IT is no secret to anyone reading this paper that North Ayrshire is renowned the world over for its fine meat, dairy, and other agricultural produce, with much of it exported across the globe to people who are happy to pay a premium for the food produced on our doorstep.

It goes without saying that this would be impossible without the relentless hard work of the farmers and farm workers who face challenging odds in bringing locally grown food to our tables.

But when the Chancellor stood up to deliver her first budget last week, few of us thought that those same hardworking, small scale, family farmers would be among the hardest hit.

But small family farms will now be forced to pay a damaging tax when they pass down to the next generation, threatening to decimate family-owned farms and risking our national food security.

More than two thirds of Scotland’s land mass is used to support agriculture and farming, so the potential damage this tax could bring to family farms and the local economies they support across the country is huge.

As recently as last year, Labour said that they were not planning any changes to agricultural property relief. Farmers are absolutely right to feel let down.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of family farms to local economies, especially our own which faces the added complexity of bring partly island based. This year alone, almost 70,000 people are directly employed in farming and agriculture, with more employed by related trades.

But small-scale farms don’t just provide food and jobs; they are crucial parts of the cultural and social fabric of our communities too, and their loss would be more than a just a hit to trade or employment statistics (however important those things are).

I will be doing all I can to oppose this measure from the benches of the Scottish parliament, and I encourage everyone who can to make their opposition clear by signing our online petition against the tax.

Another development which will have come as a blow to many, particularly our island and coastal communities, is the announcement that the MV Caledonian Isles will now likely be out of action until March of 2025, despite the best efforts of CalMac to bring it back into service.

This will be galling news for islanders and coastal communities who have been without the Caledonian Isles since February this year. By the time it returns, if it ever does, the vessel will have been out of action for over a year.

This is unacceptable, and crucial questions must be asked. Why weren’t these issues identified earlier given that the vessel has been under repair for most of the year? And when were these damages sustained?

Rather than trying to pass the blame as usual, it’s high time that ministers finally took personal responsibility for their appalling and never-ending ferries scandal.