Farming is vital to Scotland’s future. As well as producing food, farmers and crofters manage three quarters of Scotland’s land. We need to ensure we have a vibrant and successful agriculture sector that looks after our environment, which in turn will underpin our food security for generations to come.
Yet at present, farming is Scotland’s second biggest source of climate emissions after transport, and it’s also a major cause of biodiversity loss. Our current farm funding system, a legacy of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, does very little for nature or the climate.
Most of the money is spent on area-based ‘direct payments’, for which farmers are required to meet very few environmental conditions, and which disproportionately benefit a small number of large landowners while smaller scale farmers and crofters lose out.
In the summer of 2022, members of Scottish Environment LINK joined with farmers’ groups to launch the Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign, calling on the Scottish government to:
Many of the organisations involved had been advocating for years for changes to government support and funding for farming, to better help and encourage farmers and crofters to produce food in harmony with nature and the climate.
Following the UK’s departure from the European Union, the Scottish government was in the process of developing new farming legislation, providing an important opportunity to change the system for the better.
The Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign was backed by more than 40 environment, farming and food organisations. Through thousands of petition signatures, emails to MSPs, letters and powerful personal messages to Cabinet Secretary Mairi Gougeon, campaign supporters in every part of the country made it clear that farming, and its interaction with nature and the climate, matter to Scotland’s people.
Our report, ‘Farm for Scotland’s Future: the case for change,’ set out the need for change, made the case for reform, and detailed farming practices which support nature, climate and food production.
The Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill
The Scottish government’s Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill was approved by parliament in June 2024. The organisations involved in our campaign worked hard to influence the bill, liaising with MSPs across political parties.
This was a ‘framework’ bill, meaning that the bulk of policies, guidance and legislation, would be developed after the bill had passed into law. However, our campaign achieved some significant wins within the bill, including:
Big questions remain on farm funding
The Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill made some important steps in the right direction. But major questions remain about the extent to which public spending on farming will support methods that help restore nature and tackle climate change.
The Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign called for a much higher proportion of the farming budget to be directed to these goals that are so important for everyone.
At the time of writing in May 2025, Scottish government announcements to date suggest that the distribution of funding will not be substantially different from the current system and will not enable farmers and crofters to make the changes required to reduce climate emissions and restore nature. However, the government has said that this is the start of a process and that the new system will evolve over time.
The organisations behind the Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign are continuing to push, both through their own work and through Scottish Environment LINK’s Food and Farming Group, for a system that supports and incentivises sustainable farming and is fair for farmers and crofters.
Our campaign helped to shift the debate, showing that people want farmers and crofters to be supported to meet the huge challenges we face in the transition to a more sustainable society. There’s a long way to go to make Scottish farming work for nature, climate and people, but the journey has begun.
Top image credit: Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Farming and crofting have a vital role to play in halting and reversing biodiversity loss in Scotland. In this blog Gabija Dragunaite, RSPB Scotland's Policy Assistant, and Andrew Midgley, Senior Land Use Policy Officer, emphasise this point by outlining some of the RSPB’s own farming activity.
We know agriculture is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland, and with around 80% of Scotland’s land classified as agricultural, the sector plays a key role in both halting biodiversity loss and meeting the country’s net zero targets. We also know many farmers want support to help achieve these goals.
As the UK government's budget announcement draws close, RSPB Scotland director Anne McCall sets out why it's vital that Chancellor Rachel Reeves invests in nature friendly farming and ensures Scotland has the funds it needs.
A coalition of environmental charities are calling for the Scottish government to allocate the money in its new farm funding system in a way which encourages farmers and crofters to adopt climate and nature-friendly practices. This comes in response to a consultation from the Agriculture Reform Implementation Oversight Board (ARIOB), a Scottish government group supporting […]
A look at what our campaign achieved, what the Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill means, and what still needs to change to help Scotland’s farmers and crofters to farm sustainably.
Campaigners have renewed calls for the Scottish government to deliver sustainable farming, as the Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill passed into law yesterday evening.
On 2 May, 21 organisations wrote to Mairi Gougeon, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, calling for a marked increase in the pace and scope of change in Scotland's farm support system, to enable farming to meaningfully contribute to Scotland reaching Net Zero.
Members of Scottish Environment LINK have called on the Scottish government to uphold requirements for farmers to meet environmental regulations, following calls from NFU Scotland to remove or weaken many of those requirements.
Scottish Environment LINK members have called on the Scottish government to do more to cut emissions from farming following today’s announcement that the government will weaken its 2030 climate targets.
