Scottish Tenant Farmers Association voices CAP concerns on deer farming

The Scottish Tenant Farmers Association has expressed its concerns to the Scottish Government that the inclusion of deer farmers in the new CAP support regime may encourage some sporting estates to fence in wild deer on hill ground to qualify as eligible for entitlement to Single Farm Payment.

STFA chairman Christopher Nicholson said: “Deer farmers missed out on the last CAP programme and so it is only right and proper that they become eligible for support in the future.

“However, it is crucial that deer farming is rigidly defined so that only bona fide deer farmers are able to draw down support payments and the floodgates are not opened for substantial areas of hill to be enclosed and stocked with wild deer masquerading as domestically run farmed animals.

“Future reductions in the CAP budget makes it all the more important that SFP is targeted at those who need support to maintain their businesses and that farming activity is robustly defined.

Actively farmed inbye land will be relatively easy to define, but steps must be taken to prevent Scotland’s vast hill areas becoming a cash cow for the undeserving”.