Farmers and crofters ‘must receive proper recognition for green credentials’
NFU Scotland president Martin Kennedy, who steps down from office in February, used his final autumn conference address to call for Scottish farmers and crofters to receive proper credit for their world leading green credentials.
Mr Kennedy was addressing a full house of delegates at the autumn event, held at the Royal Highland Showground near Edinburgh.
He said the sector could not sit back and watch others take credit unjustifiably.
He said: “Whether that’s green washing with big businesses buying into our carbon credits with no scruples and, more importantly, not actually doing anything meaningful to reduce their own failings, or even worse, watching on as ‘rewilding’ initiatives driven by so-called environmentalists are forced to sell land to pay off debts accrued by purchasing other land for rewilding using taxpayers’ money. Incredible!
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“Some rewilding projects are driven by those who have little or no business sense whatsoever; have no appreciation of the unintended consequences that their projects create further down the track and do not understand what makes rural and remote communities thrive.
“This is exactly why we, as farmers and crofters, need to be very protective of our green credentials, many of which are already there in abundance due to traditional agricultural practices.
“The reality is, with some relatively small improvements to our current farming and crofting methods, we will deliver far more outcomes than any rewilding project that simply depopulates vast areas of land.
“All these projects will achieve is the creation of vast landscapes at huge risk of wildfire; the elimination of our rural communities and along with it our ability to produce food and drive a profitable return on investment.
“Not everything that we’re doing as farmers and crofters is perfect, far from it. But we must take every opportunity available to not only make changes that will make a difference to all our futures, through the likes of carbon audits and soil testing, but also applaud and reward a lot of current good practice that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
“So provided our future policy focus continues in the right direction, with food production at the heart of it, and that is backed by a robust funding package from next week’s UK Government budget, then we can deliver on the many asks that society has of Scottish farming and crofting today.”
