 Welcome, everybody. I am Emma Harper MSP, and I would like to welcome you all to this special online edition of Festival of Politics 2021, in partnership with the Parliament's Think Tank Scotland's Futures Forum. This afternoon's panel is titled, Will Vegans Really Save the Planet? It's held in partnership with the James Hutton Institute. We are delighted that so many people are able to join us online today, and I look forward to hearing comments and questions from you all as we get into our discussion. According to a University of Oxford report, the food system is reportedly globally responsible for a third of all greenhouse gases, and avoiding a lot of meat and dairy is widely recognised as helping reduce environmental impact. On the other hand, a vegan diet and meat substitutes can involve intensive water production, high air miles from flying certain products across the globe, as well as impacting the source nation supply chain. That's without even discussing how we move the giant tankers of food service and restaurant industries around the world. This panel aims to address all of those questions in the next 60 minutes, so stay with us. We're delighted that you're able to join us here today and take part, and I would encourage you all to use the event chat function so that we can introduce ourselves, state in your name and your geographical location, and pose any questions that you would like the panel to respond to. I'm pleased today to be joined by four panellists, Professor Derek Stewart, AgriFood James Hutton Institute, Dr Malti Rodol. Dr Rodol is a researcher and lecturer in environmental communication in the Department of Urban and Rural Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. We also have Debs Roberts, she's a policy manager for the Scottish Organic Producers Association, Scotland's largest co-operating group of organic farms with more than 300 members, and Professor Mads Fischer Moeller, he's a professor in food policy at Scotland's Rural College and leader of the upcoming Future Food Systems Challenge Centre. There will be an opportunity for our online audience to put questions and views to the panel throughout the event. If you would like to make a contribution, please enter them into the question and answer box. Make sure you state your first name and where you are this afternoon and we'll get through as many questions as possible. First thing I'd like to do is begin by asking each of our panellists what they think about the quote from Dr Marco Springman from the University of Oxford when he said, The food system is globally responsible for about a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. I would ask the panellists if they agree with that statement, and I would like to first come to Professor Derek Stewart, then Dr Malti Rodol, then Debs Roberts and finally Professor Mads Fischer Moeller. First, may I ask Professor Stewart to outline your thoughts, please? To be honest, the numbers are probably about in the right region. Again, it's all about the framing of the question, what does the food system include? I think that if you're actually encompassing everything including transportation, fuel, inputs for growing food, whole chain, then it will be up there, because energy and agriculture are the two big greenhouse gas emitters. So the devil is always in the detail in this, but agriculture does have its problems or challenges and opportunities, shall we say. So it's probably fair enough what Marco said. Thank you. Make sure I get my Dr Malti Rodol. What are your thoughts, please, on Dr Marco Springman's comments from the University of Oxford? Yes, thank you. I broadly agree with Marco and also with Derek who spoke earlier. It could be 25, it could be 40, but the order of magnitude is broadly correct that the food system is a major contributor. Everyone is involved in the food system and to reach the Paris agreement goals, we need to dramatically cut down on the emissions in the food system. It just functions by looking at the whole supply chain, as Derek mentioned, by including transport, energy, de-placement issues, deforestation, et cetera, that are all involved in the food system. So yes, I agree that it's a massive greenhouse gas emittent globally. Thank you. Thank you. Now I would like to ask Debs Roberts the same question, please. Thank you, Emma. I think that if I was to speak as a consumer or a shopper of products, reading this information is really quite overwhelming. We all have to eat and we all have to rely on our food system. I think the choices are more about how we approach that in the supermarket or where we do our food shopping, because I know there is a challenge for agriculture and yet I see huge amounts of innovation and a willingness to take on that challenge and to make adaptation and change to the way we produce our food. So it's more about a holistic view and trying to take steps as an individual within local communities, as well as the impact that that can then take on to a global approach. Great. Thank you. Finally, Professor Mads Fisher-Moller. Thank you. I broadly agree too. I think from a food policy perspective, since this is the festival of politics, perhaps the most important part of this is that now this is also something that's starting to dawn on governments around the world. So just last month, the UN United Nations hosted the first ever meeting only on the food system at prime ministerial level and we heard time and time again from prime ministers from all over the world and also from the UN Secretary General. They reiterated this fact that the global food system is one of the main contributors to our climate emergency. So it's probably dawned a bit late on policy makers that food plays this important role, which also means that food has been a little bit slower in starting to have the kind of like the right approach in terms of as we heard from different terms of depths in terms of we need to change. But now the agenda is here. A lot of stakeholders can see we need to change and we need to accelerate change because we're a little bit behind other large emitting industries such as energy. Thank you to all four panellists for your opening remarks. I'm going to kick off with a couple of questions and as we're starting to see, we'll see other questions will come in, but I've got a few to help get us started. My first question is, is it correct to say that beef devours more land and water and causes more environmental damage than any other single food stuff? I'm not sure who wants to go first, but I think I'm going to ask Mads first because I see your hand is up and you are the screen that I see right in front of me. Please go