IT IS unclear how the European Commission’s proposed €500 million agricultural crisis funding package will benefit farmers in Scotland.

Speaking following this week’s meeting of European agriculture ministers in Brussels, Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead said: “Like many Member States, the Scottish Government is concerned that, although today’s package touches on important issues, it lacks urgency and substance.

“This proposal from the European Commission is inadequate and too vague. It does refer to the cash flow, market and supply chain issues the industry is currently facing, but we urgently need clarity on what it means for Scottish farmers both in the short and long term.

“It will also offer no comfort to sheep farmers in Scotland, with its main focus on dairy, beef and pigmeat. We must look at the entire sector, not just sections of it.”

Mr Lochhead added that more information was also needed on what steps the Scottish Government could take to ensure support payments are made at the earliest opportunity: “My officials are working flat out to ensure that support payments start at the end of December. The Commission is offering to ease controls to ensure all payments can be made as quickly as possible once the window opens, but we desperately need clarity on what we need to do – and what we don’t need to do – in order to make sure this happens.”

Responding to the measures announced after the emergency European meeting on the agricultural crisis, SNP MEP Alyn Smith said: “Many, many questions remain. Although the Commission is presenting the measures as ‘comprehensive’, €500m across the entire EU will not go far unless it is specifically targeted to investments with the potential to exact real, wholesale change in the sector.

“We do not know if this €500m is entirely new money for new programmes, or if it is reserved purely for ‘targeted aid’. It is a mistake to place so much faith on measures like promotion programmes which simply result in dumping surplus production on markets with contracting demand, like China. This will do nothing to rectify the supply-demand imbalance but just undercuts producers in developing countries. We don’t need to encourage additional production when the world market is already oversupplied. The time for sticking plaster remedies has passed,” said Mr Smith.

“There is no mention at all of measures to help manage the supply of milk production – so nothing to deal with the root of problem. The measures on the supply chain are simply not good enough – we don’t need yet another High Level Group to tell us what we already know – we need legislative proposals to eliminate unfair trading practices and to redress the imbalance of power in the supply chain.”

- For in-depth news and views on Scottish agriculture, see this Friday’s issue of The Scottish Farmer or visit www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk