SAC Rural Policy Centre

The growing agenda on the environmental and social benefits of maintaining farming production, particularly in areas where farming is 'non-economic', has led to increasing policy focus on how these systems can be maintained. Non-economic farming systems tend to be extensive, managing larger proportions of land under rough and common grazing and, as a result, are generally low income or non-economic operations. However, they also tend to be environmentally valuable given the large tracts of land under less intensive management.

This Briefing reports the key findings of a study (commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage and other agencies) which examined the rationale for supporting these so-called non-economic farming systems and compared the possible impacts of a change in payment mechanisms on these farms.

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