ahead. It is more or less true that beef is the most emitting product you can consume. Most life cycle assessments will put beef at the very top of how much environmental footprint does this product have. If you're comparing, for instance, the recent study I saw compared beef to falafel. You can eat 100 kilos of falafel at the same time as one kilo of beef. So that's the order of magnitude we're talking about when we're comparing beef to some of the plant-based alternatives. I did a study with a couple of colleagues from Scotland Royal College to see, can Scotland claim that we have way better beef than any other places and we are not significantly ahead of anyone else? That's of course because the main emitting factor from beef is just like the digestion of the cow and that's really hard to change. A lot of research is going into this, but generally, yes, beef takes a high toll on the environment, but it also has some advantages because, for instance, some areas beef is very well suited to do some grazing that can give other environmental benefits when it comes to biodiversity conservation. The vast majority of beef is perhaps not contributing there and we should start reconsidering that beef production. Professor Derek Stewart, you have your hand up as well. That question is about beef devouring more land and water and causes more environmental damage. That's even without considering transportation mileage as well. What are your thoughts? I would completely agree with Mads, I think he's right. The problem we have is we are hardwired to want to meet and it's a hard thing to give up. I mean, there's a commonly stated adage, you will take the steak from my cold dead hand from the hardcore carnivores. The other thing that's worth interesting is probably around about now, there's about 1.7 billion middle class in the world. By 2030, there will be 5.3 billion. They will want meat, simple as that. We know what the problem is, but how do you square it knowing people will continue to demand meat going forward? You've got the traditional roots, which are forelegged and grow outside, but you've also got the emerging roots that people are not so keen on at the moment because it's an innovative, but you've got lab meat. I mean, I've not tried it yet. I'm completely open to try it. If you start growing industrial biotech driven meat using renewable energy to fuel that system, potentially there is a route there to satisfy both demand and environmental impact. This is very early days. In fact, the investment in this area is far outstripping any science in the area at the moment because people see that as a route forward. I don't see innovation generally your attrition rate or your success rate is low, your attrition rate is very high. I think that we have to consider the alternatives given that we are hardwired to demand a level of meat. I'm going to ask Debs and then Malti, if you have a thought on this first question as well. Debs first, please. I would like to raise the point that we can't have too narrow a focus on this. It's easy to pin the point on any quantity. You can choose beef if you want, but it's just as easy to choose almond milk if you prefer. If you look at it in the round, Grassland is the main supporter for feeding beef, certainly in the Scottish landscape, agricultural life. What we need to be looking at is the fact that there are carbon sequestration benefits, there are soil management benefits, there are biodiversity benefits and then there are nutrition benefits as well. It's not something that you can just say that they are the biggest criminals, therefore they need the biggest punishment. It's looking at much more than just one single foodstuff. Malti, would you have a comment on this first question and then I will move on to the other ones? I broadly agree with what has been said that beef is one of the major contributors, especially if we see it by volume multiplied by the emissions. According to the research, there seem to be small food categories such as buffalo or lobster that could potentially have more emissions per kilogram, but overall beef is the highest emitter. The discussions that we have now about water alternatives, I think that we need to make a clear distinction between open land grazing beef production and industrial beef production. Industrial beef production has, on the one hand, lower emissions but requires fodder to be grown elsewhere and, on the other, we don't have the biodiversity benefits that Mads mentioned, but we have possibly the reverse effect of deutrophication, of damage in the local ecosystem because there is just too much manure going around. I think that we need to make a clear distinction there and not just say that beef is good or bad, but we need to look in every specific case what alternatives can be done. If we can do something with the land that is more productive, less harmful for the environment, then it should be done. Of course, we have side effects like what Derek said. We seem to think that we need meat and then we can have certain alternatives for it, but generally I think that if we want to reach Paris agreement goals, then cutting down on beef, cutting down on most meats is essential and it doesn't mean all or nothing but it means cutting it out from seven days a week to a half day a week at maximum. Thank you. A couple of questions have come in. One of them is similar to what we are talking about and it is from Sarah Miller. I will do two questions at one time and that will hopefully bring a bit of diversity as well. Sarah Miller is asking, we are not missing the point that in Scotland beef and land production is the only viable use of land that keeps people and communities linked to our remote and rural areas and therefore it should be protected. I am saying that as a South Scotland MSP where beef and sheep and dairy are big parts of our rural economy in the south. That is the first question. The second one is a comment and question from Ian Kennedy in Falkirk. Ian says, food allergies are a major issue on a vegan diet and should we stop importing soy to feed farm animals? Who wants to go first mad first, Derek Debs and Malty? Excellent. On Sarah's very important question, there is definitely a point to be made that Scotland's landscape is well suited to produce grass. You can then ask, do we need to put all of this grass into beef as Derek alluded to earlier? Some of the new technologies might completely bypass the animal and go straight from protein production to lab-grown meat and that will often times be a factor of a five or eight times more efficient. The cow is not the most efficient by refinery in the world so we can think differently