Landowners who are failing to release land to provide opportunities for new tenant farmers faced the harshest criticism yet from the Scottish Government when rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead used a platform at NFU Scotland's annual meeting to express his deep frustration with the sector.
Scottish Government policy is to encourage a vibrant tenanted sector but Mr Lochhead told union delegates meeting in St Andrews that landowners often conflated the issues of tenancy and land reform. He said they used a fear of new legislation which would allow tenants the right to buy their land as a reason for not providing more tenancies.
Mr Lochhead's stance was unequivocal. He said: "I believe it is a landowners moral duty to provide opportunities for new entrants and when I speak to them I often hear how important it is to attract new blood into farming. But some are constantly finding excuses for not letting land.
"They asked me to rule out the right to buy and I did that. They then told me I might change my mind and I didn't. And then they told me "but a new Government might come along and change things". However I am not planning to reintroduce the right to buy.
"So whatever we do to boost the confidence of landowners it sometimes seems it's never enough. The bar just keeps being set higher and higher."
Mr Lochhead insisted that attracting new entrants to farming was a top priority and it was now a matter of urgency that he met the Tenant Farmers Forum to discuss how to take forward a focused set of priorities and set a strict timetable for action in order to get new people into the industry.
The Scottish Government is to set up a new entrants panel later this year to advise on how best to use the new CAP rules in Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 to support new entrants. And the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) is to deliver a new rage of services for new entrants , including a dedicated web site, workshops, guidance notes and help with business plans.