Small landholdings modernisation: consultation

Ministerial Foreword

Small landholdings are a part of our Scottish agricultural and national heritage, and we are determined to have them as part of our future. We are fully committed to modernising their truly unique legislative status to ensure small landholders have comparable rights with other types of land tenure, and the opportunity to contribute to our wider objectives.

In recent years we have seen a series of global shocks that have had, and continue to have, an impact on global food security. While we deal with the short-term challenges, we must address the climate and biodiversity crises whilst reaching Net Zero by 2045.

Despite these challenges, we remain committed to realising our Vision for agriculture and we believe our small landholders, although few in number, can contribute to delivering this ambition. We know that many of Scotland’s small scale producers are our innovators, and we are determined to support them by modernising the small landholdings legislation so they can play their part in helping Scottish agriculture address these twin crises.

Scotland’s farmers, crofters and land-managers are vital to our ambition to make our nation fairer and greener, and small landholders are part of this farming ambition. I urge everyone to take the opportunity to share your views and engage with this process, and please encourage everyone you know to take part in this consultation as well.

I know many of you contributed to the Scottish Government’s Small landholdings in Scotland: legislation review 2016, and this consultation builds on your responses to that review. Your responses to this consultation will give us a tremendous insight into how best we can begin modernising small landholdings.

Mairi Gougeon, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands