Farmers urged to take part in red tape consultation

14 Dec 2012

Farmers across Scotland have been urged to take part in a newly launched consultation aimed at reducing red tape in the industry.

The Scottish Conservatives are urging the farming community to get involved in the hope their opinions will help ease the burden of bureaucracy in future.

The overall review was announced in January, with the latest phase – unveiled this week – giving farmers the chance to express their views.

Scottish Conservative rural affairs spokesman Alex Fergusson MSP said:

“All farmers should take advantage of this opportunity to play a part in trying to reduce the amount of red tape that so bedevils agriculture and, in many cases, acts as a constraint of farmers’ ambitions.

“Farmers rightly and understandably complain of the amount of bureaucracy that they have to deal with on a day to day basis, so this review offers the perfect opportunity to put forward practical solutions on how that bureaucracy can be minimised.

“I therefore urge all farmers who have something to say on this subject to say it now, through this consultation – there might not be another chance for a very long time.”

 

 

The online discussion is available here: www.farmregulation-doingbetter.org

There are number of measures being proposed to reduce red tape, including:

 

-          A single national database for reliable sheep traceability

-          moving to web based systems to simplify data returns and provide tailored guidance

-          Adopting a risk- evaluation approach when selecting farms for cross compliance inspections. Farm Assured producers should be treated as much lower risk and therefore undergo fewer inspections.

-          Streamline the requirements for paper records

-          Simplify cattle identification and traceability