Clearance by drought?

The water has been turned off again, this time for four days now. - the usual; no written warning, nothing...

We have a handful of cattle in the shed, one or two calves being hand reared some cattle ready for market. All of them need water so The Farmer and I are back to lugging 25 liter containers of water from the temporary house and up to the farm.

The last time that the water was turned off with no warning came right in the middle of calving so water was imperative, clean water very important.

During winter, our water went off - not through freezing but was switched off. Our MP demanded the estate provide water and a bowser appeared for the cattle - none for us - the bowser was then removed the following day and a limited supply of water reached the cow sheds. It went off again soon after and it was easier to lug containers than to get the estate to either explain why the supply was off or even contact us.

Our 1890 lease forbids us from providing our own water supply. We are wholly dependent on the laird providing the farm with water. We are forbidden from digging a well or sinking a bore hole.

I know that certain land agents read this blog so this part is for your eyes in particular.

The same land agents who ordered someone to do this......

There is now, in formal international human rights law, an acknowledged human right to water and sanitation. In 28 July 2010, following many years of discussion, debate, and negotiation, 122 countries formally acknowledged the "right to water" in a General Assembly (GA) resolution (A/64/292, based on draft resolution A/64/L.63/Rev.1).^[1] Two months later, on September 24, 2010, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a binding resolution recognizing that the human right to water and sanitation are a part of the right to an adequate standard of living.^[2]

That resolution, in part:

"Affirms that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and human dignity"

The human right to water places certain responsibilities upon governments to ensure that people can enjoy "sufficient, safe, accessible and affordable water, without discrimination" (cf. GC 15, below). Most especially, governments are expected to take reasonable steps to avoid a contaminated water supply and to ensure there are no water access distinctions amongst citizens.

"Without discrimination". Read on.....

"It is now time to consider access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right, defined as the right to equal and non-discriminatory access to a sufficient amount of safe drinking water for personal and domestic uses—drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation and personal and household hygiene—to sustain life and health. States should prioritize these personal and domestic uses over other water uses and should take steps to ensure that this sufficient amount is of good quality, affordable for all and can be collected within a reasonable distance from a person's home." 

I will remind the laird or the land agents who run the estate that we are humans. Our livestock rely on us, our crops are managed by us.
We have dignity and will not be forced from our farm through harassment and bullying.

If we were given the absolute right to own our farm then we would be free of the constraints and whims of the landowner who seems hellbent on Clearance by drought using terms set in 1890.

Urgent reform NOW, Mr Lochhead. We thirst for it.

"You'll have had your tea" update

Just a brief update and a copy of the reply by SEPA. I have edited out the names of individuals but you will get the jist of how pathetic the response.

From my visit to ****** ******* and the surrounding area last week I can update you of the following:

• I walked the banks of the River *********** where possible and also inspected a number of locations downstream of the spreading activities.  I was reassured to find that the sewage sludge cake was not spread in close proximity to the river and other watercourses. ‘Buffer strips’ to protect the water environment were complied with and no sign of detrimental impact of the water course was found.

• As you are aware odour from the spreading activities is regulated by Perth & Kinross Council Environmental Health and ******* ****  is dealing with this aspect of your complaint.

• With regard to livestock being present whilst sewage sludge is being spread.  I did not find evidence of this during my own site investigations.  I am aware that Animal Health (AHVLA) were visiting ******** **** farm on the same day as my visit and they shall carry out their own investigation into this matter.  As mentioned before SEPA do not regulate this aspect of the activity.  I shall pass on your photographs you provided to Animal Health and my colleagues in SGRPID (Scottish Government Rural Payments Inspection Directorate) for their own investigations.

