Agriculture, Current Challenges Facing the Sector and the Opportunities

As an amendment to motion S4M-14327 in the name of Richard Lochhead (Agriculture, Current Challenges Facing the Sector and the Opportunities), leave out from "but" to end and insert “; recognises and celebrates the importance of the agriculture sector to Scotland’s rural economies and its international reputation as a producer of quality food and drink; notes the importance of the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board to securing workers’ wellbeing and livelihoods; believes that the sector can deliver greater social justice and economic benefit to rural communities through the promotion of cooperatives, greater biodiversity, organic food production and land conservation to aid the continued stewardship of Scotland’s land; notes the new opportunities presented by agro-ecology; further notes the significant potential of the sector to deliver sustainable and effective action to meet the Scottish Government’s climate change targets, for example from on-farm action and community-owned renewable energy; recognises the damaging impact that global price fluctuations caused in summer 2015, particularly in the dairy sector; calls on the Scottish Government to accelerate the implementation of the Dairy Action Plan; further calls on it to facilitate and enable the overhaul of the sector’s supply chains to deliver fairer prices for farmers and shorter supply chains, enhance product development to add value to quality raw materials and to promote diversification within the sector; considers that new targets should be set for the Scottish Government to improve the procurement of Scottish produce across the public and private sectors in Scotland; urges the Scottish Government to clarify the delivery of 2015 CAP Pillar 1 payments before the payment window opening on 1 December 2015 and to press the UK Government to allocate Scotland a fair share of Europe’s new €500 million market support package, and recognises the failure of the UK Government to allocate the £190 million convergence uplift and to deliver the most appropriate arrangements for the Scottish agricultural sector red meat levies."