 Good Morning, everyone, and welcome to the eighth meeting of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee in 2023. Before we begin, can I remind those members using electronic devices to please switch them to silent? This morning, we have apologies from aids le guns IPSs and we're serious for hours. Our first item of business is a decision to take item 5 isn't private, are we agreed? Our second item of business today is consideration of the draft alcoholic beverages, fruit and vegetables, miscellaneous amendment Scotland regulation 2023. This instrument is subject to the affirmative procedure. I welcome this morning Mary Gougeon, the cabinet secretary for rural affairs and islands and her officials for this agenda item are Kevin Matheson, policy manager for food and drink industry growth team and James Hamilton, a lawyer. I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement. Thank you, convener, and thank you for inviting me to speak about the alcoholic beverages, fruit and vegetables, miscellaneous amendment Scotland regulations 2023. The UK signed a free trade agreement with New Zealand on 28 February last year and during negotiations the UK had committed to making three minor changes to domestic legislation on how wine and other alcoholic drinks are described and marketed. The Scottish Government remains of the view that the best option for the UK as a whole and for Scotland is the one that Scotland voted for, which is remaining in the EU. The Scottish Government's default position is to align with EU law where appropriate and where that's in Scotland's interests. However, as a responsible government, we are required to observe and implement the United Kingdom's international obligations, and this instrument is required to implement the New Zealand free trade agreement. The changes set out in this instrument will bring some flexibilities to how wine and alcoholic drinks can be labelled and marketed. However, it's not going to impact on the practices currently being employed by producers and traders who can continue to label and market as they currently do. The changes allow producers and sellers of wine and alcoholic drinks slightly more flexibility in the information that they choose to include on their labels, and then this instrument will make three changes to retained EU law. First of all, it will allow any wine product to show alcoholic strength to one decimal place, so as an example of that, it could be 12.2 per cent, 12.7 per cent. Retained EU law currently limits wine to being labelled to show alcoholic strength to whole or half units, so say either 12 per cent or 12.5 per cent, and that will continue to remain a possibility for wine that's marketed either here or wine that's exported. The concession to label wine to a single decimal place isn't new. That possibility was already extended to Australian wines by the EU in their wine trade agreement with Australia, which the UK retained after exit. This instrument will also introduce a change to rules concerning the labelling of grape varieties for wine marketed in Great Britain. Where more than one grape variety is listed on a wine label, this instrument will require that the named varieties must total at least 95 per cent of the content of the wine, and current retained EU legislation requires that to be 100 per cent. The changes will mean that up to 5 per cent of the content may consist of varieties that aren't shown on the label. The changes proposed in this instrument provide businesses, marketing and producing wine of multiple grape varieties with the scope to vary the production of a wine to bring an improved consistency and quality, and UK domestic wine producers have warmly welcomed the flexibility that that's going to bring. The regulations will also allow flexibility in how the terms alcohol and volume appear with the numerical alcohol content on both wine and other alcoholic beverages. Current rules require that alcohol appears before the numerical alcohol content of the drink with vol after. The instrument will now also allow the term alcohol to appear after the numerical alcohol content of the drink. Together, those changes will facilitate that trade between the UK and New Zealand, and the changes may also help smaller producers in both countries who might wish to exploit and niche for their product in that market, but where the size of the order would mean a full label change wouldn't be economically viable. Again, I just want to stress that those changes are optional. We anticipate that many in the industry with established markets in Northern Ireland and or that EU will continue to label in market wine as they currently do to support sales in those markets. The Scottish Government consented to a GB-wide consultation seeking views from stakeholders in the sector and more widely on the proposal, and the UK wine industry firmly supported the changes that are set out in this instrument, as well as welcoming the flexibility that it also provides. I hope that I've been able to say enough to assure you of the need for this instrument. It does represent just one part of the changes being made that will allow for the new free trade agreement with New Zealand to come into force, but, in doing so, we've taken the opportunity to give earth-riving wine and alcoholic drinks sector flexibility that will support them to trade in the future. Finally, the instrument also amends article 11 of retained EU law regulation EU number 543-2011 to correct a minor error contained in regulation 55 of the agriculture retained EU law in Data Scotland Act 2020, consequential modifications and agricultural products, aquatic, animal health and genetically modified organisms, EU exit amendment regulations 2022. Thank you. I'm happy to take any questions that the committee might have. Well done on that title for that regulation. Are you expecting more SSIs of this type to implement trade agreements coming to this committee? I think that there is the programme, obviously. I have seen the debate in relation to the LCM that took place in the Parliament yesterday. We have this one coming forward, but I'll ask Kevin if we're expecting any more, particularly in relation to the food and drink. No, I'm not expecting any, but there are trade deals under discussion with Canada, India, Mexico and Israel. They might filter down, but I've not been giving a heads up personally. It seems a bit odd that the only SSI that we have to deal with on a trade deal is down to basically labelling and the content of the grapes that are used. Is this because, for example, we drink Australian wine as well? Is that because there's flexibility within the retained EU law or that there was already concessions for Australian wine coming in and that just didn't, that there wasn't that concession for New Zealand? Well, as far as I'm aware, this was something that New Zealand had asked for during the negotiations, and I think primarily to benefit some of the smaller producers that are, I think, could mainly provide for the whole market at the moment, but you could see an opportunity there to export to the UK. So, as far as I'm aware, but I don't know if there's anything further you would want to add to that. Oh, sorry, James. In Australian wine, the EU and Australia have a trade deal that covers wine, and that trade deal was rolled over by the UK, so that trade deal with both the EU and the UK already provides for some of the flexibilities that were seen in this one. So, for example, the ability to label went to a point, one of a decimal point, so we already see that flexibility with other trade deals that the EU have. Right. I would just point out as well that, I think, well, the EU and their negotiations with New Zealand as well are also looking at similar changes where there are actually greater flexibilities, as an example, the percentage of the great varieties that should be on the label too. Okay. So, one of the main reasons is that there was existing legislation that dealt with this because there was an EU deal with Australia, but those regulations didn't exist within a New Zealand EU legislation. Okay, I get that right. So, the EU labelling regulations provide for exemptions for trade deals that the EU has done with other countries, so some of those are already incorporated, and then, in the Australia one, in particular, has been rolled into the UK agreement with Australia. So, it's missed. This is potentially an outlier that New Zealand didn't have a trade deal, and this is just to give them the flexibility that they'd asked for. Okay. And the