An Aberdeen farmer tops the league of those receiving European Union subsidies through the Scottish Government under the controversial Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Frank Smart raked-in nearly £3m in EU hand-outs last year - making him the biggest recipient of farm subsidies in the UK. He inherited his 400-acre family farm at Torphins, near Banchory on Royal Deeside, pocketed grants totalling £2,963,732.77 last year. He is benefiting from European– so-called naked acres – to trigger payments on them, without producing crops or keeping livestock. The only condition they have to meet is that the land they use is kept in good agricultural and environmental condition.
With entitlements to fields on farms from his Easter Tolmauds (CORR) business base on Deeside to Harris in the Western Isles Smart has harvested almost £12 million in just four years.
Scott Walker, the chief executive of NFU Scotland, told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: "There's one or two individuals that use the system and found loopholes in the system to maximise their returns, but as I say, it's a million miles away from the situation that most farmers and crofters find themselves in."
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-farmer-pockets-nearly-3m-8942046
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