Annual Report

Annual Report and Accounts 2009

For a full copy of the NFU Scotland 2009 Annual Report click here, for a full copy of the NFU Scotland Financial Report 2009 click here or contact NFUS Head Office.  The following is the President's Report for 2009 and the Chief Executive's Report:

President's Report

This success can be measured in several different ways.

It can be measured by continued increases in membership despite the slow reduction in the number of farmers in the industry; strengthening of our staff body with the deployment of extra regional managers; success in influencing Scottish Government policy and a continued sound financial position for the organisation.

The only true measure of success, however, is whether Scottish agriculture is profitable or not and whether our members are confident enough to reinvest in their businesses and take all sectors of this industry forward.

Continuing volatility in almost every market is causing alarm and uncertainty to remain for many farmers. The beef, sheep and pig sectors have enjoyed a better year, whilst profitability for others is hard to find. Arable and potato growers have had a rocky few months, and for those milking cows, the gains seen in commodity prices and recovering margins in the processing sector have been painfully slow to filter down to the farm gate level.

Every commodity has been affected by huge swings in price. In 2009, a tonne of wheat has been roughly equivalent in value to one and a half prime lambs.

Back in 2007, it required the value of almost six prime lambs to buy the same tonne of wheat.

Climate change has raced towards the top of the political agenda, and agriculture will be hugely important in both the mitigation of and adaptation to, the changing climate. On the mitigation front, there are enormous opportunities for farmers to cut emissions and therefore reduce waste, in terms of livestock disease reductions and eradication, reduced inorganic fertiliser inputs and better use of nitrogen fixing crops such as red clover.

Regards adaptation, warmer, drier summers bring the prospect of new crops, such as maize, being grown successfully further north, reducing our reliance on purchased or imported livestock feed. Longer growing seasons will help all sectors, while significantly wetter winters (if such a thing is possible!) will definitely bring challenges.

As a nation, we will probably need to conserve more of this winter rainfall in extra reservoirs, for both our home consumption and the prospect of export. New opportunities for hydropower generation may emerge, and the role of agriculture in energy delivery generally is set to increase dramatically.

Renewable energy continues to attract significant levels of support which radically alter the investment payback times and significantly enhance the viability of such schemes, bringing them within reach of many more of our members.

Throughout this debate, politicians must be guided by science and understanding rather than emotion and ignorance. Agriculture requires access to the latest technologies available, whether they are in plant and animal breeding, disease eradication, precision farming techniques or renewable energy.

The majority of global human advances have been achieved through research over many years, many of them in Scotland. What right do we have to deprive future generations by standing in the way of research now?

The challenges for our industry, and therefore NFUS, remain enormous. The arable sector generally, with cereals and potatoes in particular, is suffering terribly. The dairy industry is clinging on by its fingernails, waiting for the crumbs from the table.

Farmers in our most disadvantaged areas are praying for a targeted support system which will acknowledge the very real difficulties they face, whilst removing support from those whose difficulties have reduced or ended through production drops or cessations.

As discussions around the delivery of Single Farm Payment (SFP) in Scotland get into top gear, there will undoubtedly be heated debate, which is great, provided it is also an informed debate.

This organisation will continue to position itself at the centre of these discussions, always endeavouring to facilitate the widest possible consultation, to arrive at the best outcome for the greatest majority of farmers. NFU Scotland is, and will continue to be, the farmers’ organisation.

Jim McLaren, President

Chief Executive's Report

It is obviously traditional in an annual report to reflect on the twelve months that have passed.  However, it is difficult not to do the opposite and look ahead at what promises to be a challenging and exciting future.

One of the dominant debates in the coming months and years will be how we wish to design Scotland’s farm support system. The Single Farm Payment (SFP) is heading for change.   Quite what that change looks like remains to be seen.  The debate is still at its early stages.  Former ANM Chief Executive Brian Pack’s review is just getting going and the first thoughts of the European Commission on the subject will be uncovered early in 2010.  We have started the dialogue with you, our members, early and I’d encourage all of you to get involved in the debate in any way you can.

It is during these kinds of big debates that a strong, representative force for farmers is critical, one that allows for views across all sectors and regions to feed in.  NFU Scotland remains the only comprehensive voice for the whole industry, and we need to make that voice heard louder than ever if we are to meet head on the challenges and opportunities in front of us.

We are in a stronger position to do that now than we have been before.  As promised in last year’s report, we have invested in members’ services over the last year.  Two further regional managers - Lucy Sumsion in Argyll and the Islands and Carolyn Dunlop in Dumfries and Galloway – have joined us bringing renewed strength to the regional work.  A team that comprised just three regional managers across our nine regions when I joined NFUS, now sits at seven.  We have strengthened our policy team with the arrival of Catherine Ronald and Wendy Irwin has joined the communications team.  It is a credit to NFUS that we can attract the talent we do and if this organisation is to deliver, then a strong, committed staff body is essential.

The focus on local activity has been a real priority over the last couple of years and the ensured that we continue to reap the benefits of having a fantastic network of group secretaries out in the field.  We are trying to break the mould where we can and the increase in on-farm events has, in many cases, trebled the numbers of members coming out to local meetings.  We are encouraging all areas and Branches to think of new ideas for activity and we will do whatever we can to support developments.  This is your Union, run by you for you.

The sound financial foundation of the organisation has allowed us to invest in these services to members.  Once again this year, we will report a modest profit and the most significant reason that we continue to strengthen as an organisation is because of the growing support from members.

For 50 years, NFU Scotland’s membership was slowly reducing, in line with the general reduction in the number of farmers across the country.  That trend has been reversed for three years running now. 

At the Highland Show last summer, our President Jim McLaren welcomed the 1000^th new member since he took office in the Spring of 2007.  That is tremendous achievement and a testament to a President, supported by staff at Ingliston and in the local offices, who are willing to spend time getting round the kitchen table with non-members and helping grow the organisation and support existing members. 

The high regard in which NFUS is held is also a direct consequence of the commitment of hundreds of farmer members who voluntary give up their time to further the industry’s cause.

NFUS is in very good heart.  I am not going to list all the successes we’ve had in the last year; they are spelt out for you in this document.  I hope you find time to read what is really only a snapshot of the work done in the last 12 months.

I wish you a very successful 2010 and thank you sincerely for your support in 2009; none of the activity in this Annual Report could have been achieved without it.

James Withers, Chief Executive