CAP payments to Scottish Borders fell by £6.4 million last year

EXCLUSIVE by LESTER CROSS

Research by Not Just Sheep & Rugby shows the value of Common Agricultural Policy [CAP] subsidies and payments to hundreds of businesses and organisations in mainly rural areas of the Scottish Borders fell by a significant 9.28 per cent between 2019 and 2020.

The combined loss of £6.409 million in CAP support (down from £69,051,228 to £62,641,292) in seventeen postcode areas from rural Peeblesshire across the region to Berwick and North Northumberland will be significant - particularly in more remote communities with fragile micro economies - unless the losses have been substituted from other sources.

According to statistics available on the UK Government's DEFRA website few areas experienced an increase in payments apart from TD13 (Cockburnspath), TD14 (Eyemouth), and TD15 (Berwick-upon-Tweed).

The fall in CAP monetary values was particularly marked in localities such as Hawick and Newcastleton (TD9), Selkirk (TD7) and Kelso (TD5).

These sets of data for the Scottish Borders follow warnings that the agricultural industries in the devolved administrations stand to lose most as a result of Brexit and the phasing out of EU payment schemes.

Fergus Ewing, Scotland’s former cabinet secretary for the rural economy, warned in January that Scottish farmers would lose out to the tune of £170 million between now and 2025, compared with the subsidies they could have expected under the EU’s common agricultural policy, which provided some £3 billion a year across the UK.

“Major cuts have been imposed on all the devolved administrations without consultation,” he said. “This is not what farmers and crofters were promised if they were to vote for Brexit.”

Mr Ewing also raised concerns about the UK government’s switch post-Brexit to a system of 'public money for public goods', under which farmers will be paid in future for protecting the countryside, planting trees, nurturing wildlife habitats and taking measures to prevent flooding.

Speaking at the annual Oxford Farming Conference, Mr Ewing declared: “I think the Treasury is intent on removing payments for farmers under the guise of having environmental payments. Unless this is looked at again, we will see the demise of payments over time. I do not think this is a cynical view, it is already happening.”

But in a letter to Andrew McCornick, president of the National Farmers' Union of Scotland, UK Minister David Duguid wrote: "I have been disappointed to read in the media recent comments on funding for Scottish farming. I want to reassure you that claims that £170 million will be cut from Scottish farming support are simply incorrect and that Scotland’s farmers will have far greater security in this coming year than they would have had inside the EU.

Mr Duguid claimed that in 2019, the UK Government made a commitment to match the current annual budget to farmers in every year of this Parliament. In 2019, Scotland’s farming community received almost £595 million in total farm support. In 2021/22, Scotland would receive a little over £24 million in outstanding EU funds, and just over £570 million in new Exchequer funding, totalling almost £595 million.

He added: "CAP funding is likely to be cut by around 10% for the coming funding period. For Scotland, this would have amounted to an annual loss of almost £60 million. Within the EU, Scotland and the rest of the UK had too little say in how farming payments were distributed to our farmers. Farmers, consumers and taxpayers will benefit from closing the door on the CAP."

Some of the main beneficiaries from CAP payments in the Borders have been the large country estates such as Roxburghe Estates and Buccleuch Estates.

In 2019 the Roxburghe farming enterprise Floors Farming received £728,444 from EU sources, a figure which fell to £655,304 in 2020. These payments included money for areas facing specific constraints (£115,567 in 2019 and £88,584 the following year) and agri-environment/climate money (£65,060 for the EU year 2019 followed by  £24,509 last year).

Bowhill Farming, the Buccleuch Estates agricultural enterprise had CAP payments totalling £1,332,734 for 2019, and £801,088 in 2020. The breakdown included £262,255 in 2019 for areas facing specific constraints (£116,227 the following year); £437,775 for investment in forestry during 2019 (£57,411 in 2020) and a slightly increased amount in 2020 for environment/climate benefits of £164,067 (£160,624 in 2019).

The total 2020 payments for each Borders postcode area with 2019 figures in brackets were:

TD1 (Galashiels) - £3,941,107 (£4,558,165); TD2 (Lauder) - £2,308,278 (£2,461,055); TD3 (Gordon) - £2,291,924 (£2,391,271); TD4 (Earlston) - £1,532,730 (£1,785,336); TD5 (Kelso) - £9,574,778 (£10,438,455); TD6 (Melrose) - £3,046,870 (£3,116,329).

TD7 (Selkirk) - £4,054,515 (£5,757,271); TD8 (Jedburgh) - £4,641,180 (£4,949,195); TD9 (Hawick/Newcastleton) - £7,587,599 (£8,731,630); TD10 (Greenlaw) - £1,937,615 (£2,088,425); TD11 (Duns) - £6,882,439 (£7,914,821).

TD12 (Coldstream) - £818,592 (£1,004,180); TD 13 (Cockburnspath) - £842,612 (£730,728); TD14 (Eyemouth) - £2,074,527 (£2,034,835); TD15 (Berwick-upon-Tweed) - £6,406,052 (£5,762,629); EH45 (Peebles) - £2,754,271 (£3,187,163; EH46 (Peeblesshire) - £1,946,203 (£2,089,750).