Thank you for inviting the Scottish Crofting Foundation (SCF) to contribute to your deliberations on land reform in Scotland. SCF is the only member-led organisation dedicated to promoting crofting and is the largest association of small-scale food producers in the UK. Our mission is to safeguard and promote the rights, livelihoods and culture of crofters and their communities.
We appreciate the fact that land reform in Scotland is radical and inspiring though given the antiquated and inequitable pattern of land tenure that still exists in Scotland it is clearly lacking in pace and breadth. Crofting has an integral stake in land reform legislation (crofters as land managers having an interest in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act Part 1, and Parts 2 & 3 having been used for crofting estate buy-outs), and crofting legislation reform has been a part of the current land reform process since its infancy and has resulted in the passing of two Acts, one in 2007 and one in 2010, both amending the Crofting (Scotland) Act 1993.