• With regard to livestock having access to the stockpiled sewage sludge cake, I have looked into this issue.  It is noted as ‘good practice’ to minimise access from livestock to stockpiles with recommendation for the storage area to be penned off.  This however is a recommendation and not a mandatory requirement of the regulations and PEPFAA code which farmers and land managers must adhere to.  I have contacted ORAN Environmental Solutions who provide the sewage sludge cake and register the storage of this waste with SEPA.  I have made them aware of SEPA’s concerns with good practice not being followed and requested more information be provided to farmers to encourage livestock access to stockpiles is minimised where possible. 

If I have anymore information with regard to SEPA’s investigation into this issue I shall contact you accordingly,

Thank you again for your information,

Regards,

--------------------------------------

A pathetic response, in my opinion. At least, the 'good practice' could be tightened up and at best, the sludge removed from being stockpiled near humans and animals.

So the lamb pictured nibbling the human sludge - that is ok? The lamb kebab that it may become one day, is that ok as well?

The majority of beef/ lamb producers adhere to the strictest guidelines in Europe, Scottish produce being second to none so I think it is imperative to keep the vile practice of spreading human sewage and lime well away from the food chain or better still ban it all together.

I received this letter from a friend in Northern Ireland and was shocked at the contrast.

"We live on a livestock farm in County Down. What I was going to say was the treatment your family have received is in conceivable to us! My husband reliably informs me that the EU directive states that it is illegal to spread slurry, manure or fertiliser within 50 metres of a water supply - ie bore holes or a well. We also need a special licence to spread human waste. He states that they would get a massive fine and lose all their single farm payment! NI is always considered to be behind the rest of the UK, it just would not go on here. Our press would have an absolute field day. Our rural community here would not tolerate the treatment you have had to put up with. My husband states it would make our main news! I was especially saddened when you told how your daughter couldn't start a wee business. Could you let us know if there is anything we can do from here. I would just like to say that we love your blog and are horrified by what is going on". --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "My husband has checked DARD NI's regulations and they state that animals should not be allowed to graze for 3 weeks, on land that has had human sludge applied. It also states that : ' Organic manures must not be applied within 250 metres of a bore hole used for public water supply. We have an EMERGENCY contact number for the public to report slurry etc getting into a waterway. I really don't know how you do it! Journalism in NI is first rate due to 'The Troubles'. Is there no TV programme in Scotland that exposes injustices? Our MPs would be inundated with complaints. The minister responsible for the environment would take a pasting in our Assembly if he was found to be ignoring activity such as you describe. It all seems so wrong to my husband and I. Farming is a hard life as it is, without being subjected to the trials and tribulations you face on a daily basis. Feel free to use any of this for your blog. I only wish that there was something we could do. Keep your chin up - someone somewhere in Scotland has to care enough to do something to improve your lives and the lives of others in the same position." Closer look just beside the house and well within the 50 feet the sludge must be kept from a water course.

I have posted a photograph of the waterway which 'has not been hit' and you can decide for yourself bearing in mind that the waterway is where the lead pipe which feeds water to two houses lies. The estate have acknowledged there is a crack in the pipe in this area. For the record, every inhabitant in our tiny community are still experiencing unusual symptoms which range from burning eyes, burning lips and mouths, burning skin, vomiting and stomach upsets. Lamb is also off the menu......

On yonder hill, there stood a coo.....

....It's no there noo,
it must have shifted.

I'm wondering if the wonderful Dundee poet, William Topaz McGonagall, had been inspired to put pen to paper after seeing a vacant farm, perhaps?

This blog entry has been inspired by not one but three empty farms....and not a cow in sight.

Before I write, I would like you to see a very basic definition on the three different types of agricultural tenancy in Scotland. The following excerpt is from the Shelter, Scotland website.

Which agricultural tenancy do I have?

You are likely to have a 1991 Act tenancy if:

• your lease began before 2003, or
• your lease began after 2003 but the terms and conditions specifically state that your tenancy is regulated by the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991.

You are likely to have a limited duration tenancy if:

• your lease began after 2003, and
• your lease lasts for more than five years.

You are likely to have a short limited duration tenancy if:

• your lease began after 2003, and
• your lease lasts for no more than five years.

