NFU Scotland has called for the Scottish government to issue more support to help farmers and crofters become more energy independent.
The Scottish government consultation on its Energy Strategy sets out actions to support the transition to a greener energy system for Scotland.
As farmers are both consumers of, and a growing producer of energy, NFU Scotland’s response has mapped out actions it wants to see implemented.
A strategy which supports energy resilience for agriculture by increasing the production of energy on farms while decoupling reliance on the current "unfair" energy system to protect food security is needed, the union said.
And government must do more to support farms to decarbonise, NFU Scotland added, by setting out the preferred options to reduce dependency on red diesel and other fossil fuels used on farm.
The barriers to on-farm green energy production, such as grid blocking, delays in the planning system and the significant costs of connections to the grid, must also be fixed.
Speaking at the All-Energy Exhibition and Conference today (10 May), NFU Scotland’s climate change policy manager Kate Hopper said the government must set out support for farms.
She warned that farming businesses had faced unprecedented increases in electricity and other input costs which were threatening to make production unviable.
“NFUS is calling for the finalised strategy, over the next five years, to explicitly support the ongoing contribution which farms and crofts can make in the transition to a green energy system," she said.
"Protecting food and other crop production from energy price shocks and maximising the production of home-grown clean energy provision must be a key aim of the Energy Strategy."
Ms Hopper added that the Scottish government must champion on-farm energy as a vital part of the national energy network and future energy mix.
“It must also recognise that Scottish agriculture and its wider food and drink supply chain has been exposed to the effects of global energy price shocks," she said.
"The lack of control within our energy system is severely affecting the resilience of our sector and is impacting across the wider supply chain.
“As we transition to a new green energy system it is essential that we can decouple our farms and crofts from the current, unfair energy system.”
