Opinion: Lack of opportunity for young farmers blights Scotland
© Adobe Stock Land and Freedom was the battle cry of the early 1900’s Mexican revolutionary Emilliano Zapata.
Still a symbol for Mexico’s farmers today, his words also ring true for UK farming, calling for access to land and the freedom to get on and farm.
There is a mass of young people desperate to farm, not just to work under parents or bosses, but in their own right.
See also: Opinion – rural young men need positive role models
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The lack of opportunity to do this is a major factor in these same people feeling scunnered at the lack of routes into farming and winding up turning their back on the industry.
Getting more young people actively farming is the catalyst for innovation and would solve many of the industry woes.
But access to land is critical and essential for this to happen.
The problem is particularly acute in Scotland.
The SNP promised land reform when it came into power 19 years ago, but has failed to deliver anything that could been seen as reforming from a landlord’s or a tenant’s point of view.
There’s more life in the back of a knacker’s lorry than there is in the Scottish tenancy market.
The rare opportunities that do come up are fought over tooth and nail, with eyewatering rents offered to the landowner just to get the opportunity.
For governments north and south of the border, landlords need to stop being viewed as the enemy and incentivised to make land available to rent.
I have a lodger in the bothy above the farmhouse kitchen.
I make less money than if the space was an Airbnb, but I don’t have to wash a tourist’s bedsheets every week.
And it helps that this income is tax free to £6,000/year.
There’s an easily amendable lodger’s lease and no stringent checks or rules.
The government, wisely, has seen that making lodgings available in properties eases housing pressure and provides flexible accommodation.
Why can’t this thinking be applied to farm tenancies?
It might be a dirty choice for a hard-up government, but few things get people more excited than a tax break.
The hyperfocus on green agendas in England has made the Sustainable Farming Incentive the easy choice for landowners, rather than offering tenancies.
Scotland can’t go the same way, so levers need to be built in to make it blindingly obvious that the best option for land is to let it out for a farming tenancy, even more so to a young tenant.
Blinded by their hatred of large estates, the SNP’s land reforms – such as right to buy and breaking up estates of more than 1,000ha at sale – has caused landowners to turn bearish with tenancies and land letting.
It would almost be better if they did crank up their socialism dial to 11 and redistribute land Zapata-style, as there might actually be a bit of ground available then.
They have a fixation on land ownership, but the price of land is so extortionate, a good tenancy is a far more attractive option for a young farmer with limited capital than being tied to hefty mortgage repayments.
Young people are brave and daft enough to take on more risk where an older farmer will not, with bodies fitter to do the work and minds less cynical of the threats.
If only the land and freedom to get on were there for them to do so.