Crofting federation anger over Scottish Government's distribution of convergence funding
The Scottish Crofting Federation has hit out in anger at Scottish Government's allocation of £80m in convergence uplift.
Funding of £160m in total had been withheld by the Westminster Government but finally released following campaigning by the Scottish Government and industry.
However, there are now claims that the money distributed by Ministers has not gone where it was most needed and promised.
“Whilst the announced allocation of the convergence funding is a slight improvement over the NFUS proposal“, said SCF’s chair, Yvonne White, “it is still a disgraceful misuse of the money that was intended to help those on very low payments.
"This is not ‘true to the principles of convergence’ that Fergus Ewing sanctimoniously claimed - to the Scottish Parliament - he has upheld.
"Quite the opposite in fact. We have all been misled.”
The original intention of ‘external convergence’ was to ensure a more equal distribution of direct agricultural support between EU member states.
Those countries that had direct payments per hectare below 90 per cent of the Union average were to close the gap between their level and this figure with all member states arriving by financial year 2020 at a minimum level representing roughly 75 per cent of the EU average.
Ms White said: “The Scottish Government has clearly disregarded this intention in allocating the greatest proportion of the money to Region 1, land that already receives 91 per cent of the European average.
"This is a shameful injustice – the very words Mr Ewing used to describe the UK Government’s original misappropriation of this money.
"The justification given by Scottish Government is cringingly weak and demonstrates warped political will.
"It looks remarkably like a ruse to give more to those that already have.
"It does not, as Mr Ewing claimed, help ‘those who need help most – those who farm on our marginal land’. These producers on Region 3 land still receive a pitiful amount.
“The written information has been careful to not mention LFASS but Mr Ewing has made it clear in his address to parliament that he sees this money as a way of making up the LFASS shortfall caused by the Scottish Government by not introducing a new system based on Areas of Natural Constraint when they had the opportunity."
Earlier in the week, Mr Ewing had hailed the release of phase one of the funding as righting a 'historic wrong'.
The money comes as a result of EU Common Agriculture Policy funding that the Westminster Conservative Government failed to pass on to Scotland for the 2014-2020 period.