Survey Background

Farms and crofts wishing to start up or to grow agritourism or farm retail have been assisted over the past three decades by capital start up grants. Some of these grants had higher rates for young people under 40 to assist the next generation.

Examples of these grants are
- Farm Business Development Scheme (FBDS)
- Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP)
- Leader
- Food Processing and Marketing.

There have also been other regional grants available.

Currently due to leaving the EU and the move to a new agricultural support system, there are no or very few capital grants for the agritourism or farm retail sector.

There is provision for this in the new Agriculture Act to be able to use some of the agricultural funding to award capital grants, but as yet no budget set against this.

The National Strategy for Agritourism 2030 has several references to capital grants as a lever to grow the Agritourism sector in Scotland.

At the next National Strategy Board meeting in December we wish to highlight several case study examples of businesses which have benefited from a capital grant in the past twenty years and demonstrate what the impact has been.

This information will help everyone in our sector including the next generation of people starting up in agritourism and farm retail so your input would be much appreciated.

You can give one or more than one example of a grant received and what impact it has had.

PLEASE NOTE, WHILE NOT ANONMYOUS, THE INFORMATION FROM INDIVIDUAL CASE STUDIES WILL BE USED SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE NATIONAL AGRITOURISM STRATEGY BOARD. Collective summary data which is anonymous will be used in an overall report.

Thank you.

Caroline Millar,
Sector Lead