Farming

A new nature reserve in the uplands of Dumfries and Galloway has doubled in size with the legal completion of the South of Scotland’s largest community buyout, in what organisers say is a ‘moment of history and hope’ for nature, climate and people.

The deadline for responding to the consultation for a new Agriculture Bill has been extended until Monday 5th December and an additional face to face workshop announced, which will be held in Orkney.

To date we have supported at six face to face events - Inverness, Portree, Inverurie, Oban, Melrose and most recently Stirling and have a further three planned events over the next few weeks covering Dumfries, Ayr and now Orkney 

A total of 33 businesses, large and small, will receive grants ranging from £16,000 to £1.4 million from the Food Processing, Marketing and Cooperation (FPMC) grant scheme.

Projects include capacity building for a dairy farm to meet the growing demand for its soft cheese, setting up of a new venison processing operation and installation of solar panels at a butcher premises to reduce carbon footprint and minimise electricity costs.

Scotland’s farmers, crofters, land-managers, small holders and small landholders are vital to our ambition to make our nation fairer and greener, and small landholders are part of this farming ambition.

The next in a series of consultation workshops to support development of a new Scottish Agriculture Bill takes place in Oban on the 1 November and the Scottish Rural Network team will be there to support policy colleagues on the night.