The Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF) is warning all crofters to respond to the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) consultations or risk being cheated of what is rightfully theirs.
“Crofters need to wake up to what is being suggested in the consultations” Norman Leask, SCF’s ‘Man in Brussels’ cautioned. “The objective in the European Commission has been to provide more support to small producers right from the outset of these protracted negotiations but gradually the large farmers’ representatives have eroded this intention. In Scotland it is the same. We were led to believe that crofters, small producers existing in the harshest and most fragile areas of the Highlands and Islands, were to get real and equitable support at last. But in the short time between the first consultations and this second stage, the large farmers’ representatives have stepped up lobbying pressure in the desperate attempt to keep the money, and the Scottish Government seems to be bowing to this. If crofters don’t speak up and respond to the consultations, they will get shafted.”