Our family come under the 1991 Act tenancy and we are Secure Tenants. It is proving difficult to find out just how many other Secure Tenants 1991 there are in Scotland by my guess is that we are fairly thin on the ground.

We are the families who have farmed our farms for generations. Our family have farmed at The Back of Beyond since 1890.

Now, I can only speak for the other Secure tenants in my ken but the consensus appears that we all want to buy our farms from our lairds. We do not want to be held under feudal oppression and it would appear that the lairds hold us in utter contempt even more than certain Scottish government ministers do.

There was a debate in the Scottish Parliament yesterday on the issue of land reform - I will leave you to read the reports of those far wiser and more eloquent that me but from what I saw, the SNP had been caught by a 1960s Headmaster who commanded "YOU BOY! Yes, you. Come to the front of the class and explain your sleekit behaviour".

Some of the speakers had to be given Chinese burns on their wrists before they spat out that yes, they would look at the issue of tenant farming. It was like watching blood trickle from a stone.

We will see what happens but I do worry about the repercussions to those of us who are vulnerable, meantime.

Community buy-outs were mentioned. Lairds choked on their afternoon snifters. One laird even went as far as going stir crazy and donating TWO of his 55,000 plus acres for ten years, such was the emotion. How many people in Govan will benefit from all those lovely vegetables from a big, fat two acres? Was that an acre per finger, your lairdship?

Look at this.

I posted this picture the other day but this area had three farms. The families went to the local rural school with The Farmer's father. a grocery van used to drive around selling wares regularly and the last time the ground was worked was in the 1970s.  A local tenant (Secure tenant) was given permission to plough up a bit for grass. The factor had been vague about the acreage to be ploughed so the farmer kept going and 40 acres later, an out of breath factor commanded he stop.

The farmer told us the land barely had a stone in it and you could "Shove kindlers in that ground and they would grow"
The farmer sowed grass for grazing his sheep and it did well, grew well.

The laird decided that this would make good grouse shooting so the farmers were evicted and every stone of their houses removed. A bed frame and old stove are the only clues that this place once held families, supported visiting vans, the fields once grew barley. This little area suffered the Clearances circa 1930's -1940s.

I suppose it was important to shoot grouse whilst some went away and fought for their country.

This land could easily support a few families. I would love nothing better and see it scattered with wooden houses like the one we are living in, huts for holiday makers...the ideas are endless if the land was freed up.

It is still a grouse moor and I am led to believe that the shooting rights now belong to the person who has the shooting rights over our entire estate, some 36,000 acres give or take a few thou. Not that we know who he/she is. The estate refuse to communicate with us yet this shooting person appears to have shooting rights over our farm and God only knows what will happen when the Glorious 12th happens. I only hope they are better shots than the dingbat gun who managed to hit the only inhabited house in the area...

Stranger still, the land and *FOUR* neighbouring recently empty farms (all once inhabited by Secure tenants) (plus a further two farms which were amalgamated 50 years ago); they were never offered to the Secure tenants but instead given to a newcomer who, how do I put this diplomatically, was relatively new to farming for a chap of our age. 

Sorry if that sounds like sour grapes and that is not my intention but it is unusual for a town lad to take on four (6) farms all at once.
I won't deny this chap works really hard and is giving it his best shot, with heavy promotion- does he have to pay the laird a cut too like we do?

He is not a Secure tenant but a Limited partnership, in partnership with possibly the estate and in a partnership which could be terminated at the drop of a deerstalker; yet local feeling is that we don't actually KNOW who owns the estate.

Could it have been bought out by one of the huge land agencies? Who knows, there is no way of knowing this information in Scotland, hence Andy Wightman's tireless work to find out Who Owns Scotland?
We do know that the estate run by the laird's folk has long ceased, all the gamies evicted and a big-wig land agency calls the shots.

Is this land grab by stealth we are seeing?

Because we cannot find out if there was a sneaky buy out, there is no way of finding out if our registered Right to Buy was triggered off. Sneaky, hmm?

