Farmers were faced with another blow at AgriScot this week when news broke out that £45 million worth of cuts have been made to the Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands Budget.
Deputy First Minister and Finance Secretary Shona Robison said she had been forced to make ”difficult decisions” to meet budgetary revisions totalling £680.3 million.
Her letter did state that £27.3 billion of this cut was already in the Agreed Budget Savings and Additional Income (ABR).
Scottish Conservative shadow rural affairs secretary Rachael Hamilton MSP slammed the move and said the cuts demonstrate the SNP-Green Government’s “total lack of commitment” to supporting rural and island communities.
She said: “Shona Robison has failed to give our agriculture sector any sort of guarantee when millions of funding will be returned to their budget.
“It is typical of this out-of-touch SNP-Green government that it is our agriculture sector who have been earmarked for funding cuts, despite the huge pressures facing them.
‘Typical of this out-of-touch SNP-Green government’ says opposition MSP Rachael Hamilton
“This is the last thing they need when they have been devastated by floods, the global cost-of-living crisis and the legacy of the Covid pandemic.”
“Decisions like these are directly to blame for the unprecedented levels of rural and island depopulation we are seeing.”
Ms Hamilton said the country’s hardworking farmers and crofters will have been watching the SNP’s Finance Secretary statement in a state of despair.
“The onus is on Shona Robison to urgently guarantee when this huge sum of money will be restored to the agriculture budget, which should be as soon as possible.”
At a packed seminar yesterday morning, attended by more than 300 people, concerned dairy farmer Colin Ferguson from Wigtownshire, referred to the major cut in budget.
He asked the Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon for clarity on whether this money would be returned although argued that reassurances on returned funding had been made in the past and failed to follow through.
Ms Gougeon said: “What the Deputy First Minister has set out is the scale of the challenge that we are facing in government and what we are up against in terms of increased costs and inflation.
“In relation to funding from within the agricultural portfolio, it is ringfenced so whatever is offered as a saving of this year, must come back and be spent on agriculture and within the portfolio. It has to come and it has to be spent.
‘It is ringfenced and it has to come back and be spent’ says Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon.
“We need a plan for how that funding when it is returned can be best utilised and that’s what I’ll be working on.”
NFU Scotland president Martin Kennedy said it was ”absolutely vital” that the industry receives the assurance on the matter and said he was meeting with Deputy First Minister Shona Robison later in the day.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Ms Robison’s letter sets out £45.4 million in savings from Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands.”