deal that they've negotiated with the EU has the same flexibilities, which is going through the EU ratification process at the moment. Right. Thank you. Rachel Hamilton. I think that you've kind of answered it really, but it's about the flexibility. I was going to ask you whether, within the free trade deal, it's one way of ensuring that New Zealand can export multiple great varieties, which they probably don't do now. The main varieties are probably Pinot Noir, Merlot, Sauvignon—we have a great taste for that here in the UK—but the alcohol content as well. I presume that it's, as you say, to give them flexibility, but within a free trade agreement, surely it's also to remove the burden and help with the labelling to allow greater choice, which allows the flexibility. I presume that that just makes a great free trade deal, and that's one of the negotiations that they had. And also, whether might be dependent on weather with regard to the great variety and the alcohol content. I think that it also provides more clarity and transparency, which has been welcomed by the lower alcohol volume producers in terms of the percentage points or the level of alcohol that is within that as well. That's certainly a point that they've welcomed within that. There can be other varieties that are used to help with the consistency of the wine product, but it's been welcomed by producers on both sides. We now move on to our third agenda item, which is the formal consideration of the motion to approve the instrument. I invite Mary Gougeon to move motion S6M-0704, that the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee recommends that the alcoholic beverages, fruit and vegetables, miscellaneous amendments, Scotland regulation 2023, draft be approved. Does any member wish to make the motion? No. Is the committee content to recommend approval of this instrument? Yes. Finally, is the committee content to delegate authority to me to sign off our report on our deliberations on this affirmative SSI? That completes consideration of the affirmative instrument. I thank the minister and officials for attending today. We'll suspend briefly to allow a change in witnesses. Our next item of business this morning is the pre-legislative scrutiny of Scotland's future agricultural policy. Our evidence session today will focus on biodiversity issues and we'll be taking evidence from NatureScot. I welcome remotely to the meeting Ross Lilley, Head of Nature Natural Resource Management, and his colleague Professor Des Tomson, Principal Advisor on Biodiversity and Science. As normal, can you please type R into the chat box if you request to speak? Given that there's only two, that shouldn't be too difficult. We've got approximately 60 minutes questioning this morning, so I'd like to thank you for joining us. I'm going to kick off with a very broad question. What I would like you to give us an indication of the drivers of biodiversity loss within agriculture and to consider what changes have driven that loss historically, and to consider the practices that have led to the decline or maintaining the pressure on biodiversity today. We'll kick off with Ross Lilley. Thank you very much and good morning, and thank you for the question. Agricultural intensification is one of five principal drivers of biodiversity loss, not just globally but in Scotland. To answer your question very directly, it's really the intensification of agriculture that's putting very considerable pressure on biodiversity, and it's agricultural intensification in terms of reducing the amount of space for nature, and in terms of timing reducing the time available, especially for farmland birds, to breed successfully. Overall, it's this intensification on space and in terms of timing. I should declare an interest as a former farmer. Twenty-five years ago, there were schemes that helped farmers to fence off watercourses, increased field margins, fence off wet areas, rebuild dikes, stop and cutting grass until later in the season, and methods of cutting grass, so starting in the middle of the field rather than outside and work your way in and so on. Why have those interventions not seen a halt in the decline or a slowdown in the decline? Why are we still seeing a rapid and, well, very concerning decline in biodiversity? It's really the scale of the changes that you're describing there. The changes in watercourse management, introducing field margins, are very helpful in terms of sustaining some bird life, but if you sit back and think about some of the farmland birds like blackwing, oistacatcher, cornbunting, skylarks, they need very large areas of farmland in order to breed successfully, so the small piecemeal efforts to improve farmland are not going to help biodiversity as a whole. The awful thing now is that we have this very extensive database showing that we've lost so many of our farmland birds, we've lost so many of our pollinators, because we've not been able to transform agricultural at a sufficiently large scale to benefit many of these birds. In one example, I'll give you for skylarks and the production of silage. Very often, the repeated cutting of silage is simply not providing space and time for skylarks to build nests, to lay eggs and then to rearchick successfully. What you're saying is that, for the last 20 years, farmers have been encouraged to undertake certain activities in a certain way, but you're in effect saying today that it's been a waste of time because it wasn't done on the scale that it should have been. When did you realise that was the case and why wasn't more done sooner? First of all, I'd say that the farmers, more than anyone else, realise the plight of biodiversity. You are a farmer. I know many farmers and talk with them, of course. Many of them are heartbroken at seeing the changes. Birds like lapwings in rural areas are red-listed birds now, and these declines have been charted since the 1970s and especially since the 1990s. Now, we have a biodiversity crisis. Governments not just in Scotland but globally have referenced the climate and the nature emergency. Now, we have the courage and the conviction to say that it has to stop. We need to transform the way we manage the land in order to help the loss of biodiversity. Ross, would you like to come in? I think that just, I mean, we've had 50 years of the common culture policy. It has been a very effective European policy that's been applied in the UK. It's driven and supported farmers being ever more efficient and effective food producers. That was the fundamental purpose of the common culture policy. In Latin years, it brought in other public outputs and outcomes that it's sought to achieve, but in a very compartmentalised approach. On the one hand, the main driver's support is to make sure that farmers are resilient to them and have income supported for food production. On the other hand, it has to put land aside for nature or other public interests. That, in our current climate release, is not going to continue to work. It's not a system that will dip farming up to deliver the multiple public outcomes that we need from then. It's forcing them to make the thought that it makes in each aspect less resilient. On a food production point of view, particularly with the changing climate that we have now, and that alone is the future climate change, the systems that farmers are resistant to used to be in terms of food production. If that was combined with managing land for nature or using nature systems, it would not only make food production more resilient but also deliver that biodiversity loss that we've had over the years. I'd like to go back to the point that you just made about intensification, Ross, if that's okay. We're talking about a whole farming approach here, as in across the industry, but two farms have different climates and different biodiversity challenges. A farm has different climate and biodiversity challenges, let alone a whole-scale system. I'm going to talk predominantly about semi-upland, upland and hill farming. If intensification is part of the issue around loss of biodiversity, you can't get more landscape farming than hill and semi-upland and upland farming. Why are we seeing the same drop in numbers in upland farms as we are in the big arable-producing farms? Of course, a lot of the upland farms are habitats, and species that depend on them are far more sensitive than elsewhere. Even a small change in farming intensification can have an impact on that habitat. However, you're right that it's not—in some cases, we've seen quite a significant