Furthermore, our much respected and late neighbour who died a year or so past, he had a Secure tenancy, he worked the farm with his brother and nephews. Because of the stifling succession laws in Scottish Agricultural law, his brother was unable to take on the farm as a secure tenancy and the nephew was forced to agree to a short limited tenancy. So don't believe all the guff about the support given to new entrants - their farms could be taken back by the estates in as little as 5 years.
So because the Ag laws are stacked against the Secure tenant farmer, a loophole in the law can see a family who have farmed their farm for generations, lose the farm through a limited duration tenancy. You could not make this up!

I find the statements from the Scottish Tenant Farming Association rather disingenuous when they state that 'Tenant farmers do not want the right to buy". Secure tenants DO want the right to buy their own farms and ONLY their own farms, the Limited Duration Tenants and Short Limited Duration Tenants do NOT want to buy their farms; well, perhaps they WANT to but they are not given the opportunity as their tenancies are so short and they could find themselves out.
The Partnership tenancies are not going to ask for the right to buy as they are 50% laird/land agent.
So the broad statement by the STFA makes it look like ALL tenants do not want their own farms but it was never broken down and clarified; the secure tenant silenced by those who were supposed to support.

And the Estates/ Land agents snap the farms back from the tenants, thus locking the land and keeping the population of communities under control.

One man benefits from 36,000 acres of shooting land and don't think for one minute that the community sees any benefit. They don't.

Next shoot, I'll keep an eye out for any 'weel kent faces'. There are all sorts on these moors, judges, police, maybe even MSPs... no wonder the shooting laws have not been looked at in years. The shoots come so damn close to the house, you can almost smell their breaths.

Let's work to getting these rogues off the hills and seeing the land worked properly, feeding and housing the ordinary people.

"On yonder hill there stood a coo, 

There stood a few

which have'nae shifted".

Rural rogues.

You know those sort of days where you waken up, stand on an imaginary rake and it hits you so hard on the face that you do not quite know what is going on? Well, today has been that sort of day.

We are still flitting between the farm and the temporary house, the human sludge is still making us sick and burning our eyes, we dare not open our windows even in this heat.

We were up at the farm until about 9pm last night and left to come back here to the temporary house so the children could be showered in clean(ish) water for school.

When we returned to the farm and up to the little wooden house today, we found shotgun pellets on the decking where the children had been sitting or playing last night. These were lead pellets, according to the Scottish Police Force. Lead pellets where my lovely friend brings her babies to play. So easily ingested by an infant. Our safe place now felt violated.
The water supply had also been turned off.

The Farmer and I had a look around for empty cartridges but we were also looking for the other red kite; feathers, anything unusual- we saw the kites together over the weekend. Only one today. There were seven here and we wonder what happened to the others. We will never know.

I will give you some idea of how remote we are and how vast this estate is. I think there are about 36,000 acres but I will stand corrected if I am a few out. We are surrounded by vacant or derelict houses and very few neighbours, here on the farm. Add the two together and you have several thousand empty acres (which were once all farmed) - why the hell would anyone shoot in the direction of the one wooden cabin which is surrounded by toys, obvious family life, pet animals and forgive my Highland sensibilities but on a Sunday.- nobody shoots on a Sunday.

Look - here is our 'hood. Not exactly teaming with anything other than wildlife and ONE family.

Another question I have for the shooting lot is if a shotgun is capable of shooting, what, 150 or so yards, why is the law permitting people to shoot 50 feet from a home? If you peppered someone's decking in, say, the middle of family homes in Birmingham, questions would be asked, wouldn't they.

Not here.

The last time this happened, the police told me that "It was an Estate matter". Since when were estates above the law? .....
This time, the police were different, they were actually patient and amazing to our family. They stayed a while, we were reassured by them and this lawless glen will be carefully watched.