This week the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee published its report on the Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill. The report echoed many of the proposals made by Scottish Environment LINK members and shared by other organisations.
On 6 March, Scottish Environment LINK held a Holyrood Parliamentary Reception, bringing people together around the Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign. We started with two short videos from two very different farmers, both working with nature to the benefit of their businesses.
First Minister Humza Yousaf announced new details today of how farm funding will be distributed under the Scottish government’s new system, revealing an approach that campaigners say won’t do enough to help farmers and crofters to produce food sustainably.
Environmental campaigners gathered outside the Scottish parliament today to call on the Scottish government to fund farmers and crofters to produce food in ways that help restore nature and tackle climate change.
The Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign has said the £6.2 million, or 17%, cut to Scotland’s Agri-Environment Climate Scheme makes a mockery of the Scottish government’s ambition for Scotland to become a global leader in sustainable and regenerative agriculture.
In evidence submitted to a Scottish Parliament committee, the coalition Scottish Environment LINK is calling on Ministers to be required to take independent advice before setting their five year rural support plan.
The Scottish Government must take a much more ambitious approach to reforming agriculture policy and funding if it is to meet its own climate and nature targets, campaigners have said.
Take action! Ask the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Mairi Gougeon, to ensure that at least three quarters of public spending on farming supports farmers and crofters to produce food in ways that restore nature and tackle climate change.
Euan Ross, Scotland manager for the Nature Friendly Farming Network, considers whether the Scottish Government’s draft Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill goes far enough in changing how farmers and crofters will receive support in Scotland.
As the Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill starts its journey through the Scottish Parliament, RSPB Scotland director Anne McCall offers some thoughts about where agricultural policy needs to go.
Environment charities have welcomed the publication on Friday of Scotland’s Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill, and have called on the Scottish government to introduce a radical new farm funding system to help the industry reduce climate emissions and restore biodiversity.
We can have a future for Scotland’s farmers that also benefits wildlife and the people that enjoy our countryside, says Kat Jones, director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland.
It's vital that MSPs hear their constituents calling for an Agriculture Bill that works for nature, climate and people. Watch our webinar and read our guide on speaking to your MSP about the bill.
Larger wild mammals function as the glue that holds everything else in nature together, important for farming and breathing life into vital processes to that keep the people of Scotland fed and the land habitable, says Dr Elspeth Stirling.
Members of Scottish Environment LINK’s Food and Farming group have set out in a briefing for MSPs what the Scottish government’s Agriculture Bill, expected this autumn, must contain in order to help make farming work for nature, climate and people.
Farmers and crofters are a critical part of the solutions to tackle climate change, and to protect and restore nature. Many are already taking vital steps to farm in nature friendly ways. Changing the way that the farming funding system operates, and putting nature at its heart, will help to save nature and climate.
An Agriculture Bill that delivers for biodiversity is an opportunity to shatter the illusion of the dichotomy between nature conservation and productive farming, creating a genuinely sustainable and just system that works for our entire environment, says Kieran Thomas.
Good quality ponds, especially warm ones, are vital breeding habitats for amphibians in the spring, when spawn and tadpoles will be using them to develop into adults. Often farm ponds suffer from agricultural run-off - but there are practical measures farmers can take to address this.
Native breeds should be seen as crucial in bringing greater sustainability to modern farming and land management practices, and government policy and funding should reflect this, says Steve McMinn.
A thriving agricultural sector, embracing a diversity of scales and types of farming and crofting across the whole Highlands, is vital to achieve a Good Food Future, says Helen O'Keefe.
Nature-friendly and sustainable farming practices go hand-in-hand with higher farm animal welfare, says the charity Compassion in World Farming. By transitioning away from industrial livestock monocultures and towards extensive, regenerative systems, higher-welfare farming reduces stocking densities and reintegrates animals with the land.
Food production requires more than a farmer with a field. Farming depends on the wider environment – healthy soils, populations of pollinators, and climatic conditions suitable for growing crops. There is no food security without a stable climate and healthy natural environment.
We spoke with Johnnie Balfour from Balbirnie Home Farms in Fife about the way his farming is evolving to be better for nature and the climate, about some of the problems with Scotland’s current farm funding system, and about what he would like the new system to do.
The Scottish Government must commit to a radical new system of farm funding to deal with climate change, environmental campaigners have said. The call comes after new figures show that climate emissions from agriculture have risen to become the second largest source of Scottish emissions.
