Farming Talk: Why does Scotland want independence from UK?

I don't understand why any sensible Scot would want "independence" from the UK.

This is probably going to prompt angry letters, but of course I am only saying what I think, based on my experiences.

I don't want them to separate from the UK as I think we will all be worse off.

I wondered what Alex Salmond knows about Scottish agriculture so I looked him up, and discovered he had farming roots – back in the 1700s – didn't we all?

But that doesn't mean I could make promises about farming's future if I was in charge.

Apart from hearing Peter talk about the farmers he advised, and the experimental farms he managed, and the friends we visited, my experience of farming in Scotland is limited to a few acres of pretty rough land looking down over the North Sea.

But these old neighbours and friends, scattered from Caithness to Aberdeenshire, farm soft fruit, arable, dairy, sheep and beef, so even now we talk about the state of farming up there, and most of them are resigned, as we are, to having their farming policies and incomes decided for them by not very agriculturally-savvy MPs.

During this summer's trip north we stayed with several friends, and "independence" was touched on, as lightly as the English and Scots can.

We seemed to be in agreement about the discontent felt about Westminster, but they feel they are at a disadvantage having decisions made for them by English MPs – a bit like we feel about Scottish MPs voting in Westminster about us.

However, we did laugh with one couple, because he says he is going to vote for independence and she is going to vote against!

We pointed out that they might as well go for a nice walk on the hill and not bother to vote at all as they would cancel each other out.

We were living in Scotland in the 1970s when, due to the newly-found oil, the SNP was openly "Scotland for the Scots" to the point where they were suggesting that all land owned by non-Scots should be compulsorily purchased, which would have taken away our home and land which we had saved hard for and worked hard on.

Luckily for us, Peter was offered his post of Head of Livestock at Harper Adams and we sold up and came south. It was quite sad, really.

What worries me is a quote by a Liberal Democrat MP regarding a White Paper published by Holyrood House.

He said: "This was the SNP's chance to answer many of the big questions that farmers have been asking about independence. They failed to do so.

"On agriculture what we got was a wish list without a price list."

Could be out of the frying pan and into the fire, it seems to me.

• Rosemary Allen is a retired livestock farmer now living near Ellesmere and with her husband Peter is part of CowCash-UK.