about our vast and great grasslands other than just we have to profit on them only through growing animals. We have done that as humanity for at least 5,000 years, 8,000 years, but maybe we can do a little bit smarter with some of that territory. So we see that around Europe that with starting to think about how can we in the very excellent grassland conditions turn that grass into protein that's beneficial to humans in another way because that will be often more efficient. So there is a false link between grassland and necessarily we have to then produce cattle. We also can see that probably we need to reforest some parts of the UK and Scotland. So part of the Scottish landscape could probably benefit from having more trees. Much of it will still have grass. Some of that grass might be used differently, but there will still be a huge role to play for beef and sheep and dairy. Probably going down we can see some beef sheath. I think we might have lost much. It's probably just balancing out that we need. Okay, thanks. We kind of lost you for a minute, but I think we got the gist of your response. I'm going to ask Professor Derek Stewart to come in on that question. I think agriculture is an ever moving activity and I think if you do tomorrow what you did yesterday and expect a different result, that's the route to madness. Agriculture needs to evolve. So in areas where perhaps you've got the livestock areas that may diminish, there's lots more you can do in that land. Mads has identified that. Interestingly, in Ireland, what they're doing for grasslands is harvesting the grass and they've got processing conditions where they can essentially squeeze out large amounts of soluble protein from the grass and the fibre can be fed to the livestock. You've then got a protein concentrate that can be used for multiple areas. It could be fish food, maybe in the processed human foods. The alternative is if you've got that land and we're in renewable energy, we can put vertical farms on there so you can really shrink the footprint and increase productivity. Flipped to the other bit on the allergenicity piece. The allergenicity one's interesting and it seems to be increasing generally in a large area. We did somewhat recently where actually if you're processing oil seed rape, when you crush the seed and create the oil, the pulp that's left generally fed to animals. But our proprietary technologies we've developed, we can take that protein out and you could put it back into processed products like bread instead of gluten, but it gives the gluten properties but none of the allergenicity. Many of the solutions are already out there on the existing products we have. We just need to link those technologies up properly and create a much more efficient system. That's all about knowledge. Good, thank you. I'm going to go to Deb's next on this one and then I think Malty after that. Thanks Emma. Firstly I think Sarah is absolutely 100% correct that in Scotland there is very few alternatives until we get that technical development that Derek is talking about. But livestock and not just beef but sheep as well and deer are the best converters of protein from grass. Humans can't eat grass and if we weren't using it with animals it would go to just a mess of weeds and just plants that can't be managed and it wouldn't be the landscape that we all value. The option to talk about trees and that's a really important point to make about that is that trees need to be planted in the right place and they need to be planted in a variety, in a mixture of species. What we don't want to do is end up with a monoculture of just a swath of conifer forests taking over our hillsides which will do nothing for biodiversity and do nothing to supply food. Not forgetting too that trees are put up to be a fantastic carbon sequester but in actual fact at harvesting point they can harvest a carbon during their life cycle but when they're harvested the loss and the emissions of that carbon is sometimes greater than what it is over photosynthesised and grass every day of every year which is not harvested. It's not destroyed, it's not dug up because it's exploding soil and releasing soil carbon that is more damaging for carbon emissions. Just to refer to the soy question, I think that just to be clear that we cannot grow soy in the UK, we're actually limited by our climate as to what legumes and what protein plants we can grow. So soy can't be grown successfully here, it would be lovely if it could be because it's a very valuable protein addition to a livestock diet. But also make the point that the soy that's fed to livestock is a byproduct so it's already been processed and it's the soy product that is not suitable for human consumption. So it's not necessarily being grown from virgin land in South America which is a devastating food source but that's not the primary, livestock are not the primary users of that soy that's grown in that situation. So what we would like to be seeing is better investment into R&D for good proteins to be grown whether they're for human consumption or livestock consumption in UK and Scottish climatic and soil conditions. OK, and finally for this question I think it's there, Malty. Yes, I think a couple of things I would like to pick up on. First one about the issue of landscape, of course we have an idea of Scottish landscapes, the beautiful marvellous, but I think we need to also think about what is needed to still live there somewhere in 20, 40, 50 years. And for that maybe we also need to question critically what is used value of landscape and restoration of forests could mean foresting them off again, but it could also mean just having a natural forest grow again. I know we haven't had that in the UK for centuries and millennia maybe but it is an eternal carbon storage if we leave it to grow. Same for the restoration of more lands, which I know there's lots of trials underway all across Europe now and they are storing massive amounts of carbon that we can't get out of the air otherwise. So I think we need to think of not only use productively for production but also of use for restoration of wildlife, restoration of natural habitats and of sort of in quotation marks original states of landscape. Then the next thing I want to pick up on that we've also discussed before sort of soys or allergies. I would disagree with our commentator the question about soys allergies. There's fantastic things you can eat on a vegan diet. No one is forced to eat meat alternatives of course if you want to eat meat alternatives. Derek has mentioned this before idea of lab grown meat. There is no soya in there which is fine although these products