Rural and Environment

  • The EU has been a good friend to rural Scotland

    31st January 2020 by

    The EU has been a good friend to rural Scotland.

    For the whole of the Scottish Parliament’s lifetime, the rural economy has benefitted from our membership.

    Over the years, our engagement with it has allowed Scotland to push our case on everything from agriculture and fisheries policy reform, to fishing quotas and forestry. Scotland has had a voice in the room – a room we will no longer be able to enter.

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  • Rural Scotland and the Programme for Government

    12th September 2019 by

    Rural Scotland makes a vital contribution to our national economy.

    Our rural and island assets provide natural and business resources for key economic sectors, especially food and drink, but also energy, tourism, creative industries and life science. I am clear that we must work to build on these successes to improve the wellbeing of our rural, coastal and island communities and provide a positive future for them.

    Having declared a global climate emergency, achieving our climate ambitions will involve harnessing the power and capital of rural Scotland. This is a challenge, but also an opportunity for us to help people stay on the land, create sustainable, productive communities and businesses – and I am clear that our rural population are key allies in tackling climate change.

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  • Women in the Rural Economy: Part 12

    10th March 2019 by

    Sometimes the lure of the rural economy is too much. Rebecca Dawes, Director at the Rural Youth Project is the latest woman to provide an insight into the diverse and important role women play in Scotland’s rural economy as part of our series of blogs to mark International Women’s Day.

    I have a confession – ever since my early teens I have wanted to be Tom Cruise!! I want to sore through the skies in a fighter jet, doing twists and turns as he did in the film Top Gun. What I didn’t want to be was a women working in the agricultural and rural sector and yet it is was the environment I knew.

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  • Women in the Rural Economy: Part 5

    5th March 2019 by

    A farmer’s daughter, a farmer, an industry representative, whichever title she chooses to use, it is clear that Alison Milne’s life has been shaped by Scottish agriculture. The next blog in our series on the important and diverse role women play in supporting and driving Scotland’s rural economy.

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  • Women in the Rural Economy: Part 2

    4th March 2019 by

    As we approach International Women’s Day, this is the second post in our new series looking at the important and diverse role women play in driving and supporting Scotland’s rural economy. This piece looks at the career and experience of Fiona Matheson of the Orkney Fisheries Association.

    To be woman in the rural economy in Orkney is to live a life adapting to what jobs are available. It’s problem solving at every turn rather than ‘choice’ as a traditional career plan does not fit with rural life. Well paid jobs usually in government agencies, are scarce for everyone. Women still have less access to higher paid professional jobs and women’s work is dominated by the caring sector paid and unpaid.

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