Between the human faeces fiasco down the road, the bullying, harassment, water or lack of today, no roof, stolen land and I could go on, you would think the group who are supposed to support Scottish tenant farmers would be itching to help because they have known about this and taken our money for ten years.

No help here.

What is going on? Is Scotland now one giant shooting gallery? Are the traditional farming tenants, aye, the Secure Tenants (clue in first word) just filed away at the bottom end of the subsidy payments, left to accept the crumbs off the table by the Upper Crust? - The hard bits on the bottom of a loaf were for the staff, those upstairs got the upper crust, the nice bit. Hence the term.

We are not 'Slipper farmers', we are 'Welly farmers'. We work OUR land. No input from the landowners, just grief and hassle on tenanted farms all over Scotland. Our modest annual subsidy covers our modest piece of land and we have budgeted our living, the diesel, feed, seeds every damn thing on this farm for a fraction of the cost of a modest family car. We would rather there was no subsidy, just realistic prices for our produce.

The Secure Tenants like us who have endured feudal and hellish conditions for generations - we have had enough. We want to buy our own farms and ONLY our own farms. We don't want to be forced into giving the laird a cut if we diversify. We want to be able to bequeath our farms to who we want, not just a spouse, child or grandchild as the law dictates. We have brothers, sisters, step-children, nieces and nephews and they are all barred from inheriting a tenancy.

For ten years, the STFA have done nothing yet they knew what was going on. The NFU sit next to useless in the tenant's dictionary and I refuse to recognise the TFF (Tenant Farming Forum) who we are now answerable to. Read lairds for that lot.

Some us are going to have to go this alone and it is a bit scary, jumping into the unknown but what other option do we have?

Please, hold our hands as we take a bit of a step forward. One day, it could be you running a farm if the land was freed, if agriculture was taught in schools, if urban and rural worked together.

Please support the Scottish traditional, secure tenants who own no land yet who have shaped the land.

Flitting

Scottish people do not move house, they 'flit' and unlike the image of a graceful butterfly who flits effortlessly between flowers, the reality is slightly more chaotic.
There is even a saying; "You look like something off a country flitting"! - a slightly disparaging remark about a dishevelled appearance.

We are in the process of flitting. We are moving back up to the farm, we cannot live here with the stour of human waste clogging our noses, burning our eyes and mouths, making us vomit. Our family cannot risk our water being contaminated by human faeces and the indifference of the landowner who fails to provide a water tank or repair his houses.

I have lived here for ten years, the longest I have ever stayed in one house. My parents liked flitting and moved every few months so it became part of your nature to flit.

This house was a sanctuary to my daughter, Rosie and I when we first moved in. The house was delapidated and had been empty for some years but we scrubbed, painted and mended and it soon became a home.

Regardless on how much I love it here, the house is falling apart. There are rooms where the plaster has fallen completely off the walls, a thick black mold decorates the corner of our bedroom, the external door is rotten through despite being held together with bits of wood and trusty duct tape. It is impossible to heat and the oil filled rayburn which was installed by a previous occupier in the early 1960s - this is now included in my short assured Tenancy lease and I am supposed to be responsible for it.
We switched it off in 2003 as the carbon monoxide monitor would stop beeping......

We are tenants of a huge estate here, a different laird to my husband's laird but the forty or so tenants here have identical problems, houses which are not wind and water tight, no repairs, the original single pane sash windows, no insulation, chimneys with breaches in them and of course, a private water supply. We ignore the pylon just a few feet away although it is always in my mind that every household  beside the pylons has lost a female family member to cancer - uterine or breast, usually. My beloved neighbour included.
Here is a picture of a blackbird taken five minutes ago from the back bedroom.

There is no point in asking for repairs; if the two estate 'workmen' turn up, they patch. One climbed up on to the roof, forgot what he was supposed to do and climbed down again. Two years later he was back up on the roof and cheerfully announced that he had "Found the tube of sealant that he left up there"! As a result of his forgetfulness, the rainwater poured in and eventually created a hole in the roof and the plaster all fell off.
On the plus side, the bats love it and they come and go with ease.


