The Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF) has largely welcomed the Secretary of State for Environment, Michael Gove’s views on agriculture set out in his paper ‘Farming for the next generation’.
“The Secretary of State’s vision for a fairer agricultural system that, supported with public money, delivers more public benefit is to be welcomed”, said Russell Smith, Chair of the Scottish Crofting Federation. “His paper, spoken to last week at the Oxford Farming Conference and at the larger Oxford Real Farming Conference, has brought a great deal of comment,” Mr Smith went on. “This is not surprising given that it marks the potential end of a very unfair regime that, as Mr Gove says, ‘gives the most from the public purse to those who have the most private wealth’. We may at last see a real shift from the ‘perverse outcomes’ to ‘the presumption that we should only support clear public goods the market will not, left to itself, provide’.”
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