NFUS Too Quick to Plunder the LMOs

Dumfries and Galloway Standard June 2009

I have been a member of the National Farmers Union all of my working life.  I’m now beginning to think that I have merely been contributing towards my own early demise.

The Union’s latest proposal to “save the hills”, as outlined in their new position paper on the subject, is based on hacking lumps off the Land Managers Options (LMO) and using this cash to pay £8 per head on regular aged stocks of hill type sheep.  At least, if nothing else, they have finally acknowledged where specifically, in the hills, the problem is.

Beefing up the LMOs to save the hills is now “so last year”.  This was one of the 3 planks of the union’s Manifesto for the Hills.  Whilst, I’ve no doubt, this document is still held near to the hearts of all arable and dairy farmers I’m afraid it will have slipped quietly through Richard Lochhead’s shredder some time ago.  I suspect the union has realised that as well, hence this new tack. 

By the union’s own admission there is a poor uptake of the Land Managers Options.  Only a third of farmers make use of the LMOs.  According to NFUS “Allowances are too limited to enable meaningful delivery”.  In plainer English this means that most large farming enterprises can’t be bothered with it because the limited amount of money available is not worth the inconvenience to them.

However, this would not seem to be the case for the family run farms in my neck of the woods.  If you care to take a drive up any of the wee side roads that run through areas of marginal upland you can’t go a mile without seeing a farmer’s signpost for a path to here there and everywhere.  The farmers in the Uplands have seized upon this opportunity to get some much needed income into their businesses from the LMOs.  “Meaningful delivery” is not an issue in the Uplands when staying in business depends on taking advantage of every type of funding that is available.

It’s going to get tougher as well.  In their new position paper the union explains that the most popular option in the LMO list of options is to become less attractive in the future.  The standard payment for paths, which is available now, is to be replaced by an actual costs basis.  This, they say, will mean a significant decline in the amount that is claimed from the LMO scheme.  So, in conclusion, what they seem to be saying is, businesses that don’t need the LMO funding can’t be bothered with it and the businesses that need it will soon find it even harder to draw on the funding.   So, we might as well let the government have the money instead to bail out the Hill Sheep Farmers. 

If the Luce Valley is typical of the rest of Scotland this latest proposal strikes at the very heart of Scottish farming.  It singles out those who farm in the marginal land in the uplands to be sacrificed in order to fund the union’s solution to help the ailing Hill Sheep Farming sector.  This is a worrying new development on the union’s part.  For some time now I’ve felt that NFUS have not put themselves out too much in order to help our struggling partners in the Hills.  Does this new proposal herald the start of the NFUS exodus from the Uplands, as well, in order to protect their inner core?  That would not be the best idea that they ever had.

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