The Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF) is pleased to offer this response to the Government’s consultation on the above. SCF is the only representative and campaigning organisation for crofters and crofting in Scotland. The crofting counties cover almost half the land-mass of the country, and 25 percent of the agricultural land within that area is under crofting tenure. Much of this land is rough grazing, but there is good arable and grassland in crofting tenure in such areas as Easter Ross, Caithness, Orkney, the south end of Shetland, and the machair lands of the Outer Hebrides and the Argyll Islands. This is a resource of huge food production capacity, but also comprises many of the country’s most valued landscapes and habitats, and most of its peat-based soils (and therefore by far its largest soil-carbon store). There are approximately 17,500 crofts and 11,000 crofters.
Land_Use_Strategy_Consultation_Questions.pdf;Land_Use_Strategy_Preamble.pdf