A One-day Conference organised by Skye & Lochalsh Environment Forum, the National Trust for Scotland and the Scottish Crofting Federation
Plockton Village Hall
9:00 am to 5:00 pm on 12th December 2011
The European Union recently launched a public consultation on their proposals for review of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which will come into effect in 2014. The CAP underpins all state financial support mechanisms for agriculture in the EC and has over the past ten years or so been embodied by Single Farm Payment, the Scottish Rural Development Programme and previously the Rural Stewardship Scheme. Crofting agriculture is agreed generally to be at best marginal, and typically uneconomic, but at the same time it sustains rural populations across a large part of Scotland and maintains nationally and internationally important landscapes, habitats and species. Recent support structures have been criticised as being unwieldy, overly bureaucratic and poorly targeted for application at the crofting scale. This conference aims to debate how best to effect change to ensure appropriate support measures are in place to protect and enhance crofting agriculture in the next CAP period. Come along and have your say. It really does matter!