Both landlords and tenants must seize the moment and develop new thinking to drive the tenanted farming sector forward, according to the owner of one of the biggest estates in Scotland.
As the debate over the future of Scotland’s tenanted farming sector intensifies, Dunecht Estates owner Charles Pearson talked exclusively to the Press and Journal.
The estate has been in the Pearson family since 1910 and comprises more than 53,000 acres stretching across Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire.
Dunecht Estates covers seven separate estates – the home estate of Dunecht, Raemoir and Campfield, Dunnottar Castle, Forest of Birse, Edinglassie, West Durris and Bucharn – with around 30,000 acres of land let out to 70 tenant farmers.
The majority of tenants – 50 – are on secure 1991 Act tenancies, while the remaining 20 are on short limited duration (SLDT) and limited duration tenancies (LDT).
In-hand farming also takes place on the estate – some 11,000 acres of hill ground and lowland – and Mr Pearson estimates that farming accounts for around half of the estate business’s income.
Other enterprises include forestry, tourism, field sports, minerals and commercial property development – more than 220 houses are let out on the estate.
“I always say it does not matter how much land there is, it’s what’s happening on the land and what everyone is doing on it that matters,” said Mr Pearson.
“We need other people carrying out activities which is part of the whole justification for farming tenancies and it’s something that’s very important and an integral part of the business.
“We see it as a partnership between the estate and the tenants, and in most cases it’s a very positive partnership.”
Much of the recent debate between tenants and landlords has been around farm investments – tenants claim many landlords are investing little or no money on their holdings, yet a recent report from landowners’ body Scottish Land and Estates found the average estate is investing £69,000 a year on its tenanted holdings.
Mr Pearson said Dunecht has invested £2.25million, of which £1.5million was spent on new buildings, across its tenanted farms in the past five years.
That equates to an average annual investment of £450,000.
“I think the big ticket items tend to be financed in our case by the estate but there are instances where tenants have decided to do it themselves,” said Mr Pearson. “I think the big general-purpose buildings need to be put up at the cost of the estate and that’s all part of running the business.”
Mr Pearson urged the tenanted farming sector to move the debate past the contentious issue of an absolute right to buy.
If such proposals were to become legislation, the estate’s 50 tenant farmers on secure 1991 Act tenancies could potentially have the right to buy their holdings.
The debate should focus instead, said Mr Pearson, on issues such as helping retiring tenants move away from the farm to make way for new entrants, and ensuring tenants are fairly compensated on waygo for any investment made on their holding. He said he hoped the Scottish Government’s agricultural holdings legislation review group would deliver a “positive system that everybody can work with and everybody is happy with”.
“We value long-term~ relationships with tenants and many of the farming families on the estate have been here for considerable period of time; when these relationships are successful, we are successful,” said Mr Pearson.
Opinion, Page 9