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Agribusiness News February 2025 – Policy Brief

31 January 2025

Foot and Mouth Disease & Avian Flu

Following the discovery of foot and mouth disease in water buffalo in Brandenburg; imports of cattle, sheep and pigs from Germany have been banned to protect farmers and crofters, their livelihoods and food security. More information about foot and mouth disease, including biosecurity guidance, is available online at www.gov.scot/footandmouthdisease

Following an increase in the number of detections of Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) in wild birds and other captive birds, the UK is now a national Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ).
If you have any concerns about livestock or birds, please immediately contact your local Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) Field Services Office.

Heating Grant

With this winter already bringing extreme weather events in terms of snow and wind; through the RSABI, farmers and crofters who are struggling with the cost of living and spending more than 10% of their household income on heating costs can apply for a £400 Help for Heating grant. For more information, you can call the RSABI on 0808 1234 555 or use their online tool to see if you qualify.

Area Monitoring Pilot

As part of the Scottish Government’s aim to modernise our agricultural support, they are running a pilot Area Monitoring Service.

The Area Monitoring Service is a way of capturing real time information on farming activity using satellite imagery and will allow the Scottish Government to identify what farmers and crofters are doing with their land.
As the system will be able to flag any changes to land use in real time; Scot Gov will be able to use this data to check if businesses are compliant with support schemes or legal requirements. It will also provide data on land use where land users do not currently apply for agricultural support. The premise being that it will:

  • Save on staff time
  • Enable greater monitoring for the purposes of climate change and nature targets.
  • Provide information to help monitor and improve compliance.
  • Similar systems are being used or tested in England and Wales and the European Union.

To give a representative sample of Scotland, the pilot is being run in Skye, the Highlands, Dundee and East Lothian and will run until the end of March 2025.

As the pilot will use historic data to allow Scot Gov to test the technology; it will not have any impact on farmers and crofter current or upcoming claims.

National Flood Advisory Service

Following on from the devastating floods caused by Storm Babet in 2023, a National Flood Advisory Service will be established to improve Scotland’s flood resilience and to embed best practice on a nationwide scale.
The service is one of the actions in Scotland’s first National Flood Resilience Strategy. The service will provide support and advice on building flood resilience to delivery partners and communities and to provide the governance framework for progressing high value flood actions such as flood protection schemes.

With an additional £15 million being pledged in the draft 2025-26 budget, as the new strategy aims to extend beyond ‘fixing’ individual flood problems to create flood resilient places and communities, other key actions include:

  • Working to improve our understanding of how urban and rural landscapes can be adapted for flood mitigation
  • Support for a broader range of flood actions including smaller flood protection schemes and property level flood resilience
  • Improvements in how data is used to inform decision making and raise community awareness of current and future flood exposure.

New Housing Planning Hub

From early 2025, a new Housing Planning Hub will be operational; the aim of which is to increase the rate at which homes requiring planning permission are delivered. In 2023/24, despite a 27% decrease in planning applications for small, local housing applications; the average processing time increased from 17 to 19 weeks against a statutory timeframe of 8 weeks.

The Hub will tackle reasons for delays, which include lengthy negotiations of Section 75 agreements, waits on decisions for major developments, funding issues, or policy requirements to address issues such as flooding or biodiversity.

Christine Beaton, christine.beaton@sac.co.uk

 

Key Date to Note

Point to NoteDate
PSF Grant claim deadline for Carbon Audits, Soil Analysis and Animal Health and Welfare Plans28 Feb 25

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