Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) 2010 and beyond
Posted: Thursday 25 February 2010
The Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2009 came into force on 18 December 2009, amending the existing LFASS for 2010. The most notable change for 2010 is the increase in payment rates to farmers in Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) classified as “Fragile” or Very Fragile” – areas concentrated in the North and West of the country. The payment rates for these areas are increased by 19% with payment rates for other LFAs remaining at the same level as in 2009.
Beside the increase in payments, there are few significant changes to LFASS for 2010. However the Scottish Government has made it clear that further changes will be made for 2011, namely a focussing of support on livestock farming on the hills and the tightening of the LFASS eligibility criteria to ensure that payments will only be received by active farmers. The manner in which these changes will be achieved is still the subject of discussion between the Scottish Government and various stakeholder groups such as NFUS. Measures currently being discussed include minimum stocking densities and livestock ratios. Concerns have been raised that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to minimum stocking densities would fail to achieve a better targeting of payments and so it is likely that variable minimum stocking densities reflecting differing qualities of land will be developed to ensure that active farmers with particularly poor land are not excluded.
Looking to the longer term prospects for LFAs, the European Union has signalled its intention to make significant changes to the support for LFAs from 2014. The EU intends to remove socio-economic considerations from LFA eligibility and focus on biophysical criteria such as low temperatures and poor soil quality. The biophysical criteria suggested do not include considerations such as distance from market – a consideration that is taken into account by the current LFASS. Concerns have been expressed that the EU proposals are biased towards difficulties posed for crop production and fail to grasp many of the difficulties that livestock farmers face. Full legislative proposals are not expected from the EU until autumn 2011.