drop in sheep numbers, for instance, on some hill. Farm support's been aged. In other words, we still have quite high livestock densities, which, from a point of view of types of habitat restoration that we need to see in the uplands for climate, as well as biodiversity, such as woodland regeneration and peatland restoration, are still too high in those numbers. However, it doesn't mean that there isn't a sustainable form of uphill livestock management, because what we don't want to see is abandonment of uphill ground from livestock, because livestock is a fundamental need to keep habitats open and diverse. There's a sweet spot there. I'm glad to hear you saying that we don't want to see no livestock, because I also have to declare an interest. I've been a hill and sheep from cattle farmer and shepherd for 30 years. Has there been any consideration given to predation on those ground nesting birds? My own experience is that, with a huge influx of ravens, literally every lapwing, curlew, red shank, golden plover, I used to have to actually mark where the nests were as I drove around my lambing fields. By the time I came out of it, with the explosion in raven numbers, there was literally no point, because there were no nests full. Has there been any consideration given to what predation has done? I know that the RSPB would deny that, but my own anecdotal witnessing was a huge effect. Your observation is spot-on in terms of predation, and there's considerable work being done on waders at the moment, in particular working for waders. There's a number of pressures on waders such as golden plover, lapwing, red shanks, snipe. There's a loss of heather, fragmentation of upland landscapes, especially piecemeal forestry. Just very small areas of forestry will encourage nesting by crows, for instance. From just one or two tiny stands of forestry, all populations of lapwings can be wiped out by crows and, indeed, foxes. In terms of the science, the science is pointing to ravens not being such a problem as crows and foxes. It varies considerably from area to area, but, coming back to your original observation, it's really the fragmentation of the upland landscape that is encouraging predation but also encouraging, in some areas, trampling of nests by deer and, in a very few areas, by sheep. Does that not absolutely highlight the complexity of that? What we're trying to do is get farmers to buy in to woodland creation, to have timber as part of their ability to make a living off the land, and yet that in itself will contribute to wading birds' number decreasing? If we're going to do it properly, we don't want whole-scale hill planting. We want to do it in stands that will be shelter belts and create environments for wildlife, and yet that same environment is then going to create a nesting ground or a breeding ground for predators that are going to wipe out the ground nesters? Yes. You're describing very neatly what may happen. In relation to forestry, it's absolutely vital that we have resourcing of predator control. That is so important. In many areas where we've lost blackwings, the only change that we've seen in the landscape is a couple of shelter belts being produced, and on the face of it, they appear perfectly innocuous and are often very well managed, but they're providing cover for predators such as crows and foxes. Just finding a way of managing predation in those areas and providing suitable support would make a great difference. There is another issue in some of those areas where there are very small plantings that are providing cover for deer, and of course, even in the lowlands, never mind the uplands, we've seen this marked increase in deer. Again, we need to have sufficient resourcing for deer control. I just want to make the point that, on 13 May 2022, I visited a grouse moor in my constituency, which is Ceptric Rocksburn Berwickshire. They practice managing moor burn, they have an active grouse moor, and below it is a farmer who has a lowland farmer mixed livestock enterprise. On that day—I'm going to read to you what I saw—Lapwing, oyster catcher, curlew, golden plover, snipe, heron, redleg partridge, black grouse, red grouse, corvids, meadowpippet and windchat. I have never seen such a diverse amount of biodiversity in my entire life, and it was a fabulous experience. That proved to me that a managed farm, a decent stocking density and the rest of it, including the managed upland, was really working. I just wanted to make that point, but my question really is on where this biodiversity loss is occurring. Are we calculating biodiversity loss across Scotland and the islands, including marine, when we talk about these things, or do we specifically talk about agriculture when you cite intensification? If you look at the decline of the curlew of 60 per cent, it's twice the rate of England, so why is that so if we have similar agricultural practices? Is the ache scheme reversing biodiversity loss? Who would like to go for that one first? First of all, thank you very much for that observation, because that's exactly what I see, and a number of grouse moors and other hill farms that are very well managed, especially for the waders such as Carlow. It's just such a joy to see Carlow unlapping in these areas. You're contrasting England with Scotland. One fundamental difference is that we have more forestry plantings in Scotland, and I come back to my argument about crow and fox predation, in particular when we are associated with those areas. Had you visited grouse moors in England, in the north of England, you would have noted first much more extensive tracts of grouse moors, but also much less forestry and therefore much less risk of predation for the nesting waders. That's one observation that I'd make. The other rather harsh observation that I'd make is that, just on those birds that you've mentioned in Scotland, since 1994, we've lost 50 per cent of our kestrel, lapwing, green-french population, 50 per cent of our oyster catcher and rook population. Rooks, for heaven's sake, when you think of how common they are, we've seen a halfing of the population. Across the board, across the Scottish landscape, we are witnessing those really awful losses. That brings into sharp focus those areas that you visit that are extremely well managed and where we are managing to sustain these wonderful bird and pollinator populations. Professor Thomson, is it geographic and is it taken as a whole when calculating? Well, we are very fortunate because of the work by the British Trust for Ornithology and our SPB. We can provide regional statistics so that we can contrast the north-east of Scotland with the south-west of Scotland. We can compress the islands with the mainland. There are very marked regional differences. For instance, in parts of north-east Scotland, we are seeing some very worrying trends in declines of upland waders. Even there, where we've got good management in place, we've got thriving populations. If I might just sort of home in on one area and one bird, we're extremely concerned about it, and that's in the western isles, the cornbunting. Cornbunting is an absolutely marvelous bird. It's got a fascinating life cycle. It's one of the latest breeders that we've got. We've only got 1,000 stinging males now. In the western isles, we had a healthy population, but the chances are that we're going to lose the cornbunting from the western isles. Cornbunting in the western isles has got such specialised habits, but it's now viewed as a subspecies, globally important, so you've got an outlier population in the western isles. Unless we have active intervention and put some straightforward measures in place to improve the overwinter food supply, to look after the nesting habitat that's so important for these birds, we will lose the cornbunting from that wonderful area of Scotland. I highlight the cornbunting because it's got this very distinctive song. As a breeding bird, it's fascinating. It's a male that can have up to seven or eight females in its nesting territory. The birds may vary considerably in their productivity, but if you go back to the 30s and 40s, virtually every rural rail station you went to to catch your train in the morning, you would hear cornbunting singing. Now, I doubt that there are more than five rural rail stations in Scotland where you would hear these wonderful birds singing. That brings into sharp focus the awful loss of biodiversity that we're witnessing at the moment. In each part of Scotland we can point to small stories like that, where we know what's causing