04 November 2025

Press Release

For immediate release

SCOTLAND’S AGRICULTURE SKILLS AND FUNDING ‘NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE’

A major shake-up of how Scotland’s farmers and crofters access advice and skills development opportunities is required for them to meet the challenges of our changing climate and nature loss, according to new research.

The report ‘Farming for the future: Skills for climate and nature-friendly farming’ [1] by WWF Scotland lays bare the chronic underfunding of the Farm Advisory Service, which is the main provider of information and resources to Scottish farmers. It currently only accounts for less than 1% of Scotland’s annual farm support budget.

The report has five key findings:

Scotland’s Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) is fragmented and underfunded

Farmer and crofter confidence requires trusted advice
Peer learning and demonstration farms work
Scotland could learn from Ireland’s AKIS model
High-impact interventions are known, but under-delivered

Ruth Taylor, Agriculture and Land Use Policy Manager at WWF Scotland said:

“Our climate is changing, with hotter, drier summers and wetter winters challenging farmers and crofters like never before. Demands on farm businesses from supply chains to government policy are adding to the pressures.

“In order to help their businesses become more resilient many farmers are already experimenting with nature-friendly practices, but the support available just isn’t fit for purpose. That’s why we’re calling for a root and branch review of the Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems to ensure how we grow our food is ready for the challenges ahead.”

Denise Walton, Partner at Peelham Farm and Chair of Nature Friendly Farming Network Scotland said:

“This is a timely and welcome report. Farmers are already a highly skilled working force, but we’re facing new, significant, and frequent challenges from climate change. Adapting our farms requires urgent support for structured sharing of knowledge, experience, and evidence. ‘Farmer-to-Farmer’ is one of the best ways of achieving this but to be scaled up it needs meaningful investment support. This research shows that there are structures in place, but that that support is paltry and hardly effective. We need meaningful and committed investment in the systems that we know actually work.”

Notes to Editors

[1] Farming for the future: Skills for climate and nature-friendly farming https://www.wwf.org.uk/our-reports/farming-for-the-future