Drag on adoption of RDP plans already creating more problems

National Beef Association Scotland (NBAS) is disappointed that the Scottish Rural Development Plan (RDP) may still not be adopted more than three years after debate on how it would be structured first took place.

News that the European Commission will not accept the implementation of proposals put forward by the Scottish Government until at least January 2009 when issues over the installation of NVZs in Scotland, and the operation of voluntary modulation, are expected to be resolved, means that farmers could have to wait a further 12 months before they can take advantage of business opportunities created by Land Management Contracts (LMC).

“The NBA had expected RDP issues to be done and dusted before the end of last year but it now it looks as if none of the new environmental schemes, especially those contained in the LMC package, will be available for farmers who wish to use them for at least another year,” said NBAS vice-chairman, Hamish McBean.

“Farmers need to be able to plan ahead and some have been waiting for months in the vain hope that the RDP would be approved without further delay.”

“Voluntary modulation used to fund these schemes has already been taken off farmers for 2007, and will be again over 2008, and many of them were hoping that falling in with the RDP, and its LMC opportunities, would be a way of getting their money back.”

“Unfortunately it looks as if funds provided directly from farmers’ SFP will lie unused for more than a year at a time when farm balance sheets are crying out for liquidity as a result of poor stock prices stemming from FMD controls and the shut down of export markets.”

“Around 65 per cent of the modulation money taken from farmers to fund the RDP was to be channelled into environmental enhancement schemes through LMCs and it is appalling that hard pressed businesses that wish to take advantage of these, and at the same time make a contribution to improved land management in Scotland, are being frustrated by what can only be described as massive, unforeseen, hold-ups.”

“If the RDP is delayed even further it could find itself being overtaken and made obsolete by world events such as tighter food supplies, and rising food price inflation, and the subsequent downgrading of purely environmental issues in the priority list, which is certain to reduce farmer enthusiasm for LMCs, will damage plans made by the European Commission and the Scottish Government too.”

And the NBA continues to be annoyed by the extension of the drag on important LFASS payments which were meant to be issued in the year they were due.

“We are hoping that 2007 LFASS cheques will be posted in January 2008 but are worried that continued problems with the RDP will mean more slippage and that the 2008 payment will be dragged even further back during 2009,” Mr McBean added.

For more information contact:

Hamish McBean, vice-chairman NBA Scotland.   Tel. 01309 6512006