don't exist. There's gluten based alternatives. People are doing research on insects which you can argue is not really vegan but is normally put in the same bracket. So I think soy isn't the limiting factor but it's more about what we want to eat, where we want to In quotation marks compromise our own diets but according to my own research it's mostly about social and cultural factors that make us eat meat and want to eat meat. The memories we have, the associations we have with eating a certain food stuff. For example barbecues, family dinners, Christmas roasts. Those are the important things and we can make do with them even without having beef and potentially even without meat alternatives. There's something important to be said about legumes and protein use. There's a fantastic UK company called Hot Me Dots which is trying to reintroduce traditional legumes into the British landscape and into the British farming systems. We're working with lots of local farmers all across the country on local beans and lentils and peas and all sorts of varieties that have grown in the country over millennia but have been forgotten. They do a lot of fava beans in the south and they do some peas in the north of England, south of Scotland I believe. There is a lot of legumes, we can grow lots of protein crops and I think we just need to explore that more. There's a couple of wee follow-up questions around that, one from Ian Falkirk that says, why don't we grow more industrial hemp, less allergic than soy and it can be fed to livestock. Hemp seeds by weight contain more protein than chicken. The other wee comment from Tilly Potter basically says that, how will farmers be supported in a transition away from animal agriculture, will they receive training to develop vertical farms for instance or better subsidies for rewilding etc. How will they remain profitable, bearing in mind that there are already many financial challenges in the farming sector. It kind of brings me to another thought about are we focusing too much on traditional farms to transition to sustainable or should we be really part of the whole global food fixing industry. Some interesting comments coming up, who wants to go first on any of those. Derek has his hand up, great, and then we'll take Mads. The hemp one is quite an easy one, hemp is a good crop. We kind of went down this route in the late 80s, I'm old enough to remember that as a youngish scientist. People got their fingers burned by government support mechanisms disappearing overnight like that. So there were problems there. We don't have a hemp processing industry that will allow you to then buy or refine oil, protein and so on. So there's the gap between primary production and what the consumer wants. I think actually there's arguably a gap in Scotland for that processing bit in the middle of that play point as well that we simply don't have. On a policy piece I guess I would pass over to Mads on that one. I'll give him the hospital pass. Okay, so we'll take Mads and then Malty. Oh, thank you. Well, what policies should be put in place and where should you focus? I think we probably need to acknowledge that we need a multitude of policies and we can't fix it without both helping traditional farmers transition towards something else if they want to. And then also with the other hand start producing the kind of support the innovation that could be the next thing for the traditional farmers to step onto and also kind of subsidize or stimulate the market for the next thing. Well, if we all agreed in the opening remarks that that food is causing a third of greenhouse gas emissions, then it's also the role of government not just to support farmers, but also to start producing the kind of like the demand that we want to see. And we can see, for instance, in the Scandinavian countries in Germany, Holland and many places in Asia, governments are taking responsibility to say, okay, the current trends is not sustainable. We need a different approach to what should we be eating. Government have had that very traditional approach of just saying that our food policies about producing food, and then we'll have some recommendations on the other side about health. We probably need to interlink these a little bit better starting to have what was in Scotland in terms of the good food nation policy. Think probably about how to link food consumption with food production, not having those two in silos. But think about that. We just saw a Danish food law come into place last week or two weeks ago, and it talks about the need for plant forward diets. That's not an easy thing to say from a Danish agricultural system that has been driven by at least 90% beef, pork and milk, but they acknowledge the need for change. But they also say the government needs to drive from that. We need to develop, we need to innovate, we need to make the transition path so that farmers can start choosing something differently. And now farmers are saying, okay, we can see the government is actually making it viable for me to start producing something different. So milk farmers start, for instance, producing oats for oat milks instead. The big dairies are going into oats, the big slaughterhouses are going into alternative proteins because they can see that's where the market is at, that's where the market will be at 10, 15 years down the road. So we need to help the farmers right now, but we also need to not take our eyes off the medium to long distance market and say we have a role to play in establishing that. So we don't end up, as Derek said, in a path where we are supporting something that might be the future, but then once the subsidies go away, it's not the future. I think the government needs to develop markets that doesn't need to tell farmers what to do right now. We need to help the farmers, give them the resources so they can make smart decisions based on what the market wants, but government can push the market a little bit. So I would say those two eyed pillars would be my pillars of a food policy if I was in charge. Malti, do you have comments on food policy as well, how we need to take things forward as far as supporting farmers as well? Yes, thank you. I was specifically also thinking about your comment earlier in my heartbreak about this idea of do we need to transform the whole food system, where's the future and both food and agriculture organisations of the UN as well as other NGOs and organisations such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which is involved in a lot of circulate economy, they all argue that regional, local, seasonal, organic food systems are the future of a global sustainable food