, is appropriate and practicable for tenants.

The long-awaited Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill was finally introduced at the end of September.  As expected, this is a ‘framework’ bill containing very little detail but essentially gives the Scottish Government the powers to design and implement Scotland’s post-CAP agriculture policy.

All eyes will now turn to the secondary legislation which will contain the details everyone is waiting for. From a tenant farming perspective, the Agriculture Bill diverges significantly from what was anticipated.  All previous consultations had dealt with the “modernisation of agricultural tenancies” as an integral part of the forthcoming bill, however, the Programme for Government, published earlier the same month, signalled a change of direction with all aspects of tenancy reform being transferred to the Land Reform Bill, now expected early in 2024.

STFA’s expectation now is that the proposed reforms will appear ‘on the face’ of the new Land Reform Bill.  While the proposals will be subject to the same parliamentary process, regardless of which bill they are introduced under, it is anticipated the Land Reform Bill will receive its Stage One scrutinisation from the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee rather than the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, which will scrutinise the Agriculture Bill.  

This presents the additional challenge of presenting evidence and viewpoints to an additional group of MSPs, in order to help them make their recommendations to Parliament. Additionally, we have some concerns about the timing of the legislative process for both bills. Many of the ‘tenancy’ provisions STFA has been lobbying for the need to be in place to ensure tenant farmers have access to equivalent owner-occupiers, to the anticipated suite of measures, which will ultimately be provided under the Agriculture Bill’s Rural Support Plan.

In simple terms, we need to see the horse coming before the cart! Future agriculture policy is likely to require farmers to deliver environmental and climate mitigating measures.  These could be challenging for tenant farmers restricted by the terms of their leases.

The definition of agriculture, the rules of good husbandry, and a limited Schedule 5 list of recognised tenant improvements could all prove restrictive in terms of tenants accessing future environmental schemes. We also expect proposals to broaden the range of tenant improvements eligible for waygo compensation and to encourage greater farm diversification in the tenanted sector.  

There is also recognition that the process of agreeing to end of tenancy waygo claims is often protracted.