the decline and so we need to try and put in place adequate resourcing. To come back to an earlier point made about farmers, farmers more than anyone else are witnessing these changes and decrying these changes. They are the people who need the support here to recover our biodiversity. Ross, could you come in? Yes, so Higgs has been a structurally good scheme in terms of what it does do is it provides the deep and narrow support for farmers needs. That's the specific support for a particular measure, but it's very prescriptive. Because of its limited nature in terms of funding, it's only a small part of the past common culture policy series of schemes. That means that it can only be applied in very small areas of the farm in general. What is required for a lot of those species is that you need to brush that scale that Desmond Dunliffe has mentioned about. Going on to talking about the future of our culture reform and what the programme needs to do, it's to try to build in the broad and shallow measures that farmers would like to do and take up and can adopt that complements those very specific habitat measures that the Higgs scheme currently supports. We will get over this section, which is all about the devastating loss and looking at some of the important solutions. Right now, given the pressures on land price—we have pressures on land and a cap has driven farmers to try and get as much out of the land that they own—right now, given the cost of land, many farmers are trying to improve the land that they have, which is seeing in many parts, particularly in Dumfries and Galloway, where we are seeing hedgerows being pulled out. We are seeing now has been taken off field flattening at a level that we have never seen before. I am not blaming farmers—they have to maximise the output from the land that they have. Who is responsible for ensuring compliance? Is it the planning department? Is it SEPA? Is it NatureScot? Nobody appears to take any responsibility when it comes to compliance, where there are questions over whether rocky nice, which are unimproved, would require a EIA before being removed? Are there fields that have not been plowed for decades or even more to the revert to unimproved? In which case, there should be regulations right now in place that would prevent that type of land clearance happening? Who is responsible and what are NatureScot doing to make sure that right now, right this very minute, there is not a bulldozer in the field destroying a habitat for forever? Essentially, that is mostly regulated through payments, agriculture payments. If the farmer is a claimant of basic payment, then the good agriculture van condition should cover those aspects, which then comes within the realms of arvid and their inspections and sightings. That is largely where it lies. If it sits within a protected area, such special signs of interest, then, obviously, NatureScot has a role in enforcing the minimum ground conditions for a triple S sign. Do you have any enforcement—if you have any examples of where you have actually gone in and said, wait a minute, this is unimproved land, this has not been plowed before, you need an EIA. Have you done that, any examples of it working with? Within the EIA process, obviously arvid have picked up a number of cases in the past about improvements of permanent pasture, which is by gate condition. Within triple S signs, we have used the Nature Conservation Act to enforce triple S sign conditions yet. I will certainly do my best on that. I agree, convener. I have heard a lot about the problems just now. I am keen to hear about whether there are existing solutions that we can build on to some extent. As I am prone to mention the word crofting here, there are moan grassland schemes, and there are forms of less intensive agriculture out there that are helpful to species, ground nesting birds. I wonder which of those schemes we can build on in the future. I am thinking of, again, like you, thinking of—you mentioned corn, buntang, but corn, creak—although I represent the Western Isle, so I can recognise what you are saying. My origins are on the borders, and my father can remember on a farm in Berwickshire being kept awake at night, or he could remember being kept awake routinely by corn, creak. There has been huge change, but what are the forms of agriculture and the forms of agricultural support that we should be building on? First of all, we recognise that crofting is a really good system that produces multiple outcomes for the public. However, it is a way of life, a way of farming that is not just about food production. It is all the other things that you mentioned there. As a model follower, we want to continue supporting crofting, absolutely, or that crofting style and management. One of the issues that we have had in terms of the way that farming has been supported through the cap, as I said before, is the fact that there has not been the chance for the individual who is the most best place to join up the thoughts, to join up the management to make it the best use for the multiple outcomes that the public are now looking for from farming. That is the farmer and the crofter. The way that teams have been run and developed is that you chase each one individually. The integration happens at national policy scale in terms of what is described, measured and incentivised, rather than at the croft or the farm scale. A future model or a way of supporting that type of farming is to delegate the responsibility for joining the thoughts, joining the funds and making the funds work best for the individual farm in the circumstance that they are in. An example of where that was working quite well from the point of view of crofting was the ESA scheme, the environmental sense to beir scheme, which was back in the 90s, early 2000s, where there was a clear prioritisation exercise around a particularly distinctive Baradjewg athgar region. There was one ESA area, as you will know, for the maca regions of Western Isles, the English Isle Islands, which, particularly to what were the particular priorities for that area—concrete maca cropping—was the key priority for the Western Isles ESA. It gave the crofter the reassurance that, if they entered into that scheme, they could take measures that were relevant to them, and we could deliver the biodiversity interests and farming interests in that particular area, as opposed to another ESA potential. The borers where hedgerows, for instance, were probably the priority and were not relevant to Western Isles. That way of regionalising, putting more power in the hands of the crofter and the farmer to make the funds work for them in their circumstances is where we want to go. Thank you. I now move on to a question from Rachel Hamilton. I've asked my question on that specific section. Beatrice, you had potentially a supplementary question. Yeah, I don't think it's been answered, actually. Jenny? Mine has been answered as well. I represent Argyll and Bute, so I was very interested there to hear about the regionalisation and making it fit for purpose for the different types of farming. If it's okay, convener, will I just move on to— There is one question on data collection. Oh, there is data collection. My apologies. We're wondering if there are any gaps in data collection, if it is consistent data collection across all of Scotland, or if there are specific areas that perhaps you need additional information on and how that can be achieved? I can kick off that, convener. What we don't have is comprehensive, detailed, land-based data as to what the condition of our natural assets are. We have various attempts to measure habitats. We've done that within NatureScot as well, but we need it down to the level of the individual field and the habitat level. Potentially only the farmer is aware of it. One way that we can capture that is that there are various satellite-based technology that you can get better data that the Government could generate and put in the hands of the farmers so that they have a better understanding of where they are sitting in their performance. The farmer himself can do that through what we're hoping to build, which is a biodiversity audit approach tool for them to have the data in their hands, in the form of an app, and to record what they're doing and how effective that's been. That would certainly help all the gap in some of the data that we're missing. Okay. Thanks, Ross. That's really helpful. I'm just thinking that farmers are being asked to fill in a lot of different reports, whether it's a carbon audit