production, not only to reduce food miles but also to work with the land that's there and not have these massive supply chains where we grow soy in rainforests in Brazil, ship it to the UK, feed it to beef there, then feed the beer, ship the beef over to someone else. That's not the future but the future should be local regenerative agriculture. For that policy directors obviously need to be in place and we shouldn't forget that the EU used to be for the UK anyway, was a major contributor to subsidies about what's good and what's not good. In the subsidies we often highlight output and size-based things, we don't highlight what sort of direction we want the food system to take but we support those with the largest lobbies often. I think that we should engage more normative-based policies about you get extra money if you focus on biodiversity, if you focus on, for example, organic agriculture, if you switch your way to plant-based crops instead of animal farming, those things could be the future. The policy expert will finish here. As I bring you in on that, you did make a comment earlier about almond milk and I think it was Kate Rowley from QMS that told me it was about 2,000 litres of water that was needed to make one litre of almond milk. Is that something that you have obviously more information than me to comment on as well as anything else you want to add? Thanks Emma. From memory I think the figure is something like 138 litres of water per litre of almond milk compared to 8 litres of dairy milk per litre, 8 litres of water per litre of dairy milk, so it's a huge number. But the difference being, of course, that we can't grow almonds in Scotland, so we have to look at the life cycle and the supply chain of getting that almond milk to Scotland, and it's far more damaging in environmental and greenhouse gas emissions to actually buy a litre of almond milk off the supermarket shelf in Scotland than what it would be to drink a litre of dairy milk that's been produced in Dumfrieshire. But if I could just return to the question about policy and food subsidies, which is a very valid point raised by Tilly, and the comments that Malty was making there about organic and sustainable farming, you might not be surprised to hear that I'm very much in agreement with that. Not only do I work in the organic sector in Scotland, but I am an organic farmer myself. So I see this in a daily basis that the little actions that we take with growing, not just a monoculture that is complete and typical of organic farming, what we're looking for is diversity. And it's about looking things in a rotation and using animals as part of that because their nutrients from their manure is recycled and it's put back into the soil. It helps to quest a carbon there. It stimulates soil, a micro fauna and saves even more carbon through soil organic matter. So there's lots of different interactions and natural cycles that organic farming relies on and that's why it is and should be at the top of priority for Scottish Government food and farming policy. The other thing I wanted to touch on was the support framework because of course we are in a big hole at the moment. There is no clear indication where we're going with support. I do know that there is the consultations going about how we transition to a new support framework now that we're no longer in the EU. And this is a really critical time for farmers, not just organic farmers but farmers in Scotland. The other moment it's difficult for farmers to change. Tell is quite right to ask about profit and the rewards that farmers receive for their product and there isn't a huge margin in food. It's also subject to seasonal fluxes. So there's a huge amount of risk in growing food. But growing food is a slow process. It doesn't change. It can't happen overnight. We rely on the seasons. We rely on the weather. And if I have a heffa calf that's born this morning, which incidentally we are carving at the moment, it will be three years before she will be producing a calf herself. So I can't immediately make a choice to change my farm policy and my farm management, which isn't going to, it's not going to happen overnight. And that's why that transition we need support and we need training to get through that so that we understand that the impact of producing food is not just about reaching out to consumers. It's also about the environmental and the biodiversity impacts that we do by our daily decisions. So changes slow in agriculture and we welcome any support to help us get through the next five to 10 years because it will be a decade before we start to see any changes or impacts of the changes that are introduced through policy. I think that Mads wants to come back on that. Before you do, Mads, I think that Deb's point about education and supporting training and making sure that the farmers do have the knowledge and the skills and the tools in order to make this transition. Yes, you're absolutely right. I think that it's not an overnight fix. We can't just put a cow on and off and get it to stop producing milk. So there is a whole supply chain process that supports our farmers. Mads, you wanted to come back on that one? Yeah, and I'm sure my CEO would be very angry with me if I did not agree with you exactly on that, Emma, that we need more training and education because that's exactly what SIUC is delivering, of course, training the future farmers of Scotland, hopefully. So, definitely we need to invest there. I think the fact that change happens slowly in this area, I think that's very, very important to recognize also from a policy point of view that the role of the policymakers is then to say we have to have kind of like the medium to long distance focus as well because we need to help the farmers right now, but we also need to understand and help them understand, navigate what's happening five or 10 years down the road. I don't just pretend that nothing is happening, as Derek just told us. We are seeing, for instance, the lab-grown meat industry booming at the moment and some projections. I think they are perhaps a little bit optimistic, but a prediction say that in between 2030 and 2035 lab-grown meat will probably be as cheap as regularly natural produced meat, which means that a lot of the market for perhaps a third of the existing meats market might go to lab-grown meats because where we don't really think too much about what meat am I choosing, I might just choose lab-grown meats because it's cheaper. Some of that market might even go to alternative proteins because they're also under development like plant proteins. So we probably see into a future where meat is already on the decline demand for