The Great Scottish land grab

We face a Wild West scenario driven by the obsession for planting trees

The land is the tool of our trade and we can’t farm without it

Super-rich multinational firms are buying huge swathes of Scots farmland so they can plant trees. They claim they are offsetting their carbon emissions and securing the future of rural communities. But farmers liken the state-aided scheme to the greed of the Californian gold rush. They say it is happening under the noses of Holyrood, threatening thousands of jobs ... and the FOOD on our plates

IT is a way of life that has barely changed for generations, but Scotland’s farmlands are facing a menace that could threaten thousands of jobs and even the homegrown food on the nation’s plates. Yet it is no parasite or trade deal that is sending panic through the hearts of those who stand guardian of vast swathes of this country’s rolling pasturelands – it is the humble tree and the thousands of cash-rich investors who see it as a new business venture.

Across Scotland, neat rows of hundreds of thousands of young saplings have been appearing on land where crops previously grew or sheep and cows once grazed.

But rather than being a positive sign of politicians taking their Cop26 climate pledges seriously, worried farmers warn there is something far more sinister, and irreversible, at work which threatens their livelihoods and, crucially, Scotland’s ability to produce enough food to be self-sufficient at a time of soaring prices and shortages.

For north of the Border, farmland is being sold at an alarming rate, one which has been likened to the Californian gold rush of the mid-19th Century, and it is being snapped up by financial speculators from all over the world, tempted by government grants and tax incentives.

They argue they are effectively ‘cancelling out’ the damage caused to the planet by their company’s energy usage and carbon emissions by covering what in many cases is prime agricultural land with thousands of acres of trees in an attempt to combat global warming.

That they also hope to secure generous corporate investments by this ‘carbon offsetting’ and, eventually, pull in the profits to match, seems to have been overlooked by a Scottish Government which appears reluctree tant to step in as it has committed to planting 46,500 hectares of new woodland by April 2025, roughly equivalent to 93 million trees.

But today this newspaper can reveal that whatever the well-meaning intentions, it has led to a ‘land grab’ which is seeing hundreds of farmers across the country being cold-called weekly by forestry companies, offering them up to six times what their farm is worth to persuade them to sell up.

Standard Life Investments, Aviva and BrewDog are among the bestknown examples of companies that have spent tens of millions of pounds in the past year buying land for forestry, peatland restoration and woodland creation in Scotland to offset their carbon emissions or sell climate-focused investments to their clients.

Similar scenarios are being played out in England and Wales, as the grant scheme is UK-wide, but Scottish farming chiefs say it is the SNP government’s ‘obsession’ with being seen to be ‘greener than anywhere else’ that means around 80 per cent of Britain’s new planting took place in Scotland last year.

National Farmers’ Union Scotland (NFUS) vice-president Andrew Connon says he is hearing on an almost-daily basis from members about the loss of productive agricultural land to wholesale forestry.

He said: ‘I don’t want to be alarmist but we are facing a Wild West scenario here and it is being driven by the Scottish Government’s obsession for planting trees.

‘The impact on the public will be less Scottish produce and more imported food, not to mention job losses and the destruction of vibrant rural economies.

‘If nothing else, the war in Ukraine has exposed the weaknesses of countries across Europe as foodproducing nations and it is going to be eroded further if we allow this land grab to continue.’

The NFUS is calling for a rethink and a food impact review to be carried out by the government before what it terms the ‘modern-day Highland Clearances’ deals a fatal blow to Scotland’s hard-pressed agricultural industry, which directly employs 67,000 people, with thousands more in supporting roles.

Around 85 per cent of Scottish farmland is already termed as ‘less favoured areas’, meaning it is no good for crop growing because of geographical factors.

With the remaining 15 per cent classed as ‘productive’, however, it is this which is proving to be the battleground for farmers and investors alike, sending land values rocketing and pricing any individuals with a genuine interest in farming out of the market.

Under new incentives, landowners who plant conifers can receive £3,300 per hectare over five years, rising to £6,210 for broadleaf species. Meanwhile, in the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, where trees are scarce because of frequent windy conditions, those planting native broadleaf trees can expect up to £7,450 per hectare.

Mr Connon, who has met Cabinet Secretary Mairi Gougeon and senior officials from Scottish Forestry to call for tighter tree planting restrictions, said: ‘I’m not against planting trees but not in these numbers on productive farmland. It is verging on immoral to allow this to go unchecked.

‘We’ve asked the Government repeatedly to have a rethink and consider food production in the face

of this widespread sale of farms. We have no issue with thriving farm businesses integrating woodland into their land to help towards meeting government targets and diversifying their interests.