Many of Scotland's farmers are changing the way they farm, to allow nature back and to reduce climate emissions. They are the trailblazers, and what they are doing matters to us all.
Research has estimated that in excess of a quarter of all species on Earth exist in soils. Ranging from tiny bacteria to large burrowing earthworms, this ‘underground livestock’ needs to remain biodiverse.
Healthy soils of species-rich grasslands are full of abundance and diversity of microbes, mycorrhizal fungi and invertebrates, such as earthworms, that facilitate greater carbon sequestration and storage.
While financial support for food producers in the transition is critical, support for farmers to meet, learn from each other, share advice and work in partnership, is just as essential. We need peer-to-peer knowledge exchange that supports farmers to try out new things.
We need food. We need farmers. We need farmers to keep farming and managing the land. Let’s just get that out there straight away. This needs to be said because food production is often pitted against environmental recovery. But these things don’t oppose each other, we need both.
The way we fund our farms is making climate change worse and risks our food security, according to a significant new report - which campaigners say makes the case for a radical approach to the upcoming Agriculture Bill.
We still have flower-rich machair grasslands, and the abundance of species they support, today thanks to 5,500 years of non-intensive farming without the use of pesticides. We need a farm funding system that helps more farmers create wildflower-rich habitats.
Research has shown that organic farming can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, increase on-farm biodiversity by 30%, and reduce soil erosion by 22%. Organic farms have also been shown to sequester and store significantly more carbon (44%).
The latest episode of David Attenborough’s epic TV series, Wild Isles, has highlighted the importance of managing farmland with nature in mind. In this blog, Vicki Swales explains the opportunity we have in Scotland to move towards more nature- and climate-friendly farming.
Watch the video of our Farm for Scotland's Future webinar to find out more about why farming is crucial to restoring Scotland’s nature and tackling climate change, and why we need a new funding system to help all farmers and crofters make the transition to sustainable farming.
Today members of Scottish Environment LINK’s Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign presented Mairi Gougeon, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands, with a petition calling for a new farm funding system that works for nature, climate, and people.
On 9 December, 28 organisations wrote to Mairi Gougeon, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands, following the publication of the Climate Change Committee's ‘Progress in reducing emissions in Scotland’ report.
A growing number of farmers and crofters are already working with nature and climate in mind by keeping their soils healthy, planting trees, and making space for wildlife but these farmers and crofters need more support.
Over the decades, agriculture policy has focussed primarily on food production with nature and the climate side-lined. But with so much agricultural land, there’s enormous potential to redress this and create a more harmonious relationship.
Healthy, semi-natural grasslands are thriving ecosystems, where thousands of different wild plants over millennia have co-evolved alongside farmers managing the land as hay meadows and grazing pasture.
If Scotland can create a farm funding system that works for all farmers and crofters, for people and for the planet, we will have made a major investment in our future.
The Scottish government is consulting on its proposals for a new Agriculture Bill. Here's how you can respond to the consultation.
When was the last time you encountered a hedgehog? Or spotted a murmuration of starlings in a pink sky? The natural world as we once knew it is under threat like never before as the latest global science shows.
Scottish agriculture is in a pivotal moment, with a once in a generation opportunity to make farming work better for our environment and people in Scotland.
By shifting the focus of funding to be nature and climate positive, we can ensure farmers and crofters are able to produce food and provide employment in a way that is genuinely sustainable.
It’s fair to say that many of us in Scotland feel a deep affinity with farming and the landscapes and cultures it creates. However, the policy and the public money that supports the majority of farming isn’t well understood.
Scotland’s land and how we use it is hugely important in our fight against climate change and nature loss. Given that agriculture is Scotland’s main land use, Scottish farmers and crofters are key actors in making sure we reach climate change targets, restore nature, and produce food sustainably.
The Covid pandemic has shone an intense light upon the value of local farmland and greenspaces to nearby communities. It’s now clearer than ever that spending time in the countryside is vital to our health and wellbeing.
Trees on farms can regulate growing conditions benefiting crops and animals, provide shelter from wind and rain, regulate soil temperature, support important populations of pollinators, enhance water conservation, reduce soil erosion, and enrich soil fertility.
Farming in Scotland is important. It is an industry vital to our future which provides us with food, supports a rural workforce and underpins our food and drinks industry. However, we must also acknowledge the huge impacts that farming in Scotland has on nature.
On 20 June, Scottish Environment LINK wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands, announcing the launch by 24 environment charities of the Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign.
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