one, their land use, and now this as well. Is there any way of pulling these different systems together? Well, I think, yeah. I mean, certainly encouraged by how other states, many states within the UK, are tackling this issue, particularly Wales and Northern Ireland are exploring and have developed the use of LIDAR technology to get very accurate digital data as to what the habitat vegetation condition is, largely from a climate perspective, because it helps to understand where the emissions balance is and the sequestration is in those countries. I understand that there's interest in having that Scotland, and it certainly would provide the kind of base layer data that actually everybody would draw from, whether you're doing a carbon audit or you're doing a virus to audit the same type of data. Okay. Thank you. It's a very brief question to yourself, Ross. You're saying that the Government doesn't have the level of data, but as a farmer, I used to have a crop plan every year and knew what it was going in every single field and what I was going to do in that field based on the soil analysis that I had done, what I was looking to do and what I was looking to achieve. Is there not a way of yourselves or the data gatherers to be able to actually speak to the farming community? If we're looking for that field level data, then a vast amount of that data is already available. We just have to tap into it and speak to the farmers to get it. Absolutely. Tony Gray. I think that what's been lacking perhaps is the tools available to make it easy for the farmer to share that data and for Government to collate it in a way that allows us to understand what's going on. I think that with the modern development technology and app-based data handling tools, I know farmers, many farmers are engaging in those, particularly in the area industry and so on, in recording what they are doing with crops and milk yields and so on. The tools are now able to make that easier in a way that's never been before. Behind that, what the Government currently has is the Lippus system, the land parcel information system, which farmers declare data through their staff forms every year. That's a huge resource that we can build upon. There's a lot of data within that that's already accessible to the farmer and to ourselves and Government that we can use as a baseline. Just carrying on from that, you know, talking about apps and collecting data. We were due to have Dita Helm, who is regarded as a kind of leading expert in looking at natural capital and biodiversity or whatever. Unfortunately, he's not able to join us today. We've heard about farmers being asked to soil tests. We've heard about farmers having carbon audits, but last night in the farming for 1.5, we heard that one of the biggest problems is that there is not a destination. Farmers don't know why they're doing this and what, ultimately, the outcomes are to be. So, a bit like that with biodiversity, so, as I say, we used to have flag groups, farming wildlife action groups, where officers come out and help farmers to put together their plans to restore waterways, build dykes and improve habitats. Those officers work with farmers to see what improvements have been made. We've lost that over the past 15 or 20 years. Do we need more people on the ground from NatureScot to work with farmers to look at what they need to do but to record the positive outcomes? That appears to be what it's lacking just now. You talked about that. What are the timescales for that? We're in a crisis. There's lots to talk about. Everything's very slow and things are delayed. When can we get the app? When can we get farmers to realise the benefits that they are delivering from the actions that they're taking? We've got about 19,000 regular claimants with public support for farmers' crofters. That's quite a big population of people to engage with on a one-to-one basis. At any one time, each scheme, for instance, supports about 3,000 of farmers in their contract, of which they've received some support and advice from particularly likes of SRUC and others. What we need to do is get to a point where every farmer and crofter has a learned individual and we know from a lot of the work that we've been doing in NatureScot on the family and nature programme that we've been developing that a lot of farmers and crofters take their advice and their guidance from peer-to-peer first and foremost, particularly within the family and their neighbours, before they go to their home or their advisor, quite often to the industry, and then probably for the bottom of the pile is a Government like ourselves. But clearly to get the shift in wholesale land use that we're looking for, for climate agenda and for the virus agenda, we need every farmer and crofter to have some form of support and help in terms of advice and guidance in a way that's affordable. That has to be through a combination of peer-to-peer support, the advisory industry that's out there being scaled up and able to scale up their support and indeed from ourselves within NatureScot and within a lot of the expertise is also within ARPID's cultural services as well. CEPR2 isn't that game. We need a common kind of understanding about what are the key drivers and it will not happen overnight because the streets from 19,000 will take a number of years, but starting with some of the tools that I like the better state we're trying to develop in as simple a way as possible, people can start to have a go themselves and over time build in the advice and support they need given that everybody's starting from different points. Some farmers have to do it themselves and got where with all others will need more support. I just wondered on this point that James Hutton Institute did some work on the increase in biodiversity from actions. Where there was woodland and scrub, there was an increased number of biodiversity species, however, there was a loss of, for example, meadow, pipit and myrlin. How do you prioritise species one over another from the actions proposed by the Government and do you have any modelling on loss and gain? Yes, so if I can come into this first. This is a real challenge and we're fortunate that both James Hutton Institute and SRUC have excellent data here. It's really important here to set priorities at the regional level. The example that you're giving there for North East Scotland, where we've got some internationally important heathlands, if we have forestation and woodland regeneration there, we'll actually lose habitats that are internationally important. Whereas if you go to areas in the West Scotland, some of the West Highlands, we have a dearth of species-rich woodland. Having woodland regeneration there at the expense of wet heathes that, in some areas, are fortunate to have meadowpipit, but not much else, moving the landscape in that direction is very good. So we're within the newly published draft Scottish biodiversity strategy. We've been reflecting on the regional variation and the importance of biodiversity in different areas, but also thinking then about the different levers we need to pull in order to maximise the biodiversity benefits. If I may just comment on related to that, what we've just been discussing about clusters of farmers or crofters working together, having one person, one adviser interacting with a group of crofters or a group of farmers and providing advice on biodiversity audit, providing advice on how biodiversity is changing and therefore how you can tweak practices, that can make a massive difference for biodiversity. One example, if I may, I'd give, is just the farmland bird lifeline that's been operating again for cornbuntings in north-east Scotland. We got to a situation there where we'd seen an 83 per cent decline in cornbuntings, but as a result of concerted efforts by 53 farmers, putting in place some very simple farmland measures, we've managed to halt the loss of cornbuntings to the extent that, where we're getting active management and co-operation, we're getting a 5 per cent per annum increase in cornbunting numbers. Having targeted measures and co-operation between whether it's crofters in the west, farmers and parts of the east makes a world of difference. We're now going to move on to more details, could it be, of the forthcoming Agribil? Jenny Minto? I'm interested to hear what your or Nature Scott's input has been into the development of the tiered route map. I'm thinking of ones that specifically impact on the west coast of Scotland where my constituency is, so I'm thinking about the ELFAS