‘But we are fundamentally opposed to big corporations and financial institutions planting trees to earn themselves carbon credits.

‘What are they actually doing inhouse to sort out their own impact on the environment, rather than subjecting Scotland to modern-day Highland Clearances?’

A report last month from the Scottish Land Commission shows farmland values rose by 31.2 per cent north of the Border last year against 6.2 per cent across the UK. It also shows ‘non-farming investors’, including large companies and investment firms, alongside charities, bought almost half the estates sold in Scotland during that period.

In nearly two-thirds of cases, these were secret, ‘off-market’ deals, with locals given little or no chance to bid.

Speculation in carbon credits is helping to drive the trend, the Scottish Land Commission said, as investors also capitalise on rising prices for timber and farmland.

In Galloway, in the south-west of Scotland, which along with the Borders and South Lanarkshire, has found itself on the front line of the demand, one hill farmer, Jim Ramsay, says it is unacceptable that rural areas are being ‘sacrificed to absolve big business of their carbon sins’.

‘There’s something about farming the land as your father and grandfather did,’ he says, casting an eye over his prize-winning flock of blackface sheep. ‘The land is the tool of our trade and we can’t farm without it.

‘But the thought of trees and nature living in harmony is not always one shared by the farming community. The politicians think “Oh, we’ll plant trees and it’ll make us very popular”. It’s almost a kind of fast-food cure to the situation but when you take it apart it’s a window-dressing exercise.

‘The Government should sit up and take notice. They are looking at simple targets for covering areas with trees but they are not looking at the detail. They are just paying lip service to eco-conservation.’

Mr Ramsay says in recent months he has seen four ‘reasonably large’ farms bought for forestry close to his Milnmark Farm near Dalry, Kirkcudbrightshire, which he coowns with other family members.

‘The pendulum is swinging towards forestry at a time when food security is becoming more important,’ he adds.

‘The SNP were once the party of the countryside but we are seeing a slow erosion of land across Scotland, particularly in the south, which is now under huge pressure because it has good land, ideal for dairy farming, and relatively good connections for timber transport compared to the Highlands.

‘Some farmers are being offered wild figures for their land, such as between £5,000 and £6,000 per hectare, when around £1,000 a hectare for an upland farm would be the normal. I’m told there are even forestry companies offering big money to people with long-established long-term tenancies to effectively quit them to allow the forest company to do a deal with the landowner. That’s how desperate the situation is for these companies to get hold of land.’

Known as natural capital or green finance investments, corporations have come under intense pressure to absorb or offset their carbon emissions to hit the Paris climate accord goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C by 2050.

Mr Ramsay added: ‘There are young people who would love to farm and are not getting the opportunity through these ridiculous land values created in the pretence of carbon offset, not to mention the detrimental effect large areas of conifers are having on wildlife.

‘In Galloway Forest Park, a study estimated 250 miles of waterways were now devoid of life because the canopy from the trees prevented rainfall reaching the ground, particularly in summer months. Commercial afforestation in Galloway and the Border hills has been blamed for the loss of 5,000 breeding pairs of curlews.’

Land reform body Community Land Scotland has also urged the Government to regulate green

financing projects to ensure they support genuine carbon offsetting, as well as calling for the removal of tax exemptions which distort land prices and a need for land owners to produce management plans and public interest tests for large estates.

Yesterday, a BrewDog spokesman said: ‘The Lost Forest [near Aviemore, Inverness-shire] is on a site, for the most part, not suitable for agriculture. There are some fields around the A9 and Loch Alvie with better land for farming and this is let to a local farmer. No tree planting is proposed for this land.’

The Scottish Government says around half of the current applications for woodland creation are for

Subjecting Scotland to modern-day Highland Clearances

Young people who would love to farm are not getting the opportunity

small projects – mainly from farmers and crofters – and it is ‘taking action to ensure increasing levels of natural capital investment in Scotland deliver benefits for local communities and wider society’.

This includes a Land Reform Bill and the publication of interim principles for any new investment in woodlands north of the Border.

A spokesman said: ‘We do acknowledge the concerns the sector has raised on this issue.’

But Mr Ramsay said: ‘One of the things the war in Ukraine has shown us is that land is a dear and precious thing. Everywhere, it seems, except Scotland, where the Government gives away hard-pressed taxpayers’ money and sets up rural Scotland to exploitation by super-wealthy foreign interests who care not a jot for the land they control, only that it allows them the pretence of climate change mitigation.

‘Scots must stand up against the green clearances of a rural population that has been farming its “wee bit hill and glen” since Scotland’s first farmers settled here thousands of years ago.’