Future Policies

There has been many discussions regarding the Brexit and the sheep sector in Scotland, as we are reliant on the EU market and rest of the UK for a significant proportion of our lambs and ewes. In his December Farm North East Article, Steven Thomson, Senior Agricultural Economist and Policy Advisor at SRUC, details the…

Steven Thomson and Dr Rob Mc Morran have revisited some of the businesses contacted in 2017 for the “Farm Workers in Scottish Agriculture: Studies in the International Seasonal Migrant Labour Market” project, to produce a short briefing providing updates on seasonal migrant issues in Scottish agriculture. Seasonal Migrant workers are critical to the success of…

For a number of years now the Scottish Government, the Scottish farming industry and the Scottish Parliament have all been calling for a re-think on how the UK Government allocated the extra CAP money the EU awarded us for the 2014-2020 period.  After years of toing and froing between Holyrood and Westminster the UK Government…

Professor Davy McCracken writes on the Policy focused work emerging from the SRUC’s Hill & Mountain Research Centre. 2021: March 2021: Uphill battle to progress change in farm biodiversity January 2021: The Thrill of the Hill – Research and Policy (Podcast) January 2021: Supporting agriculture in Scotland post-Brexit (podcast) 2020: December 2020 Changing Climate, Changing…

Despite over 2 years since the invoking of Article 50 to initiate the UK’s withdrawal from the EU many businesses, including farmers, remain uncertain of what the impacts on their business would be – and as a result many have not taken any action to prepare themselves for a worse-case scenario. In an article written…

Whether Brexit occurs or not, agricultural policy in the UK and Scotland is going through another evolution. We are all familiar with the discussions around the public benefits that agriculture  produces for the country and how these things are increasingly reaching the minds of policy makers. However, the champion role farming plays in the wider…

In the July 2019 issue of Agribusiness News (from the Farm Advisory Service) Anna Sellars (SAC Consultant) has written a policy brief depicting the new CAP and Mercosur trade deal. The new CAP is currently being prepared and consulted on by EU member states, due to implemented from the 1st January 2021. Whilst, should the…

Scotland’s Biennial Land Use and Environment Conference XII was hosted at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh from the 28th – 29th November 2018, entitled Rewarding the Delivery of Public Goods: How to Achieve this in Practice. The conference sought to help inform and shape the debate about how best to reward farmers, foresters and other land managers…

On the back of Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggestion at the Scottish Conservative Party conference that the UK Government may wish to start spending money on devolved matters – including agriculture – in the future, Steven Thomson (Senior Agricultural Economist & Policy Advisor, SRUC) discusses what this…

The May 2019 issue of Agribusiness News (from the Farm Advisory Service) included an article on the implications of brexit delays, written by SAC Consultant Julian Bell. On the one hand, the delay gives the UK longer for UK agriculture to adapt to whatever changes may occur in trading relationships with the EU and third…