payments and how you've been involved in discussions around that. If I can also slightly go off a tangent, the geese payments as well that Nature Scott managed? So far, we've been engaged in what is currently under tier two and to some extent the tier three elements of the four tier approach. But our interest lies in all four tiers and what we've been providing is advising on the kind of things that we've just been talking about, in that in order for farmers who crofters to deliver across the biodiversity and climate agenda, all four tiers need to play their part in the support. Starting from base tier, the way that the regulatory baseline is set in good agriculture, environmental condition and cross-compliance measures need to reflect the kind of baseline that farmers need to be at, not only from a point of view of good farming and good agriculture condition, but from a good environment condition perspective. It can do its part and it can show that the baseline that the point made there by a convener is that we stop any further damage to important habitats. In tier two, it has conditionality where we've had most inputs in recent years about developing the broad and shallow measures that can be supported by that proposal for 50 per cent of the basic payment to be based on conditionality. We've designed those climate environment measures. The tier three is obviously the elective tiers, where EECS has been set and where we're looking now, thinking about how the measures that EECS has been particularly targeting could fit into that elective tier. In tier four, as we understand it, it is where the advice and the knowledge transfer and those aspects about helping farmers to build up their professional capacity to transition is important. All four tiers work that way, and we're involved in the Farming of Energy Service steering group in making sure that what it's currently doing in tier four is supporting it. The point that you make about ELFAS is that there is a cross-cutting issue across the four tiers, which is how payments are distributed. We haven't had a lot involved in that, but we're very interested to support the thinking around which element, how much funding is required in each tier in order to make sure that tier does its part to play. I miss particularly for ELFAS. It's a way of so far being supplementing the income of disadvantaged farmers working in environment and disadvantaged areas. There's a logic there that could be turned around and saying that those farmers are also in areas sitting on some of our most carbon-rich stores in terms of peatland and woodlands and have the greatest potential in fact to deliver both the carbon secretion aspect of that and the biodiversity elements of those habitat support. It could be a good idea to say that in return for receiving the additional support that ELFAS has traditionally provided, it could be the justification for support in those areas. That's an interesting way of looking at it and turning around to say that those areas aren't less favourable. They are areas that are able to create great biodiversity and the carbon secretion. The other important thing is the sustainability of the rural population, which has to be built into the thoughts around that as well. If the convener doesn't stop me to ask specifically about the geese payments and where you see those fitting in to the tiers? There's no doubt about it. The farmers that are having an official burden of supporting protected and globally important youth populations, particularly those in Islay, need dedicated support. There's certainly the habitat elements of what they're doing, such as grassland management, for instance. There's a potential that, if those families elsewhere with geese are going to have to adopt more resilient, more genitive-type raising systems, grasslands that are more robust and able to enable more permanent, more legume content to everything else, there's an opportunity there for that to be less attractive to geese. Coupled with more land put aside for nature, for wildlife, where geese roost and where natural habitat is, it would take the pressure off, certainly, in some of the more conflicting situations between geese and grassland. Coupled with the scared support and the licence support that natureScot provides, it needs all those aspects to work together, and that's what we can try to build through agrotoform and the evolution of the schemes that natureScot have been running up to now. Thank you, Ross, and if I may just one very quick question. We've focused on the trying to maintain bird species across Scotland. I also have some thoughts on plants as well. I'm aware that there's rare orchids, for example, in my constituency, and then also the impact that that has on insects, the marsh vatilla, for example. Yeah, I mean, the reason why we've still got good marsh chili populations in our guile, and we've got Irish lady's dresses on Onsy and Ireland and so on, largely because we've got very low-intensive cattle-based farming systems. What we must try to do is avoid is that in the drive to make livestock more efficient for emissions, and the issues around livestock support is that it still allows or still supports farmers keeping low-intensive, particularly cattle-managing, because, to the end of the day, they are good habitat managers. Those diverse habitats on the edges of woodlands and wetlands in our guile and the west islands are a good example of that. Thank you. I want to pursue that a little bit further for Ross, because, as someone who used to graze hill cattle, I'm absolutely in favour of making sure that we've got coos in the hill, but, if the LFAS support, and if somebody who used to get the LFAS support, I would have much rather seen much bigger payments, let me put that on the record. If the LFAS support is to be increased to have low-intensity cattle numbers, this is probably not your remit, but is there any consideration to maintaining critical mass so that we've got the numbers of calves to keep the industry working? It's a question that I keep on asking, but it's one that keeps on getting skipped over, because the one can't survive without the other. Yeah, it isn't, but one example, one opportunity, I think, to try and make sure that critical mass is there in terms of keeping the infrastructure around about cattle grazing in the hills alive is for farms to co-operate. If we build in for co-operation, not just for doing specific biodiversity measures, like as I mentioned earlier about home-punting, but also to make a group of farmers work together to ensure that the outcomes that they're trying to achieve, albeit in this circumstance, using cattle, is all that they all work together. So they're allowed to apply the scheme in support in a way that works for all of them, not just as individuals. It's for them to lead that process, and what we need to do is make sure that the system of support across the four tiers gives them the maximum opportunity to do that. That's a starting point. Obviously, then, after that, it's about the funding levels within those individual schemes. Okay, thank you. Just on a couple of questions that you touched on, Cattle Nature Scott did come under a lot of criticism for removing cattle off one of their farms in Galloway recently. It's interesting to find out what the biodiversity count is now on that hill in the Kersmoor of Fleet. My question is specifically around the tier system again, and about base-lining. We want to see improvements in biodiversity, and in some ways, farmers should be rewarded for that. What are your views on how we baseline where we start? We'll have some farmers who have planted hedgerows, who will have sacrificed some productive land to improve biodiversity, and will have other farms where it's a biodiversity desert. Do you give more farm money to those to reverse the deserts? I just allow the farmers to have done the right thing for 20, 30 or 40 years just to continue. That might have an implication on capping, where a big productive farm gets high payments because of its output, but also requires a big level of input to reverse or address its biodiversity. How do you view capping and how we baseline farms that have done the right thing for generations and those who are maybe being less kind to biodiversity? I would answer that. Those farms likely to have done this to biodiversity are the ones that are most productive agricultural areas, where they can afford to have maximised their food production of that. As a result, what was there in terms of biodiversity has maybe suffered. I