THE Tenant Farming Forum was established in the hope of improving tenancy legislation by consensus, but the very structure of the forum is problematic.

Since a representative of Scottish landowners sits on this body, any consensus has to be one to which they are party. Thus it is virtually impossible to promote any legislative change that exclusively benefits tenants.

A good example is tenants' demands for fair compensation at the termination of the lease for improvements done to the farm. Despite years of wrangling, this contentious issue has never been resolved and the current impasse is blocking investment in rented farms.

Many landlords have refused to invest in farm infrastructure like new buildings, upgrading farmhouses, or renewing land drainage systems. Indeed, it seems to many tenants that the aim of landlords is to make things so difficult for their tenants that they throw in the towel and give up their leases.

In the absence of being sure of fair compensation for farm improvements, many tenants have been reluctant to invest themselves. The end result is dilapidation.

Recently, out of the blue, Scottish Land & Estates (SL&E) - in a desperate bid to ward off the threat of tenants being granted an absolute right-to-buy (ARTB) their farms - proposed an "amnesty" for farm tenancy improvements. In essence, SL&E are proposing that improvements notified during a one-year amnesty period will be eligible to be treated as qualifying improvements if, as at the date of notification, the improvement is something that should be provided to maintain efficient production. The amount of compensation due at way-go (leaving the farm) will be the sum fairly representing the value of the improvement to an incoming tenant.

Things are coming to a head because there is currently a ministerial-led review of Agricultural Holdings Legislation - the Agricultural Review Group - that is due to deliver an interim report this summer and a final report by the end of the year. There is also an Independent Land Reform Review Group that is due to report in April. They have led to a plethora of consultations, surveys and open meetings.

Apart from the vexed issue of compensation for improvements, the Agricultural Review Group will be looking at a whole raft of tenancy issues. They range from devising better and less-costly ways of determining rents, through to assignation of leases, and a proposal that a Lands Commission be set up to act as a sort of ombudsman to oversee relationships between landlords and tenants, and deal with complaints.

That last proposal was favoured by 89% of respondents in a survey recently conducted by the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association (STFA) of its membership, when more than half responded. It revealed the fact that only 31% of tenants had a good relationship with their landlord, while 26% had a poor one, and 43% described it as "tolerable".

The "elephants in the room" are land reform and ARTB. Is it right in a modern, democratic Scotland that aspires to be fair, that only 432 landowners own half of all the privately owned rural land in Scotland? Is it right and fair that the division of Scotland should still largely be the product of land grabs and feudal privilege dating back centuries?

Many now argue for wider, more diverse ownership of land. That can be achieved by altering the currently benign tax system that exempts farmland from inheritance tax, creating legislation to enable wider community ownership of land, or by granting 1991 tenancies (heritable tenancies created by the 1949 Act) ARTB.

SL&E and its predecessor organisations have long argued that ARTB would be an unmitigated disaster for Scotland's tenanted farm sector, leading to a collapse in confidence among landlords to let land.

That oft-repeated mantra ignores the fact that the supply of farms to let on the open market has virtually dried up and, realistically, will remain so in the future.

In Scotland, the extent of tenanted land has declined from 42% in 1982 to 24% in 2012 as landlords take farms back in hand. The little land that does become available to rent is offered on seasonal lets or limited duration leases that vary between five and 15 years.

The current debate about ARTB only applies to 1991 leases and the STFA survey revealed that the majority of its members were in favour of such a move.

That would lead to massive investment in those farms, stimulating fragile rural economies and boosting agricultural production.