Breakout sessions
Breakout Process
You have each been randomly assigned to one of four breakout groups – see
coloured marker on front of your folder. Venues are shown below.
To help these discussions, we have assigned 3 facilitators to each breakout group.
There will be one facilitator from Scottish Government policy, one from Scottish
Government delivery (RPID) and the third will be a researcher/analyst either from the
Scottish Government’s RESAS or from the James Hutton Institute. The facilitators
(lead in bold) are shown below.
Blue Group (Garden suite/Meadow): Rosi Waterhouse, Alan Fraser, Dave
Miller
Red Group (Garden suite/Orchard): Jo O’Hara, Roy McLachlan and Keith
Matthews
Yellow Group (Garden suite/lounge): Helen Stanley, Drew Sloan, Neil
Swanson
Green Group (Ballroom): John Brownlee, Ian Davidson, Adele McAnuff
All breakout groups should nominate a rapporteur to summarise the main points from
the group’s discussions back to the conference.
BREAKOUT DISCUSSIONS
PAYMENT REGIONS
The draft direct payments regulation allows us to create different payment rates in
Scotland by defining payment “regions” (for example, based on areas of land of a
similar quality which we have defined in some way) and by dividing Scotland’s direct
payment budget between these payment regions in some objective way. The
modelling work by JHI has considered both of these aspects.
Payment regions can be, but do not need to be, contiguous areas of land. They
need to be areas of land which can be classified as being similar in some objective
way. Therefore we need to consider what characteristics we can use to identify land
of a similar type.
JHI’s modelling has considered a number of different ways in which land could be
categorised. We could devise payment regions based on the agricultural capability
of the land and Scotland has a unique system to do this, which is the Land Capability
for Agriculture (LCA) classification system. A similar approach would be to use the
Less Favoured Area (LFA) classification and to group land of a similar LFA type into
the same payment region.
Alternatively, although we know that Europe will not allow us to link payments with
current production, we could use historic production patterns such as arable,
permanent grass and rough grazing to indicate established land types that can be
used to identify payment regions.
Another way could be to use historic Single Farm Payment (SFP) values to identify
land traditionally used for similar types of activity which can then be assigned into the
same payment region.
Question 1: Does the group have any views on the relative merits of
these different ways of defining land of a similar type for classification
into payment regions?
Payment regions can also be defined at different levels of scale. The two levels
which have been considered by the JHI in this round of modelling are the farm- and
the parish-levels.
With farm-level payment regions, all the relevant land on a farm will be assigned to
its appropriate payment region. This means that land within one business may be
assigned to more than one payment region and regional boundaries would in effect
cross the farm.
With parish-level payment regions, parishes will be assigned to a payment region
depending on the overall composition of the parish. In this case, all the land on a
farm is likely to be assigned to a single payment region.
Question 2: Does the group have any views on the relative merits of
using the farm versus the parish as the level for defining a payment
region?
PAYMENT REGION BUDGETS
Having considered payment regions, we now need to think about how we should
allocate funding between the payment regions. Again a number of different methods
have been evaluated by the JHI research and these are set out below. The models
do not take account of other schemes which may be funded in Scotland or other
decisions that we will need to take such as any movement of funds from Pillar 1 to
Pillar 2. In addition, Scotland’s future budget allocation is not yet known.
For each of these budgetary options examined by the JHI, an initial funding pot for
each payment region has been calculated and then this baseline sum has been
divided by the total area of eligible land in that region. This gives an average area
rate (€/ha) for each payment region and this reflects the final position when direct
payments, including the Greening payment, are 100% area-based.
Funding could be divided between payment regions based on the current amounts of
funding going to those regions (i.e. a historic budget scenario). The second way
used to divvy up budgets in this round of modelling is by taking account of the
relative quality of the land by considering the farm gate, agricultural output value.
In this case, the standard output was calculated and assigned to the land, the land
was assigned to payment regions and regional output totals worked out. Scotland’s
direct payment budget was then divided between the regions to reflect each region’s
share of the total standard outputs.
Regional budgets could also be allocated according to the relative amount of land in
each region. However, this would in effect give a common flat rate across all of
Scotland and we know this is not appropriate given the diversity of agriculture across
Scotland. Therefore, this option was adapted (weighted) to influence how the
funding is distributed between the regions. This means that different options could
be evaluated to reflect different sorts of possible policy outcomes. For example, the
weighting could favour “production” or weightings could favour poorer quality land
and “environmental” outcomes.
An Olympic Podium weighting has been used on models with three payment
regions to explore what could happen if funding was targeted at intermediate land
where farming options are starting to be reduced and where returns from the market
may not always adequately compensate farmers for the challenges they face when
farming this type of land. In this case weightings were used to allocate the lowest
per hectare rate to the poorest quality land, the highest rate on the intermediate
quality land and a middle rate on the best quality land.
An adjusted historic weighting was used to favour poorer quality land and it was
used on regional models with either two or three payment regions. Weightings were
used to increase the rates on the poorest quality land with this increase being funded
by the funds that would otherwise have been allocated to the other region (s).
Question 3: Does the group have any views on the relative merits of
these different ways of dividing Scotland’s direct payment budget
between the payment regions.
SCENARIOS MODELLED BY JHI
Future Basic Payments in Scotland will be made in payment regions as set out
above. So having looked at each of these issues in turn we now need to look at
scale, land type and budget distribution when they are combined.
Question 4: Does the group have any comments on any of the scenarios
modelled by JHI?
THE FUTURE
As the presentations showed, no matter what payment regions we decide upon for
the future CAP in Scotland, there will be significant impacts for Scottish businesses.
Question 5: How do the group think Scottish farming will adapt to the
future?
If you have any further comments please send to the CAP Moving Forward Mailbox
at: CAPMovingforward@scotland.gsi.gov.uk by 15th May 2013.
Annex A
Regions for Evaluation
Regional Model
Number of Regions
Farm Level - LCA 1a
2
Farm Level - LCA 1b
3
Farm Level - LCA 1c
4
Farm Level- LFA
3
Farm Level – Land
Type
3
Parish Level – LCA
1a
3
Parish Level – LCA
1b
9
Description of Regions
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Parish Level –
Historical SFP
9
Parish Level – Land
Type
3
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1 – 5.3
6.1 – 7
1 – 3.1
3.2 – 5.3
6.1 – 7
1 – 3.2
4.1 – 4.2
5.1 – 5.3
6.1 - 7
Non-LFA
LFA
LFA-HIE
Arable (incl. Temporary Grass)
Permanent Grass
Rough Grazing
1 – 3.1
3.2 – 5.3
6.1 – 7
1 – 3.1 (Dominance = >75%)
1 – 3.1 (Dominance = 50-74%)
3.2 – 4.2 (Dominance = >75%)
3.2 – 4.2 (Dominance = 50-74%)
No Dominant Class (but most
land is 1 – 4.2)
5.1 – 5.3 (between 50 and 74%
in terms of dominance)
No Dominant Class (but most
land is 5+)
6.1 - 7 (Dominance = 50-74%)
6.1 – 7 (Dominance = >75%)
€1-<20; €20-49; €50-99; €100149; €150-199;
€200-249;
€250-299;
€300-349; €350+
Arable (incl. Temporary Grass)
Permanent Grass
Rough Grazing