meat in our part of the world. Do we need to figure out where can I, what kind of meat am I to produce as a farmer if I am to stay relevant 10, 15 years from now? I think if I was a farmer making those decisions, I would opt for farming more organic, not just to please steps here, but also to say, well, we can see that's what the European Union is saying that that's a high-level, high-value market of the future. If you want to stay relevant, you have to do something extra because if you're not doing something extra, you have to try to compete with plant-based proteins or lab-grown meats and that's going to be really, really hard 10 or 15 years down the road. So we have to acknowledge that change is coming and then we have to figure out how can we help farmers to want some futures that's profitable. Thank you, thank you, Mads. We did have a question come in and I know that a couple of you have answered already and the question was from Kyra Hansen. She says, curious who on the panel is vegan and what are the reasons behind your decision to follow a vegan diet or not? I'll go first. I'm not a vegan. I have been a vegetarian at one point when I lived in America in California, but now I don't eat a lot of meat and I choose to go vegetarian sometimes, but not all the time. Who wants to go next? Debs? You'll maybe guess, but I'm 100% meat eater. Very rarely do we have vegetarian alone. In fact, I don't think I've ever served a vegetarian meal alone. We would always eat meat by choice, not for various reasons. Firstly, it's nutritious and it's a good part of a diet. Supply is a huge iron, vitamin B12, all sorts of really important elements and minerals that we need in our diet and it's easily assimilated by our digestive system. Secondly, and no less important, it's to support local food chains and local suppliers and to support my industry. Scotland produces some fantastic products, some amazing meat, a very good welfare and I see no reason why we would want to buy it from any other country. Thanks. I'll go with Professor Derek Stewart next, then Mal Tate and then Mads. I'll probably more like yourself Emma. Having been a child of the 60s and grown up with the 70s in Scotland, the processed meat products were absolutely appalling and I was probably happy to walk away from them. But I think maybe unlike devs, I reckon probably three or four nights a week, days of the week, we're not eating meat. We probably mixed the meat we're eating as well, so we're probably like most people, I think, an increase in chicken, but actually fish has gone up significantly as well. My son's 27, his diet is radically different from what mine was at his age, but I can visibly see change drastically. That gives me a sort of karma comfort that his diet is very different and the kids generally are much more conscious of what they're eating. Mal Tate, what's your thoughts? Thanks. I've been vegetarian since the age of 10 or something, mostly because I didn't like the idea of eating meat. All my family was sort of meat eating, but now one of my brothers is also vegetarian and his whole family. My parents also are sort of like what you devs and Derek described, sort of vegetarian most of the days of the week. My own house is strictly vegan. When I go outside to eat at friends' places at my grandparents or just for dinner, I'm not too picky about what I eat, so I'm happy to eat. I don't eat meat or fish, but I do eat cheese or dairy to not make it fuss and to not cause any more issues than choosing a food in a restaurant already causes. Mostly, I make this distinction because, for me, what matters is the carbon impact and the environmental impact. A vegan diet is the best. Many studies show that vegan diets have 30 to 70 per cent less carbon impact than a normal diet. Every little day counts, that's how I see it, which is reasons why, for example, I don't eat rice very often, but instead, when I would have normally rice, I eat barley or wheat or spelt instead, which is a fantastic replacement. Carbon emissions and water use have a huge impact on what I choose to eat every day. Mads, what about you? Well, I do eat meat and I do drink quite a lot of milk, I think, but I am in trying to transition my diet away from the traditional. I'm from Denmark and Denmark. The Danish food culture has very much been defined by meat industry and dairy industry, so it's not dissimilar to the Scottish, but it's even more reliant on meat and dairy, I would say. So, I'm trying my best to then say, okay, how can I eat meat maybe at most four times a week and then try something else. What I'm quite annoyed by is that I find it very hard to find inspiring vegetables in the supermarkets that are grown locally. It's hard to not be a meat eater and also have gastronomically interesting meals here if I'm not opting for fast food, something pre-made, whereas the landscape here is probably what I saw in Denmark ten years ago, where we didn't have the focus on local produce. Now we see a ton of interest and a ton of storytelling around local non-meat and dairy produce, which is growing the category and making it easier for more farmers to be working in the non-meat sectors of the Danish agricultural system. There seems to be work needed to be done there here in Scotland when I'm comparing to what I'm used to. I do eat meat and dairy, but I try to eat less than what I was brought up with, but I'm not bringing my kids up vegan or vegetarian. I think that they are to choose, but I want to limit greenhouse gas emissions, like Malta, but perhaps I'm not as ambitious. Thanks everybody for those responses. There's about 15 minutes to go, so I'm going to ask the audience that are watching to please submit any further questions, and we'll try and get them in as well. There's also a couple of other comments. In winter, this is from Ian Falkirk, in winter we can't grow crops, which is why dairy is such an important food source. A big one for me, because 48 per cent of Scotland's dairy farms are in the south-west of Scotland. To go on, Ian says, unfortunately we know the impact of dairy cows on climate change. Sheep's milk is a growing industry worldwide, why not in Scotland? I'm thinking about, in Scotland we produce really high welfare sheep and beef and dairy cattle processes. In some of my work, I've learned about hormones and chemicals and antibiotics that are used in other reading practices in other countries. There are people who say that meat is the only option in other countries. Is it wrong to say that reduce or cut meat consumption when people can only source their protein from animal products? Is this a problem for rich people who can afford really high welfare