The current crisis is set to influence the shape of the Scottish Government’s future farming policy. In an exclusive interview with The Courier, Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing acknowledged the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated to the nation the tenuous nature of food supplies and the critical importance of domestic agriculture. “I’ve said on innumerable occasions the primary purpose of farmers is to produce safe, nutritious, tasty food, but the message now will resonate very strongly throughout society as a whole because of the fears brought by this crisis, which has brought home the fragility of the supply chain and global export links, so it will influence policy in future and I welcome that,” he said. “It is early days to talk about policy beyond Covid19, because the whole focus is on that and everything else has been put aside, quite rightly, but as a principle, future support payments must be linked to food production – it’s not a dispensable extra, it’s an inherent, essential part of the security of society.”
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