This is a tiny community, only 11 people yet it is the place where the community once demanded that they could build their own church with the stipulation that the congregation were the preachers. They refused the laird's church and religion. Once upon a time, the lairds dictated which religion people should follow.
They employed a scribe and petitioned to have their church recognised. They even built a bridge over the river so others could worship freely.

It could have been a bigger community today; someone bought a piece of land and wanted to build some new houses on the land. The landowner refused a water supply and in one fell swoop, kept the population to a minimum.

Today, our tiny community lies under a pall of waste. Nature wears a putrid perfume, visitors to our local beauty spot hurry past and don't stop.

The nesting heron, the tadpoles which Rosie saved and released beside the stream will have been affected, the red kite, the otters. There is a very good reason why I chose this pen name but that is a story for another day.
The corncrake - he arrives each year and calls for a mate. We have not heard him this year.
The cuckoo, the red squirrels that my neighbour cared for and as a result, there are families of red squirrels in our gardens. The kestrels, bats, woodpeckers, Arctic hare, the water cress and tiny trout and salmon in the stream.....
The hedgehogs so carefully nursed back to health by http://www.hessilhead.org.uk/ which we promised to release and keep an eye on, they had to be rescued again and moved to a place of safety. Please support Hessilhead if you can. They do incredible work.

SEPA and Environmental Health are now monitoring the situation here but what took them so long? We had alerted SEPA seven years ago when the human waste started to arrive. The runoff has gone into a major salmon river, hell, a ditch was dug so the human waste runoff could pour into the river during the heavy rain; but nobody came when we asked them to.

We only received a water filter once Public Health were made aware that our family and neighbour were becoming so sick after our water was hit with faeces and lime. Rosie had to stay off school for weeks as some of the pupils are immunocompromised and we could not risk their health. Our other neighbour has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and she was wondering if the lead pipe which supplies her house could have been instrumental.....
This is the same woman who asked for repairs to her house. Basic repairs were carried out but her rent went from £440 per month to £1000. I shall reiterate, an elderly lady with Alzheimer's.

We should have been able to live on our own farm, in our own house but I thought it prudent to keep renting here until the Farmhouse At The Back of Beyond was repaired. I have never stayed at our farm in the six years that The Farmer and I have been married.

We saved and built a tiny wooden building. A grandiose name would be a 'chalet' but some visitors have seen the shed for what it is and named it thus. We are moving in to it. We are waiting for Environmental Health to collate the quotes for water filters and give the yay or nay for a grant to have them installed. Meanwhile, our family return to this house at night for showers and a place to sleep. We have done this for six years.

I feel selfish for abandoning the area and community I have grown to love but our children are affected by the human waste and we have to get them into fresh air.

The Land Reform Group do not see any problem here. Perhaps we cannot conduct estate tours, fine dining, ply them with wine and heaven knows what else. The LRRG preferred the disingenuous veneer and glitz offered by the landowners to the harsh honesty of the actual land inhabited by the common Scot.

Don't do this to our land, our tiny forgotten communities.

You'll have had your tea?

What would be the most sensible thing to do in the countryside on a very windy day?

Fly a kite?
Brave a picnic?
Spread human faeces on a grand scale?

Guess what is happening here right now? A clue is that there are no kites nor picnics.

Here is what an enormous heap of human faeces looks like; my apologies if you have just eaten your tea.

The fence is on the roadside. The actual heap is not fenced off at all.

A lamb and sheep nibble on the waste.

Uncovered tractor loads have been passing the house every five minutes beginning first thing this morning and are still passing five minutely at 6pm. It is very windy here.

That is a huge volume of 'slurry' which is being sprayed on the fields around here. No notification that it was going to happen, sheep, lambs and cattle graze.

The smell is so bad that we are vomiting. The smell in the kitchen is hellish and we cannot open the window as the stuff blows in. Actually, there is no point opening the window as the windows do not close properly in the first place, the ones which have glass. The panes held in by duct tape.