would argue that, in the mainstream farm support in terms of the main measures, farmers just adopting more regenerative agriculture systems in those areas who could do so much more for biodiversity just by that alone, before they are paid to set aside ground. Obviously, there is a heavy lifting that can be done through regenerative agriculture support rather than necessarily directed by biodiversity support in some of those areas. Although those who have already delivered and are managing high-nature value habitats, what we want to do is to maintain that and sustain it, and they should be recognised for the value that they put into that and rewarded for that, but they would get that reward from perhaps the more direct target schemes. We have heard from many of the environmental NGOs that proposed tiers around the wrong way, and we should not see 50 per cent of payments guaranteed and ring-fenced with conditionality in tier 1. Do you subscribe to the argument that we should see more funding in tier 3 and 4? That is probably the question. It all comes down to how much conditionality we can build into all four tiers. If there are readily achievable conditions within tier 1 and tier 2 that will deliver that broad-gallow management, then that does not need to be a huge amount of distribution, but if we cannot get that into tier 1 and tier 2, we need to make sure that tier 3 and tier 4 are adequately funded in order to deliver the targets. I want to thank you both this morning. It has been fascinating in particular, I am really interested in what is happening in the north-east. That is where my constituency is. We have seen in Bampshire and Buckingham Coast the real effects of climate change at the forefront of a lot of storm damage, flooding and coastal erosion. Compounded with the bird flu epidemic that we have had as well, we have seen masses of our coastal birds, troophead in particular, where we could be seeing this devastation lingering on for decades to come because of what has happened there. At the same time, the perception is that we are kind of overrun with gulls because they make themselves a bit of a nuisance with the locals. I am in a situation where we are trying to build knowledge around the change in environment in the north-east, the impacts that we have on our climate, the impacts that we have on our wildlife and our biodiversity. Talking to farmers, as you alluded to earlier, they see those changes, they know and understand what is going on and are quite keen to help as rapidly as they possibly can, trying to encourage more clover growth, for example. They are concerned about the lack of butterflies, saying that there has not been as much butterflies as they would normally see. There is a whole rapid change in landscape, but there may not be so much public awareness of what is going on. In light of COP 15 and the Scottish Government's biodiversity strategy, what good is coming from that? What can we see? What does that mean for the future agricultural policy? How can we almost energise people and educate people to get on board with what is happening? That is a great way of putting it, if I may comment on that. The problem is that, although people recognise that we have a climate emergency for the very reasons that you have been describing, people do not get that we have a nature emergency as well. There is a growing realisation of it, but we have a very long way to go. What you are describing for gulls, for instance, is what has happened with gulls as a catastrophe, but it is because of what has happened at sea. The food base for gulls has just been declined for a great many reasons, so gulls are having to move in land. They are moving into towns and cities and are not adapted to breeding. To the extent that now herring gulls and lesser black fat gulls on a daily basis are very good at tracking school children and knowing where they will be ready food for them. We are very fortunate that we have very good guidance available both within NatureScot and within the local authorities on how we should be managing and controlling gull populations. That broader realisation of climate change contributing to the nature crisis and, therefore, to the problems that we have on our doorstep is a parable for what is happening more widely. To come back to farmers, that is why farmers probably more than any other enterprise land use in Scotland get it because they are witnessing the changes and understanding the changes that are taking place. If only we can get wider realisation across schools and wider communities as to what is causing the conjoined nature and climate crisis and the measures that we need to put in place in order to tackle it. For gulls, that is such a good example. Do not blame gulls. What we see with gulls is just the symptom of decades of change resulting in these massive changes in redistributions in nature. We have touched on whole farm plans and whatever, but we know NatureScot involved in developing a natural capital assessment template. There were high hopes that that would deliver and it would give us an indication of baselines and a touch on the previous questions that I have asked. Can I ask you how the assessment template is progressing and whether you are still as confident that it will look promising as a useful tool when it comes to whole farm planning? We are at a stage where we are trying to simplify the natural capital approach. There is an internationally recognised theory about how you assess multiple public outcomes and how you use that to inform decision making. We adapted that process to a farming context in Scotland and we have tested about 40 farmers and crofters, mostly to try to find out whether they can grasp the concept and whether they can use it effectively in their own farm situation. For those who are not familiar with the natural capital process, it does not just take a look at biodiversity, it looks at what the production of the farm is, what the labour force is and what the soil conditions are. It is finally a way of putting them side by side and saying what is the trade-offs for that particular farm and that location in terms of how the farmer maximises the natural capital in the farm. It is more than biodiversity when it embraces carbon audits. It effectively could be the form of whole farm planning, which is where we have got it to. What it does depend on is that discussion that we had earlier about good data as to the condition of down to the field level, which is lacking in some places. The level of data is good in some farms and not so good in other farms. In terms of publicly available, we are free to use data. To take it to the next stage, we need to develop that database. As a starting point for farmers, find it easier to understand what it is through the natural capital tool, what they have got and what conditions they are at. We also need to discuss with Scottish Government colleagues whether it could form the basis or inform a whole farm planning approach in terms of tier 1. I am interested if you have any preliminary findings from the pilots on outcome-based approaches and whether they are helping to influence the payment model and what connections you have with other projects that are going on, such as the monitor farms through Quality Meet Scotland and the Nature Friendly Farming Network, which are also doing peer-to-peer support and looking at the way that things could change. We tested an outcome-based approach with about 80 to 100 farms and crofters over the last three years. Largely, in a theoretical basis, we asked whether, if you were to be supported on an outcome-based as opposed to a prescriptive basis, which is how farm support has happened up to now, how would that work for you as a farmer and crofter and what is your understanding of the outcomes in your circumstances? Overwhelmingly, farmers respond to that far better than having a prescriptive top-down measure in this way. Otherwise, we will not pay you or we will get penalised. That is a fundamental lesson that we have learned from that. However, what is an outcome and what we have managed to come up with is a series of outcomes that are quite similar, according to the farm type and the type of habitat that you are talking about. For instance, we have used a scorecard approach that we have learned from other examples, particularly in Southern Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, where it has been tested. How do you know what the outcome is and how would you get there? We are using a number of simple-to-use parameters that a