The Scotsman at The Royal Highland Show - Day one - video Dailymotion

Rural Affairs correspondent Katharine Hay reports from the Royal Highland Show at Ingleston Show Ground in Edinburgh

Transcript

00:00Hi, Catherine Hay here, Rural Affairs Correspondent at The Scotsman.

00:04I'm just standing in the grounds of the Royal Highland Show, which is Scotland's largest

00:10agricultural event that takes place each year.

00:13It's taking place over a period of four days from Thursday to Sunday this week.

00:18I've just been walking around asking farmers, policy makers about what the mood of farming

00:24is in Scotland today, and there's quite a lot of mixed feelings over policy and how policy

00:31works under both the Scottish and UK governments.

00:35The first day started quite positive with Myrie Goujon, the Rural Affairs Secretary in Scotland,

00:41announcing that the Scottish Government is rejecting the Climate Change Committee's recent recommendation

00:47that Scotland should cut its livestock numbers by 27% by 2040.

00:52Naturally, that caused widespread concern among the farming community, but Myrie Goujon

00:57confirmed that the Scottish Government will not be doing that.

01:01She also announced a £14 million funding for the Future Farming Scheme, which allows grants

01:09up to £20,000 for people in farming, tenant farmers, people who are coming, young entrants,

01:15young farmers, to help them with their businesses.

01:19So all in all, that was quite positive, certainly a positive way of opening the Royal Highland

01:23show, which she did just on Thursday morning.

01:29But speaking at the National Farmers Union Scotland briefing, there were various members of the

01:36Union talking about their fears over some of the recent trade deal discussions going on.

01:41For example, the latest being a potential deal with the Gulf countries.

01:47Members of the Union were saying they were concerned that that will open doors for Britain to be

01:52importing lower welfare, meat with lower welfare standards than what we have here in the UK,

01:58which could undermine the high quality of produce that we have here in Britain.

02:03The family farm tax also came up in discussion, and the farming unions were saying that they're

02:08really going to keep building pressure on the UK government to change and revise that proposal.

02:16Ian Murray, however, was here as well, and he was saying that the Labour government are not

02:20going to budge on that proposal.

02:23So there's a bit of uncertainty around that.

02:26We're due to see a response to the EFRA committee report, which was published last month saying

02:32that there had been quite poor communication over this policy and that vulnerable farmers

02:35were at risk.

02:37And that committee was made up of the majority of Labour politicians, but a response to that

02:42committee report will be issued in a month's time.

02:45The Scotsman is going to be covering events at the Royal Highland show for the next couple

02:49of days.

02:50And I'll be talking on a panel discussion at the law firm Sheppard and Wedderburn tent on

02:56Friday morning between 9 and 11.

03:00On the panel will be the conservative MSP, Finlay Carson, and also the rugby legend, Rob

03:06Wainwright, who's also a farmer on the Isle of Coal.

03:09So if you're interested, you can come along to that if you're coming along to the show.

03:12Otherwise you can follow footage and coverage on the Royal Highland show on the Scotsman website.