Tomorrow, they will spray our water supply with human faeces. They do it every year and we all get sick.

The grey mush in this picture is freshly sprayed faeces. Perhaps the sheep moved out of the way of the sprayer as it distributed this muck on their pasture.

This cow did not move out of the way, got sprayed and just kept grazing.

Looks like our water tank got hit too.

Great water tank. Bet you all wish you had a water tank like this....

Our son by the tank - he does have a face but I have blanked it out.

Many people in Scotland are on private water supplies and have children. Many visitors to Scotland visit areas of outstanding beauty, they bring their children. Everyone drinks water.
The water supply is the landowner's responsibility. The tank belongs to the laird.
The laird could apply for an enormous grant, paid for by the public. He would get a grant for each of the private supplies which feed each house.
We could have watertight tanks.

There are only a few people who live here but each house receives many guests and visitors during the year so a lot of people ingest the water.

This is our water filter 10 minutes after it had been changed. Ten minutes.
We are told that one set of filters should last a year. The filters struggle after a couple of weeks and if they are not changed, the water does not run as it is too clogged up.


I am in a dilemma whether to move the children up to the farm where the air is not thick with human faeces but the water there is raw water, unfiltered and contains enormous amounts of coliforms, 'solids', e Coli and cryptosporidium.

Welcome to the areas of rural Scotland that the tourist board like to keep quiet about. The places where the houses are falling apart, where the tenants live in fear of retribution, where the water is toxic, where the beauty of the countryside belies the misery of the fractured communities. Where we are treated worse than the human faecal matter which is thrown on to the ground.

But Sir, you ARE the problem.

I feel there is a need to explain why so many tenant farmers are furious about the LRRG's decision to ignore the many issues which make a tenant's life so difficult in 21st Century Scotland. Here are a few examples:

1. The laird's cut.

Our daughter, who is registered disabled with learning difficulties and who will be leaving school next year, wishes to set up her own business. We are working with her school to concentrate on life skills, independent living, etc and we all agree that Rosie ought to be able to work in her chosen field and make an income for herself.
We would help her with book keeping, VAT, etc but the bulk of the work is well within her ability.

The problem is that she would have to ask the lairds permission to start her business.
Our estate have a history of never returning letters, are in 'meetings' if you phone, are shifty if you email. Months can go past before you get a reply, IF you get a reply. They do not visit our farm in order to talk face to face. They do respond to a letter from our lawyer, however.

If the laird granted permission, he would then set the percentage of his cut of Rosie's business, his only 'input' being that he owns the land.
Rosie would do the work, buy the stock, put in the hours, etc and the laird would benefit from her work.

I have personal issues with some of the laird's agents. I have found them arrogant, ignorant, misogynist, dismissive and so frightfully plummy that it can be difficult to figure out what they are saying. And those are their good points.
I fail to see why anyone should have to go cap in hand to ask permission to start up their own small business and pay someone else for it.

Rosie would feel intimidated by these men. There is so much more I want to write about that loaded sentence but I think it best, dear reader, if you decide for yourself and that way I will not be sued.

I have written to several of Britain's leading business people to ask advice on how a disabled person goes about starting up a business but have not received a single reply apart from a 'Good luck' from Deborah Meaden. I was not asking for money but just how do they avoid pitfalls like being exploited, how to organise the business side etc.

We do not have to travel off the farm to experience exploitation.....

2.Feudal slavery.

 In 1890, when Great grandfather Otter rolled in on his horse and cart, wife, child and few belongings, ready to begin as a new entrant to farming after resigning as a headmaster in Edinburgh, a whole new world awaited him.
The then laird, grandfather of the now laird, had a lease written up. In those days, farmers did not have lawyers and besides, the lawyers would have been close to the lairds so the leases are nothing more than a testament to slavery. the restrictions for the farmer are astounding.

