Agricultural Bill Consultation - Your Views

Scottish Government  are currently consulting on the proposed Agriculture  Bill
This is a significant piece of legislation that will lay out the way  agriculture is funded and supported from 2025. 
  

Your views

SOPA is currently  formulating our response, but we represent you, so we invite you to  contribute your views and help us formulate our policy position. It is one of  our core functions to represent Membership views and to ensure we know your  thoughts, we have produced a survey based on the ScotGov Consultation paper.
 
We ask you to complete our Member survey here
 
You will find the consultation document very long-winded and vague, which is  frustrating and disappointing.  The ScotGov consultation is very high  level and is just scoping out the main framework of the legislative  powers.  It does not detail payment rates or the specific measures,  these will come later.
 
To aid your understanding, in the SOPA Survey we have tried to summarise the  Scottish Government consultation and introduce SOPA's outline position on the  issues most relevant to organic food and farming.  This should give you  an idea of what we currently think and will help you understand what Scottish  Government are proposing. This is our chance to influence the way future  payments are delivered, so your perseverance to complete this is important.  Even partly completed surveys are useful, so don't be put off. 
 
While we very much value your views to help us formulate SOPA's response, we  also urge you to complete the consultation in your  own right.  We need organic farming mentioned to keep the profile up,  and let ScotGov know how important organic farming is to the sustainable  future of food production, soil and biodiversity restoration and climate  actions.  The more responses that mention organic, the better. 
 
If you feel that you wish to add further comments that aren't covered in the  SOPA survey, then you are of course welcome to email us and let us know your  views. 
 
Please complete the SOPA Member Survey by 11th November to give us time to  incorporate your views to our submission response. 
 
Thank you for your help
 
Jo Barron (Policy Lead)
Debs Roberts (Executive Manager)

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