HAVING been knocked back in a further bid to get Defra to allocate to Scotland the full convergence pot of €223 million, the Scottish Government opened up a new agri battlefront with Westminster this week, by demanding that the coupled support ceiling for CAP funds be raised from 8% to 13%.
Speaking at this week's Stirling Bull Sales, Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead was adamant that Defra Minister Owen Paterson could accede to this request at absolutely no financial cost to the farming budget allocated to England and Wales.
However, it is well known that Mr Paterson has a particular aversion to coupled payments. Nevertheless, he will be formally asked this week to sanction the 13% agri budget move in the run-up to the implementation of the reformed Common Agricultural Policy, which is set to start in 2015.
"Not one penny of this move would come out of English farmers' pockets," emphasised Mr Lochhead.
So far, the Scottish beef industry has shown itself to be enthusiastic in its support of continued, or even increased support payments coupled to actual livestock headage, but the Scottish sheep industry remains split over the idea, with some warning that it would undermine hard-won 'real' market returns.
For in-depth news and views on Scottish agriculture, see this Friday's issue of The Scottish Farmer or visit www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article