It is a pleasure to follow Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown. Like him, I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am an owner of farmland and a partner in the firm that manages it.

Agriculture is enormously important to Scotland as a whole, but particularly to rural Scotland and island Scotland. NFU Scotland reminds us that it is a £3.3 billion industry, employing 67,000 workers in Scotland, with a further 150,000 working in agricultural activity. When we consider that the money earned and brought into the community through farming has a spin-off in ensuring that there are post offices, local shops and the critical mass of people needed for village and rural schools, we understand the importance of the sector to Scotland. I will be back in the Chamber at the close of business tomorrow night with an Adjournment Debate on the Groceries Code Adjudicator. The large number of Members who have referred to it in this debate makes me hope that I will not be on my own for once in an Adjournment debate. That issue strikes at the heart of what is necessary if farming is to be sustainable and self-sustaining in the future.

Farming and crofting are critical to the economy of the northern isles. Orkney is prime suckler beef pasture. We have had beef farming at the heart of our economy for what feels like forever, while Shetland, with its more rugged landscape, is ideal for the production of sheep, especially the native breed, Shetland sheep. The old saw that the Orcadian is a farmer with a boat while the Shetlander is a fisherman with a croft remains true to this day. In recent years, prices have been decent, but every time I speak to my neighbours in Orkney, and to farmers and crofters throughout Orkney and Shetland, it is difficult to get away from the lack of certainty that I hear about from them, especially—it pains me to say it—among younger farmers, who are asking whether the industry has a future. I believe that it does—in fact, agriculture is not a single industry but a collection of different industries—but I can see why so many of them have that concern.

I have noticed over the years, as a farmer’s son and as a representative of an agricultural community, that piece by piece, and sector by sector, the importance of farming has been diminished. Once we have lost a sector, we never get it back. I look at dairy farming in my Constituency. We have seen a significant reduction in the number of dairy farms in Orkney, and in Shetland we are down to just two. We talk about food security. In Shetland, in the depths of winter, we quite often go up to a week without a ferry to bring in food. The supermarket shelves are just bare, but in that time, the one part of the supermarket and country shops where people can still see something on the shelves are the fridges that contain milk, because we have a local supply. If those two dairy farmers were to decide that they could not carry on production, followed the example of their neighbours and colleagues, and left the sector, that would leave us completely at the mercy of imports for milk. We talk about public money for public good. Surely the continued production of milk in Shetland is a public good, and schemes that spend public money on supporting agriculture should be constructed in a way that allows that to continue.

The shape of future funding is critical to addressing the uncertainty that I hear spoken about by the farmers and crofters in my constituency. Steven Bonnar spoke about the First Minister’s contribution to the recent NFU Scotland conference. His announcement about the 70% was welcome, but the hon. Member must know as well as I do that a great deal more detail is required. The lack of detail leads to continuing uncertainty. We need certainty about not just the structure of future funding but its quantum. We need a multi-annual ringfenced budget. That requires the Scottish Government and the UK Government to work together constructively, which should not be that difficult, but somehow it never seems to be quite as easy as it ought to be.

The House may be aware that Scotland’s farming budget is linked to the UK’s. It is pegged at about 17% of the UK’s farming budget, in recognition of the different structure in Scotland and the importance of agriculture to Scotland’s economy, but the policies in Scotland are increasingly divergent from those south of the border in England, and in Wales and Northern Ireland. That is essentially the point of devolution. It is sensible and necessary to have divergence in policy, but that diversity risks being undermined if there is not the resource in the budget to accommodate it. If the consequence of the changes in England is a smaller amount of public money going into farming there, that risks Scottish farming assistance being reduced and becoming inadequate for the job that it is required to do. The Treasury needs to come forward with a framework based on a multi-annual agreement, because we all know that farming is not an industry that will work on an annual budget; it needs a multi-annual settlement. We must also ensure that funding is ringfenced, so that the money cannot be taken away and put into something else if there is another winter crisis in the NHS, or whatever.

I agree with Sir Bill Wiggin about the importance of abattoirs. In many ways, the absence of smaller local abattoirs is indicative of the problems facing the agricultural sector and rural communities as a whole. We are shipping animals around the countryside by whatever means, be it by ferry from Orkney or Shetland to the mainland, or by road and motorway on the mainland. Animals are being slaughtered in greater numbers in a smaller number of locations—as a consequence, I believe, of the way in which supermarkets drive down price, and the fact that it is so much cheaper for animals to be slaughtered in that way. That definitely works to the detriment of farmers in my constituency.

I understand why there is no functioning abattoir in Orkney. I remember well the many problems of regulation, particularly in relation to the disposal of offal, that ultimately meant that abattoirs could not continue there, but at the end of the day, for a community that is proud of its animal welfare and the quality of the meat that it produces, that simply makes no sense. With a bit of native wit, flexibility and creativity, something better is surely possible.

There are so many ways in which agriculture, farming and crofting impinge on life in my community, so I could talk for a great deal longer, but I suspect that is also true of many other right hon. and hon. Members, so I will give them the chance to have their voice.