Members’ Business: Emma Roddick: Growing2Gether Programme Success

Liam McArthur S6M-20387 That the Parliament acknowledges that the Future Farming Investment Scheme sought to provide farmers and crofters with funding to help them buy new machinery, improve efficiency or reduce emissions, and was targeted towards islanders, new entrants, young farmers and tenant farmers; understands that Orkney businesses initially received only 3.48% of total funding, and Shetland 1.88%; notes with concern reports that fewer than one in 10 small farms and crofters across Scotland received funding, with many small farms from the Highlands and Islands to Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute and the south of Scotland also missing out; believes that much of the communication around this scheme has caused confusion, and indeed anger, among those in the agricultural sector; expresses deep regret that, while demand for the scheme was high, so few small, island and young farmers were successful, despite seemingly being from priority groups, and notes the calls on the Scottish Government to provide further clarity on how the funding for the scheme was allocated, as well as to publish its review on the Future Farming Investment Scheme, as committed by the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands on 10 December 2025. Further details available for S6M-20387