Our family are still legally bound to those terms and conditions. In 2013.

The railway that we are supposed to cart stones from the also redundant quarry - no longer exists. The horses that a 'good man' is supposed to use for a week of unpaid work for the laird, they are long gone and only a few dusty bridles still hang in the bothy as testament to their presence.

The roof which was patched up in 1800, repatched in 1890 is the same roof today. There is nothing left to patch.

The original sheds still stand and we still use them for grain, shelter, sheds for the animals when they come in bye. They are tiny sheds, not designed for modern machinery like a tractor loaded with hay for example. All heavy feeds have to be carted in by hand - just like they did in 1890.

Nowadays, the laird is supposed to provide the tenant with modern day sheds but they will not do it. this is a huge issue for a tenant farmer as they end up buying and erecting their own sheds then they do not receive the true cost of the money they spent if they leave at 'way-go'.
 Plus, and this sticks in my craw, they have to ask the laird's permission to spend their own money on erecting their own sheds. Usually once the new shed goes up, so does the rent as it is an 'improvement'. You could not make this up.

3. Shooting rights.

Why is it legal for a laird to charge full rent from TWO PARTIES for the same field? We are paying rent for a field which also comes under the remit of the shooting tenant. Not that we have a clue who it is. The estate have never informed us as to the name or address of the new shooting tenant. the man who appears to have been given free reign to shoot anywhere on our farm, cropped land, near the house on any day he pleases.
And we pay full rent for land which was fenced off from our best field, no compensation, no legal document to state this land was resumed, no adjustment in rent nor field in lieu.

4. Water.

To date, we still have polluted water.
In April, right in the middle of an early calving and the lambing, the farm water supply was turned off with no warning.
The Farmer and I had to transport gallons of clean water from our temporary home up to the farm, several times a day so the newly calved cows were hydrated and could make milk for their calves. ditto for my sheep.

When I phoned up the person responsible for turning the water off, merely to ask when it was going to be turned on again, this rude man hurled abuse at me and asked me why I had broken the pipe! He must have been psychic as at that point, they did not know where the burst was yet I was being blamed for smashing a pipe somewhere in a five mile radius give or take a few miles.
It is reminiscent of blaming a witch for crops which never grew or a solar eclipse happening and turning night into day suddenly.
A bit 16th century, don't you think?

There are other issues but I will write about them another time.

So, it seems if we are having these problems, the LLRG have decided that it is best if we go to our laird to sort them out. All very cosy and jolly.

When the problem IS the laird, the fact that some lairds openly break the law, some lairds are even law makers....how do you go cap in hand and tell them "Sort yourselves out, dudes?"

How do you ask for clean water when they are not interested if a) you actually died and b) the public will pay for the water then c) they will charge water charges.
and I will add d) charge rent for the water pipe you installed at your own expense.

How do you prepare a vulnerable young woman to go and ask if she can start out in life, supporting herself financially, offering something valuable to society, the self esteem of being independent, to ask this in front of misogynistic, unapproachable, sneering men?
And leave it to them to calculate their cut?

The simple answer is that we cannot approach the laird to address these issues.  We are supposed to address them through a land court but this would cost an enormous amount of money plus the lairds tend to employ expensive Q.C.s who can prolong a court case and ruin a farmer.

The odds are stacked up against tenant farmers. These farmers are honest, hard working, helpful and empathetic. They are also isolated, often have no modern internet access nor mobile phone reception and are therefore vulnerable.

We are abused by the lairds, ignored by parliament, despised by the landowner's agents yet we take the knocks and persevere with our livelihoods.

You won't read any of this in the newspapers nor hear it in the news, it is one of Scotland's dirty, hidden little secrets and one which, in my opinion, is part of a bigger agenda....follow the money...

Please support Scotland's tenant farmers. Write to the Scottish government, email, shout out your support on twitter and help illuminate the problems we are facing, how feudalism still exists, how we have something valuable to offer but are held back by oppression.

Thank you.