A report that future Scottish farm payments could depend on formal training has had the roughest of landings among farmers. A conversation on The Farming Forum that began with the press cutting on Friday evening filled with testimony against classroom hours from contributors with decades in the field, while a smaller camp asked whether a profession that takes public money can refuse to show its workings. For the trade that sells training and advice, both halves of the argument matter.
By TFF News | 20 October 2026 | Skills
The conversation drew 103 visible contributions between 17 and 20 October 2026 and had been viewed 4,271 times when counted on 20 October, with 358 reactions at an average of 3.48 per contribution. Classified by sentiment, 49 contributions were negative about the idea, 47 neutral and just 7 positive, and the negative ones drew the agreement: 4.96 reactions on average against 1.86. The figures describe who chose to speak, not the industry: this is not a representative survey.
A consultation, not a decision
The trigger was a report in The Scottish Farmer of 17 October: the Scottish Government is seeking views on whether a formal system of continuing professional development should be introduced under its Agricultural Reform Programme, including whether participation should be voluntary or mandatory, how much training should be undertaken each year, and whether involvement could be linked to eligibility for future support. Agriculture minister Jim Fairlie is quoted saying no decisions have been taken, while NFU Scotland’s policy director Jonnie Hall warned against proposals for a universal 30-hour annual requirement and any automatic link between CPD and support eligibility.
The published framework matches that reading. The Rural Support Plan 2026-2031 does not currently make training a condition of payment: skills sit in Tier 4, with an indicative budget rising from just over £30m in 2026-27 to £52m by 2030-31, and revised eligibility and activity requirements due across all tiers from 2030. The Agricultural Reform Route Map says only that Tier 4 “will include training and advice”. The open question, which the conversation answered loudly, is whether any of it becomes compulsory.
The experience ledger
The largest theme, carrying 36 contributions, was whether classroom training can teach a working farmer anything worth the hours. The most pointed answer came from a hill farmer with an engineering doctorate who listed “Nutrient budgeting, soil sampling rotational cropping and grazing, improving soil structure, fecal egg counting, dung analysis, livestock suited to the land, all decades before regenerative farming became a buzzword” Another contribution distilled the mood: “You’ll never replace self motivation and conscientiousness with training and certificates.”
Holders of the industry’s older certificates pointed out that the system has forgotten them once already: “NCA, NCFM, OND, and HND all appear to be obsolete and forgotten along with those of us who did them.” And a grassland farmer asked who would deliver his syllabus: “Since I’ve been farming for over 52 years, what tutor will be more qualified to tell me how to do it?”
A week of holidays and a shelf of certificates
The 30-hour figure under discussion was costed immediately: “30hrs/yr would be no small ask. Basically a full week, more if travel required.” the same contributor wrote, adding “3yrs of college and 25yrs experience not worth anything either.” Others audited the training they have already been required to buy, one listing the courses that outlived their own subject matter: “Just like doing a granular course and get pelleter calibrated to keep the decent slug pellets that got banned a few years later anyway .” Another recalled a Driver CPC classroom holding 400 years of accumulated driving experience, taught by an instructor who had never held an HGV licence: professional drivers must complete 35 hours of periodic training every five years to keep working, and several contributions treated that scheme as the cautionary template.
Wales is already doing it
What sharpened the debate is that training conditionality is no longer hypothetical inside the UK. A Welsh contributor described his new scheme’s annual CPD requirement from experience and, unusually for the conversation, defended it: “Hardly onerous, and there is always something to take home from visiting someone else’s farm.” The Welsh Government’s spring 2026 update confirms the shape of it: Sustainable Farming Scheme applicants must complete at least six hours of eligible CPD by 31 December 2026, including a mandatory health and safety module.
From Northern Ireland came “Your late to the party on this one . N Ireland , you had to have all your fields soil sampled and do online training to qualify.” A contribution on Ireland pasted a passage describing degree-level requirements for subsidies, though the standard it quoted is the one for Farm Advisory System advisers rather than farmers: what Ireland does require, per Teagasc, is the Level 6 “Green Cert” for its young farmer top-up and National Reserve, not for basic income support generally.
Who would run it, and who gets paid
Even contributors open to the principle could not name the institution that would deliver it: “I don’t think farming has any recognised professional body. So who would carry out this Continued Professional Development and to what standards.” Several saw the training industry itself as the main beneficiary, one making the commercial point that matters for how support is perceived: “And the sum given to the training providers will be included under the umbrella of rural support and thus labelled in the popular press as ‘ farm subsidies’” Others read conditionality as the thin end of something larger: “Licence to farm incoming.”
The willing learners
The positive camp was small but not silent: “I always embraced CPD. As a chartered surveyor it was an opportunity to enlarge my knowledge beyond my limited horizons.” Another was blunter about the bargain: “If you want the money you’ll have to jump through the hoops.” And one turned the classroom around entirely: “I think we should all be prepared to give up a day a year to help educate them.” with farmers as the tutors, paid for their expertise.
One strand went further, arguing support should be restricted to qualified or time-served farmers because “Most of the land for ten miles around here is now owned by non farmers who have no interest in farming beyond the tax benefits and free money from govt every autumn.”
What the trade should watch
For colleges, advisers, vets and training providers, a Tier 4 budget rising towards £52m a year is a market either way; the consultation decides what kind. A compulsory requirement on the Welsh model would make every farm business in the scheme a customer, but this conversation suggests many would arrive as conscripts. A voluntary, incentivised system, as NFU Scotland urges, means providers must win the room instead, and the room is full of people who can list the courses they sat through for products that no longer exist. The question the conversation never settled is the one the trade should sit with: who is qualified to teach the people who have done the job for fifty years, and what would they charge to listen.
Read the source conversation and analysis
Read the full conversation on The Farming Forum here. Agri Web Media’s nine-slide analysis of the conversation, with theme, sentiment and contributor breakdowns, is available as a PDF: download the conversation analysis deck.
This conversation had been viewed 4,271 times on The Farming Forum when counted on 20 October 2026. Want your brand in the room when farmers talk skills? Book advertising with Agri Web Media.