Supporting the Countryside - policy paper from the Scottish Landowner's Federation

Maurice Hankey

The Scottish Landowner's Federation proposes a radical review of how public support is delivered, across Europe, to the countryside and its dependent communities. The 1992 reform of the CAP has brought stability to the farming sector, but existing support is restricted to certain sectors, and is now also determined by eligibility criteria, such as quotas and eligible land. The system is bureaucratic, distorts land use and fossilises the countryside and businesses. Production under the present CAP remains sheltered from the market place. These factors suggest that the CAP, as at present, is not an appropriate way of ensuring the health and well-being of the larger countryside, its businesses, and its rural communities. A much wider, and more integrated approach is called for.

In common with a number of other papers on the future of the CAP, the paper advocates a move towards world market prices, and the dismantling of existing support and supply management schemes (including all quotas).

In their place, and in line with the first aim of the Federation, the promotion of high standards of management and use of land, the paper proposes the introduction of an integrated Rural Land Use Support Scheme. This would provide essential support for the whole countryside in which the need for food and timber production is balanced with the needs of rural communities and the wider natural heritage.

The Rural Land Use Support Scheme would be backed up by wider measures to assist rural businesses and communities, including housing and infrastructure measures, provision of training and retraining facilities, and encouragement of co-operative and locally value-added initiatives.

Support would be provided through decoupled area payments, in response to submitting a 5-year management framework under which the land would be managed. Plans would be flexible and capable of revision, but at all times would be required to conform to guidelines of good practice, and be appropriate to the locality, and to the resource available.

"Eligibility" for payments would be calculated by adding the support available under each of four "Levels", according to the commitments given in the plan.

• Level 1: Land management payment (for adherence to Codes of Good Practice etc.)
• Level 2: Environmental and Systems supplement.
• Level 3: Social supplement for disadvantaged areas.
• Level 4: Support for capital projects.

Receipt of payments would depend upon the level of "activity" generated by the plan, measured in terms of standard labour units. Each unit would qualify for tranches of support at each Level, subject to availability. This effects a form of moderation of support on an activity- rather than a size-basis, but does not constitute a job-subsidy. It provides a means by which support can be delivered to large and small businesses on an equal basis. The Scheme could be applied on a European basis, with member states determining the proportional relationship between the different levels, within an overall ceiling.

The approach of using a framework plan facilitates delivery of support to land-using businesses, often in areas where market-based income alone could not sustain them, whilst at the same time providing a means of applying environmental controls and incentives in a free-market situation.

Further information and a full copy of the report, Supporting the Countryside, Future Opportunities, may be obtained from:

Dr Maurice Hankey

Scottish Landowner's Federation, 25 Maritime Street, Edinburgh EH6 5PW.

Tel: (+44) (0)131 555 1031 Fax: (+44) (0)131 555 1052

24th February 1997