meat? What do we do with folk that need to be supported who maybe are on reduced incomes? There are a couple of different points there that I've added. Mards, thanks. I can try on the latter question, which is very, very hard. You can very easily come off as an elitist person if you answer it incorrectly, but I'll try anyway. How can we make this transition while not being stigmatising and saying that people who don't have enough money to do this will be worse off? I think a crucial element and a crucial piece of that possible is to make the market for the very good meat, like the organic meat, the grass-red meat. Make that, grow that market by making sure that you have a vibrant, for instance, organic sector. That comes from also using the public purse to buy more organics. We've seen that in Denmark that if the public goes ahead and say, okay, we want to serve this good quality product for everyone, then that makes sure that everyone in Scotland, from rich to poor, their kids will have the good product. But that also then grows the market category, which makes the product a little bit more affordable for everyone. So I think using the public purse and public procurement as a muscle is a good way of both making these products more accessible, but also making sure that it's democratised so everyone gets access to the good products. But we have to make sure that we are not fooling ourselves and just saying keep telling ourselves the world wants these products. Because if we're going to Denmark, I don't think they know the story about how good Scottish products are. So we also need to figure out what categories are out there that others are using and then see can we fit into those. Instead of, I probably wouldn't put money into making another by Scottish brand. I would probably rather make sure that the Scottish organic sector is strong enough to be able to import or export to the European Union. Where we know that people who want to buy extra premium stuff, they're looking for the green leaf and then use the labels already there to make sure that we can enter high value markets everywhere instead of inventing our own. That'll be my recommendation. Thank you. I think, Debs, you had your hand up as well and then I think Maltaite as well. Thanks Emma. I think just on the point about being where meat is produced, so this is from a global perspective. I think that the FAO says that 60 per cent of agricultural land on the earth's surface is only capable for grazing. And that there are nearly a billion people globally who'd rely on pastoralism for their food source and their livelihood. So if we were to go back to the original question for the panel, so will vegans really save the planet? What worries me about this situation is the alternative. So that if we were to go all vegan now or any time in the next five or 10 years, what would we do to feed those people who'd rely on pastoralism and grazed animals to eat? And what would we do with that land? All it would happen was that we would end up further intensifying the land that we can grow crops on. So if we take the animals away and leave the grass to grow, then we still need to produce food to feed people. And that would just end up being more fertilisers, more intensive agriculture. And actually it leads to more global corporations taking control over monopolising seeds and all sorts of social impacts that need to be thought about. This is not just an easy answer. So I do think that we need to be careful about how we phrase the future of growing food in the future. And that there is an easy option. You know, it is about choice and we're very lucky in our country because we produce some fantastic food and it is available for us. And we've seen that through the supply issues that we've seen on supermarket shelves in the last few weeks, the last few months even. So it's more about making the right choice and being at the impact that people have in that choice. Just to touch briefly on returning to the point that Telly made about support frames and policy for future support for agriculture. What we've seen historically through the EU subsidy system was that it made food cheap. And it's disguised the true value of cheap, of food because it was therefore paying farmers to produce food and to manage the land. And actually what happened was that it takes the pressure off of that profit margin. So if we go into the next transition of looking at support for agriculture, if there isn't sufficient support there to keep farmers producing the food that we eat and the environment that we enjoy, then the one result you will have is more expensive food. And I don't think that's going to help the socio-democratic choices that we need to have for the health of the nation. OK, thanks. Malthy, do you want to come in on that as brief as possible, please? Because we are six minutes from the end and I want to give you all an opportunity for a one minute final thoughts before we end today. And there's loads of questions coming in now, but obviously we'll no have time for them. But Malthy, I'll give you an opportunity to respond to the last question, please. OK, so very, very briefly then about protein and incomes. I think the cheapest way to eat is pulses and legumes when one cooks them themselves, especially to gain protein. Like a half a kilo of dried pulses makes two kilos of food to be eaten roughly plus, minus half a kilo maybe. So that's amazing and super cheap to buy dried lentils for example. So I think meat is very cheap because we subsidise. The problem then is that people on multiple deprivation often don't have enough time or don't have the skills necessary to make use of these opportunities. And they have so many other issues going on that we can't really dictate what anyone should eat. But that said, meat is only really cheap because it is heavily subsidised and not because it's inherently cheap because, imagine, you have to put, I think, 16 kilos of fodder to get one kilo of meat, for example. So from that we can eat so much more, that much on incomes. OK, thanks. I know we do have more questions coming in, but what I'm going to ask you to do is basically ask each panelist, we'll start with Maltaite, then Mads, then Derek and Debs, to give you each one minute just to sum up the issues that have been raised. Again, I thank you all for contributing today, so we'll go one minute each. Hopefully I'll give you the thumbs up if I put the time on. First we'll go with Maltaite, then Mads. Thank you. Yes, so to come back, grab up, will vegans really save the planet? I think it is probably impossible to ask of everyone to become vegan, but we massively need to cut down emissions