A Sutherland crofter has accused government of leaving producers in the dark about how their subsidy payment allocation has been calculated.
Derek Matheson, of Wester Gruinards near Ardgay, said although he had received some subsidy money he had not been given any information on how his payment allocation had been worked out.
Mr Matheson, who runs 150 breeding ewes across just over 220 acres of predominantly rough grazing, has also accused government of denying farmers and crofters the chance to appeal their land classification.
The crofter, who works part-time as a contract joiner, said some of his land had been down-graded but he had nothing “concrete in writing” to confirm the allocations.
“If they have downgraded your land category and you want to appeal it there’s nothing concrete in writing,” said Mr Matheson, who submitted all his subsidy application forms in paper, rather than online.
“It seems a bit strange that they [government] can pay you by Bacs but not explain what the whole thing is and how it has come out.”
Mr Matheson said delays in payments had also resulted in hardship, and the fact he was still waiting to receive any money from the Less Favoured Areas Support Scheme (LFASS) was putting the brakes on any investment plans.
“Now is the time of year when you would be using some of that money to buy in hay for winter feed and looking at the breeding sales to purchase stock for the future but we are still relying on overdraft facilities for that,” said Mr Matheson.
The crofter said he had also been forced to take on 20 weeks of contract work without a break earlier this year in order to bring cash into the croft business.
Mr Matheson said today he was “none the wiser” about how much subsidy money he was receiving, and why, and there was no more information available to him than there had been in 2014 when he carried out a government-funded whole farm review to try and plan for the future.
“It is a complete farce. It’s just a dog’s breakfast,” added Mr Matheson.
He said local department office staff were not to blame and the fault lay solely with officials in Edinburgh.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman last night said: “The Scottish Government wrote to farmers and crofters last year to let them know their provisional Common Agricultural Policy (Cap) payment region allocation, and asked them to request a review within 60 days from the date of the letter if they thought their land had been wrongly classified. Anyone who still has questions about the classification of their land should contact their local area office for support.”