A REFORMED "coherent" post-Brexit system for rewarding farmers which encourages sustainable practices is urgently needed or the nation will be compromising 'brand Scotland' and our environment, a coalition of more than 30 leading charities has warned.

The Scottish Environment LINK (SEL) union of conservation groups which today launched its campaign for an environment act in Scotland to ensure that the nation’s natural landscape, wildlife, air and water quality are safeguarded, is concerned that there is not yet a clear mechanism for how farm funding should be distributed around the United Kingdom after Brexit.

And SEL are concerned that the money paid out to farmers has historically been production oriented and not benefited farmers who have tried to farm in in an environmentally-friendly way.

It said since the Second World War, agricultural policies failed to discourage unsustainable practices including increased use of pesticides and herbicides that has led to water pollution, deteriorating soil quality, increased emissions of greenhouse gases and loss of wildlife.

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Scottish Government data shows that agriculture and related land use contributed 26% of our greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland in 2016. And in September, the Committee on Climate Change said action was needed to speed up progress in areas like agriculture to cut emissions.

"Our current approach is simply unsustainable – it is not delivering for farmers and land managers, and it is not delivering for the wider public good," SEL said. "While agricultural and land use policies have failed to deliver for the environment, they have also failed to create a resilient rural land management sector.

"The solution is a coherent system of regulation, incentives and advice designed with what we need our land to deliver in mind."

Because the UK has to comply with the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), an estimated £650m a year of public money is spent supporting agriculture in Scotland, according to SEL. It is a subsidy system that accounts for over 30 per cent of the EU’s total annual budget.

But SEL said the current CAP regime has inadvertently created a "dysfunctional incentive structure" which perpetuates environmental damage and climate change with few checks for receiving payments.

After Brexit the Scottish and UK Governments will be free to design their own policies, and SEL says they should.

The UK government has established an independent advisory panel to look at the subsidies going to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure they are "fairly split".

But SEL said there remains "little clarity" over the new subsidies and whether it will deliver on supporting agriculture while preserving the environment.

SEL said: "We need to be bold about what land use practices are acceptable in Scotland and regulate with these in mind, and we need to support farmers with funding, advice, training and facilitation to deliver positive outcomes and make a transition to a new farming system.

"We need a reformed system that rewards farmers and other land managers for delivering public goods – such as clean water, air, reduced emissions, biodiversity, rewarded for recreational infrastructure - that supports farmers to change and innovate, as well as provide advice and training to farmers and ensure we can all access and enjoy our rural areas.

"Without that support system... we will not achieve our ambitions as a nation to become greener, healthier and fairer.

"We cannot afford to stay locked into an unsustainable system that is bad for farmers, bad for the environment and bad for Scotland.

"We would be compromising 'brand Scotland' upon which our tourism industry as well as our food and drinks sector heavily rely if we did not take this chance to build a far more environmentally sustainable nation and a resilient rural sector into the future."

A Scottish Government spokesman said:“We are committed to protecting and enhancing Scotland’s environment and playing our full role in addressing global environmental challenges. That’s why we’ve been clear that we’ll, at the very least, maintain or even exceed EU environmental standards and carry forward the four EU environmental principles post-Brexit.

“We will be consulting shortly on future environmental principles and governance, as part of our on-going work to develop our approach to environmental policy in Scotland, after the UK leaves the EU, and look forward to SE LINK’s contribution to that debate.”