from food, we massively need to change land use and cut down water footprints. For that, becoming 90 per cent vegan or more vegan or eat plant-based, eat plants instead of meat is essential and is necessary. I think we need to distinguish this idea of eating plant-based from both a vegan diet but also from ideas about the food system. The food system should be ideally organic, local etc. But it can be equally decentralised or monopolised whether we have a meat-based agricultural system or a plant-based agricultural system. I think that it doesn't help to scare monger about this because we need to cut down, we need to do a lot, every little meal counts in my opinion and then we can't just take the detail of saying the system is to blame. But it all needs to happen at once and as quick as possible. That's my takeaway. Thank you. One minute and five seconds. That's what the time is to beat. Thank you. Mads will go with you for one minute please. First of all, thank you very much for hosting. I think it's a very, very important discussion and I think we need to have it because it's not easy and we need the transition. I think what we've been talking about is of course transition away from something towards something else but we are not quite sure of what could that alternative be. What I've seen in my lived experience in Denmark has been that being a little bit more specific about what kind of food future do we actually want to aspire towards have been hugely important in terms of bringing the energy into and making it fun and easy and accessible to aspire towards eating something differently. I'm not eating meat, less meat just because I want to save the planet. I'm actually eating more plants because I like plants and I didn't earlier because it wasn't appreciated. So I think we also have to figure out there are different development paths and Scottish farmers can make a lot of money. We can already see now horticulturalists among the ones making the most money. Let's invest a little bit more in the national discussion about what can the Scottish diet look like with a little bit less meat and a little bit more attention to what the planet needs, what the human bodies need and what we can still produce. So we don't just fly stuff in here but take more pride not only in our meat but also in our oats and in our strawberries and in our pears and apples. Great, thank you very much. I know that Langham is the chilli growing capital of Scotland so maybe that's where people will get their flavourful chilies in the future. Next Derek, one minute please just to sum up. I won't replicate what Walter and Mads have said because I completely agree with that. I think maybe take a different tack. People need to consider when they're looking at food that it's not someone else's problem. It's your problem. You have the capability to change your destiny and what you eat. You pick it up and you put it in your mouth. You need to vote with your purse or your wallet if you want to change. Ultimately that will drive it. If the retailer suddenly sees something's falling away they won't stock it. So you have the power within you. I think interestingly it's good to see the education on foods coming back into the curriculum for excellence because frankly food is considered to be a trivial art of education and it's fallen away. I think the lessons on cooking have got down to such a point that if you're cooking an apple pie you've got to bring in a tin of filling rather than using raw materials. That's appalling. So if kids emerging people don't know how to cook they won't know how to change diets and they won't change. So we need to consider everything. Thank you. Finally Debs you get the last word. Thanks Emma and thanks to all my fellow panellists and the audience as well. It's been a fascinating hour. Difficult to wrap everything up into one minute but I think as a consumer and a shopper I've been feeling a little bit overwhelmed by all the conflicting data. One study says this, government says something else, policy makers and the media have a big role to play about the messages that are given out and it's very difficult to make a decision that Derek says that I have the power. So I would urge everybody in the audience to educate yourself to ask questions to find out about the way that meat is produced in Scotland. And to look at it from a holistic point of view. So it's not just about one part, it's everything wrapped up in one big cycle, nutrient cycle, nutrition cycle, recycling manures and helping biodiversity. So it's a complementary benefits that are brought about social landscape, so many different things that need to be considered. So it is a complicated situation and it can be overwhelming. What I would love to see is we have food labeling at the moment and it tells us the ingredients and the nutrition values for the food that we eat. I would love to see an agreed protocol that tells us what the greenhouse gas emissions of the life and the supply chain of the food that we buy off the supermarket. So that would be my challenge to food policy makers is implement a way of educating the people who are out eating food and buying food so that they are more informed about the choices that they can make. And I would also urge you to look at local, not global, because the transport we haven't had time to touch on, but it's so much easier to support your local community and learn about where your food comes from than it is to look at something that's imported from another country where the standards are lower than ours. Thank you. Thanks very much. We are now at a wee bit overtime, but we need to end there. I would like to thank everybody for joining us today and making such a big contribution, especially our panellists. This has been brought in partnership with the James Hutton Institute to thank you to Professor Derek Stewart, Debs Roberts and Malti Roddell and Professor Mads Fisher-Moller for giving up your time to take part in this today. So just a final thing is that there is an opportunity that at 3pm today there is a discussion on how to cut your food's carbon footprint as well as a highly topical panel at 7pm all about what will power my home and the different energy sources that will be used very soon to heat our homes. So there's a host of free online events to come on everything from fast fashion to a just transition and climate activism, so I hope everyone can participate and join in these other discussions. Finally, thanks again to everyone for coming today. It's very interesting to do all of this online, but it means that we can join from different parts of Scotland and wider. So thanks everybody for attending today.