Bog Myrtle & Peat

“The last 40 years under the Common Agricultural Policy have not done Scottish agriculture many favours”.

It was very satisfying to hear these words from a representative of NFU Scotland. The subsidies may have provided a stable bedrock for Scottish farming, but they have stifled innovation and reduced some areas of agriculture into a repetitive dirge. While driving biodiversity loss and enabling the wealthy to grow wealthier, the CAP actively discouraged young farmers. On balance, I will be pleased to see and end to it.

The NFUS’s Johnnie Hall was speaking at an event laid on by the Galloway and South Ayrhsire Biosphere entitled: “A Changing Landscape – Making the most of our natural assets”. This was a half day discussion meeting “exploring how we can address the issues and opportunities that key industry representatives see influencing the future of land based industries in South West Scotland”. A farmer, a forester, a landowner and a community woodland professional each presented on behalf of their sector, and questions were then asked from an audience of more than eighty attendees.

From the perspective of a “young farmer”, I agree that the CAP has been a disaster, but it is becoming clear that we are yet to see the full extent of the damage it has caused. Many marginal upland farms have grown weak and dependent upon EU funding – they have never looked less viable. CAP has been sheltering these places from some fundamental economic realities, and perhaps many should have been allowed to die years ago.

Brexit offers us the chance for an audit. It’s a watershed moment, and it should be no surprise that vultures are circling around many weak, struggling farms. Without the continuation of some very generous subsidies, hill farming seems to be in dire straits, and foresters are licking their lips in anticipation. According to the Eskdalemuir study, trees can be three times more profitable and sustainable than sheep farming in upland areas. The statistics look compelling, but it isn’t fair to compare sheep and trees as “like for like”. It’s no surprise that forestry should outshine the kind of threadbare CAP farming which has slowly degraded the hills for the past forty years – the two industries have been moving at very different rates. But who is to say what agriculture can deliver after Brexit?

Imagine if hill farms could succeed in balancing livestock with renewable energy, tourism, biodiversity, timber, peatland conservation and improved water quality and retention – what a powerful, dynamic mix. Match that vision against wholesale forestry and the decision to fill the landscape with trees is not so easily made. Forestry may trump CAP farming, but it looks pretty weak next to the kind of well integrated farms we’re now free to build.

Foresters are constantly frustrated by public perception; many people think that commercial woodlands are a bad thing. We have made huge leaps and bounds in planting forestry over the past fifteen years, but there is no escaping the extensive, often irreparable damage that  foresters caused when they were first unleashed on the uplands. My great grandchildren will still be paying to restore damage to peatlands and biodiversity caused by the first generation of commercial softwood production, so the simple assurance that “we’re not that bad any more” scarcely cuts the mustard. These wounds will be slow to heal; a few years of good behaviour have not outweighed a legacy of devastation which will ring for centuries.

Modern foresters urge us to judge their industry as it is, not as it was. There’s no doubt that modern forestry is dynamic and progressive, particularly when we compare it to sleepy, old fashioned farm businesses. But after forty years of stasis, hill farmers should now be asking the public to judge them on what they could be; on all that is now possible. The Scottish Government has set some hard targets for planting, and there will be growing pressure to increase forest cover in the wake of Brexit. This process should not be taken lightly – after all, you don’t just dabble with trees; you cannot try commercial woodland for thirty years, then return to traditional hill farming.

Once land has been prepared for planting, the process cannot be undone. Aside from the logistical difficulties of reverting woodland to farmland, there are legal mechanisms which require land to remain beneath trees. Unlike most other land uses, a move towards forestry initiates irreversible change, and that’s a big deal. Unlike farming, forestry is famously incompatible with other land uses, so the decision to plant represents a monumental, permanent and intensive refocus in favour of timber and timber alone.

Selected statistics may look slick and compelling for politicians and industry leaders, but the current climate is dynamic and complex. Perhaps it’s too much to ask, but we should avoid being hasty.