Funding

Farmers in North Ayrshire, West Aberdeenshire and Orkney will have the opportunity to benefit from free business support, worth around £120,000, via the 2023/24 Farm Resilience Programme which starts this month.

With changes to agricultural support coming into effect from 2025, Scottish Government is calling on the agriculture sector to help us shape the detail of future of support and how it is delivered.

A new development of more than 300 much needed affordable, energy efficient homes has been completed in Argyll and Bute.

Deputy First Minister Shona Robison met residents and viewed some of the newly completed homes at the Dunbeg estate near Oban, during her visit ahead of the Travelling Cabinet meeting in Inveraray.

Supporting farmers and crofters to produce food more sustainably, work with nature and reduce emissions is at the heart of new draft legislation.

The Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill will reform how the government will support farming and food production in Scotland. It will legislate to introduce a new framework of support to replace the current Common Agricultural Policy.

An independent analysis of the responses to the consultation on proposals for a new Agriculture Bill, “Delivering our Vision for Scottish Agriculture. Proposals for a new Agriculture Bill”, which was open from 29 August until 5 December 2022 have been published. 

Over £3 million has been distributed to nature projects across Scotland to help them scale up their conservation work and ensure the benefits are shared with local communities.

Scottish farming businesses will see support payments start to reach their bank accounts this week, two weeks ahead of last year’s first payments. 

Local authorities will be able to charge a premium of up to 100% on council tax for second homes under legislation aiming to increase the availability of housing.

If approved by Parliament, the secondary legislation would bring second homes into line with long-term empty homes, which can already be subject to a 100% premium on the full rate of council tax. Latest figures show that as at September 2022 there were 24,287 second homes in Scotland.

The first phase of a new initiative to identify and nurture new entrepreneurial talent has been launched.

Funding of up to £1.5 million will be delivered through the Pathways Pre-Start Fund this financial year to provide support, mentoring and advice services for people thinking about taking the first steps towards creating a start-up company. It will have a particular focus on closing the gender gap and widening participation in entrepreneurship, and is the first step to developing a pre-start network to bring more people into the entrepreneurship pipeline.