Common Grazings
The Common Grazings section of the SRUC report Rural and Agricultural Development: Maximising the potential in the islands of Orkney, Shetland and Outer Hebrides can be downloaded as a stand alone document from the link below. This section draws on Scottish Government data provided to SRUC through a comprehensive Data Sharing Agreement. The support payments and land associated with common grazings for 2022 underpinned the analysis. Some findings from this section of the report include:
- Crofting is a form of agricultural tenure unique to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It is prevalent across the Western Isles and Shetland, and present to a lesser extent on Orkney. Individual land parcels, and associated support claims, identified as common grazings were analysed and mapped.
- Orkney only had c.2% (1,947 Ha) of declared land as common grazings in 2022 in contrast to Shetland with c.39% (52,139 Ha) of declared land under common grazing, and the Outer Hebrides where c.66% (176,541 Ha) of declared land was common grazing.
- There are considerable challenges to collective management of common grazings, and that complexity needs to be acknowledged in future agricultural support mechanisms in Scotland – particularly with new entry level requirements and conditional forms of support.
- There is under utilisation of common grazing 'shares' to claim support by the croft businesses allocated those shares - although there is a healthy market in sub-letting these shares to other crofters that use these seasonal rights to activate support payments.
- In the Outer Hebrides c.29k hectares of common grazings were claimed through seasonal arrangements (35% of total claimed common grazing area). In Lewis and Harris 38% of the claimed common grazing area was through seasonal arrangements, compared to 26% in Uist and Barra, and 24% in Shetland.
- There are many reasons for growing apparent crofting / common grazing inactivity by some crofts (although the seasonal claims data shows a core of activity remains). In some areas, due to changing lifestyles, demographic trends and diminishing returns, common grazings are struggling to form committees and run them effectively, or for the greatest community benefit. Low stock numbers are often not sufficient to incentivise activity on common grazings, particularly in challenging terrain, with an ageing crofter population, inclement / unpredictable weather, and a large proportion of crofters having full time off-croft jobs.
- It is vital that the fragile nature of crofting activity and its community and cultural significance in some island locations areas are fully considered in policy development. It is important that future support schemes foster and encourage, rather than undermine (through unintended consequences) this unique form of collaborative community land management.
- Crofting, by its very nature, has collaborative community land management embedded at its core – through ‘townships’ and ‘common grazings’. If common grazings are to be effectively managed for environmental outcomes (including managing wildfire risks), there must be a critical mass of crofters actively managing these resource.
- Active crofting not only delivers positive outcomes for nature, but also fosters positive community benefits, preserves embedded knowledge and experiences unique to these landscapes and habitats, as well as supporting important crofting biodiversity, gene banks through native breeds, as well as cultural heritage in the form of traditional shepherding and land management practices tied to common grazings.
The download link to this section of the report is found below, or you can return to the main report page here.
