Farming Benefits Highlands and Islands

Richard Lochhead, Scotland’s cabinet secretary for rural affairs, was shown the clear benefits of farming on remote hills by members of NFU Scotland. Lachlan MacLean, LFA Committee member and Bert Leitch, Regional Board Chairman invited Lochhead to Mull, where he was served dinner featuring local produce on April 15th, before his visit to Leitch and MacLean families on farm on April 16th. Mr. Leitch said that he was able to demonstrate the positive influence that farming has on highlands, local economy, landscape and communities. Also, he showed the negative impacts that falling numbers of falling livestock and land abandonment have of rural areas. He said that when farms start to lose stock, they lose farmers, shepherds and their families as well, which inevitable hits hard the community. He claimed that Mull farmers need bigger incentives from the Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP) to keep on with stock breeding; he also said that support should be available to as many farmers as possible in a less complicated form as possible. Mr. Leitch mentioned the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) as a good example of support for local farmers. Mr. Leitch demonstrated his interest in the the Land Managers Options (LMO, part of the SRDP), which in his opinion might deliver a lot of benefits to local farmers as it is very uncomplicated and involves little or no bureaucracy, computers and consultants. Although there are approximately 100 registered farms on the Mull Island, it has seen a continuous decline in agriculture in the last 30 years. The Mull farmers have set up 2 initiatives (Cattle Hi Health group and Hill Lamb wintering scheme) in order to break the cycle, but they still need more support from the government.