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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  • Agriculture Support Outlined

    1st November 2019 by

    Following a six year campaign, and sustained pressure by successive Scottish Ministers and key farmer and crofter organisations, an historic wrong has finally been righted. Scotland is getting its convergence funding after all.

    This wrong saw the UK qualify for a £190 million uplift in EU funding, but Scotland only received £30 million. That money provided for an uplift, that without Scotland’s extremely low average rate per hectare, the UK would not have qualified for.

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  • Animals and animal products after Brexit

    17th October 2019 by

    Scotland does not want to leave the EU but there is a strong risk that we may end up leaving without a deal in place on 31st October 2019.

    While the Scottish Government is doing as much as it can to mitigate the impact of leaving the EU, we will not be able to prevent or address every impact.

    Leaving the EU will mean things we are used to happening, or which we agreed to as part of a Member State, will no longer stand.

    This note sets out what you need to do what you need to do to ensure you can continue to transport live animals into and out of the EU after Brexit.

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  • In the news: Scottish Agriculture

    31st July 2019 by

    The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Select Committee has published a report into the future of Scottish agriculture, which is running widely in the media today.

    The Committee argues that Brexit presents an opportunity to address failings in the agriculture funding formula, which has led to Scottish farms and crofts receiving low levels of funding.

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  • In the news: Red meat levy success

    16th November 2018 by

    The Scottish Government and industry – particularly QMS and Jim McLaren, its recently retired Chairman – have worked tirelessly for the last decade to find a sustainable solution that would ensure that the monies raised through this levy could be used to benefit the Scottish quality meat sector, including marketing and promotion of Scotch beef, Scotch lamb and specially selected pork to consumers at home and abroad.

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  • Coverage on UK Agriculture Bill

    13th November 2018 by

    Today, various media outlets are running a piece calling on the Scottish and UK Government’s to break the “current political log-jam” on how to agree future policy, financial frameworks and repatriation of agriculture powers.

    The pieces call for “meaningful progress” to be made on the legal mechanisms required to make agricultural payments in the immediate aftermath of Brexit, and follows a letter published by NFUS Scotland president Andrew McCornick to Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing and DEFRA Secretary of State Michael Gove.

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  • Commitment to environmental principles

    6th November 2017 by

    The UK Government should maintain EU environmental principles post Brexit or risk undermining the substantial international progress Scotland has made, Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham has said.

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