farmer—this is what we have largely been testing—could understand and see in the field themselves and score. It is a kind of scorecard approach. On a kind of one-to-ten scale, that is what it comes out with. That is probably the biggest element that we have learned in terms of what would happen if a farmer and their adviser, the Scottish Government official running the schemes, could use that as a basis to take a hedgerow—for instance, a species rich grassland—and say, let us use a scorecard to score where you are at. If you are at number four on a scale of 10, you could progress up five and six by adopting a number of measures to prove it in your context. Effectively, you would draw down your payment to do that, and it would be a different measure for somebody in the west of Scotland, in Nagail, and it would be somebody in Nagail. The outcome is the same. That is how we think the outcome approach can work better in terms of how payments are constructed and how we are working it. The payment would be the same whether you are in Nagail or in Nagail, but the way the outcome is achieved would be different. An example of that would be paid. We have, in the EEC scheme, for instance, weighed in measures where farmers are expected to shut off their field in springtime to allow waders to breed and nest. There is a standard set date that has been in the scheme for that, but because that date changes, it is called where you are in Scotland. The prescriptive auditory way that we deliver the scheme is made difficult to make that variable. We would take an outcome approach and then the farmer can decide when they shut the field off according to the waders' behaviour in their particular location, but still we see the payment. Have you been linking into the monitor farms or the nature friendly farming network? Yes. We have a steering group for that project, which involves nature friendly farming network, NFUS and others on the group. We are starting to engage with the Quatimeet Scotland monitor farm system, because they themselves, the farmer classes that they are just setting up now, are asking for understanding about how they and their location in the nature in North Scotland and so on, including one on Isle as well, who are saying, well, we want to know what we can do for waders to know their location. We are looking to share the tools and the scorecards that we have been using in testing with our 80 farmers with those monitor farmer groups to say, can you go and test them in your situation? Do they work for you and what particular groups outcomes are you achieving in your area? I am interested to know how either you might want to respond to the CivTech challenges. I am looking at challenge 8.2. How can technology help drive effective resource management for a multi-skilled workforce in a constantly changing environment, which seems to relate to rural payments and inspectorate division, if I am right? I wonder if you can respond to that more generally to the CivTech challenges and how they might be applied in developing agriculture policy for the future. We have engaged with the CivTech challenge that has kicked us off in developing the outcome-based approach. The COBAAS project that we call the COBAAS project can be based in Scotland is partly funded by the CivTech process to come up with an app-based basis for doing the scoring exercise that I have just explained. We have worked with a new start-up technology company based in Edinburgh to develop the application process that is now taking their products, looking to get support for it, not just within the public sector but into the private sector and into supermarkets and so on. Whether or not we use what they have developed in terms of helping to support future payment distribution, they themselves are looking to use a tool to sell to farmers and to supermarkets and others to say that this is how you can, for instance, a supermarket could set premium on biodiversity delivery using the app that they have developed. There are a number of examples that are being developed in that similar situation. Thank you. Just before we move on to the next question, we are probably going to be running over a little bit. Are you, a gentleman, still available for period after happens 11? That would be helpful. Thank you. We will move on to a question from Rachel Hamilton. First of all, I am going to ask you a broad question. What is the difference between a catchment, management and a landscape scale approach? It is two different ways of explaining what a landscape might be. At the moment, there are different ways in which you could argue what we mean by landscape. We can take it through a biodeographical term in terms of a glen, which, with a river in the middle of which, is a catchment leading down to the shoreline, or it could be a cluster of farms on a particular soil type and land type that all have a very similar type of farming activity, or it could be a group of hills and so on. In many ways, rather than being organic in terms of how it is defined, generally we are understanding about the most effective landscape scale partnerships, I suppose that you want to call it, are generated organically by the fact that it is a logical number of individuals who come together before it comes on real day. It tends to be somewhere between 10,000 to 50,000 hectare type scale area of land, which makes sense in terms of the similar geographical characteristics. That is really helpful, thank you. I will not get the opportunity, but I just want to say that this has been a really useful session. I understand that the approach is very similar. It brings together urban, rural, industry, tourism, prioritising goals such as water quality and wildlife, and it basically looks at the land use strategy. Bearing in mind what we have talked about in this session with regard to the regional approach, what work have you been doing that could help to create a future agricultural payment scheme? And how do you envisage all of those stakeholders who are trying to reach the same goal being part of that payment scheme? One sort of difference between the catchment and the landscape approach, and you will see where I am going here, is that, for the catchment approach, we are really going from summit to sea, so from the highest areas, thinking about a mountain area down to the sea, at each step putting in place measures that benefit biodiversity. It might be peatland restoration through our peatland action programme high up, creation of riparian woodland along river margins, helping to mitigate effective climate change, benefiting salmon and other fish species, working your way down to the sea, where we are into a flood risk reduction. Working at that catchment level, if we can incentivise the land users and the communities to come together, you are going to get a disproportionately greater benefit for biodiversity rather than adopting just a piecemeal approach. For your riparian woodland, for instance, it is so massively important in enriching water quality and benefiting biodiversity around there. Unless you have efficient deer management, you would have to put in place expensive fencing, which is not sustainable. Again, it is adopting that holistic approach and ensuring that the resources cover all the land uses that are affecting that sort of management that you are putting in place from the summit to sea, or, as Scottish Water refers to, its source to tap. You might be referring to regional land use partnerships and potentially that approach to how we might privatise land use. There is no doubt about it. We need to—across the support, the important that it is, particularly the farming sector, it is only one part of the metric that is needed or the support that is going to be needed to bring the land use change for climate and for biodiversity. We know that we are talking about 20 billion, potentially, required to get nature where we need it to be within the next 10, 20 years in 10 years or so. That is not going to come from the public sector, it is not going to come from the agriculture project, which is currently about half a billion a year in Scotland under the CAP regime. We will have to lever in private investment into land use. Farmers can be part of that as well. I am not just talking about land purchase for nature. I am not talking about carbon costs in this area. I am talking about quite big private investment in capital investment in land use change. For instance, the issue around flood management, for instance. There are models there where private sector would perhaps invest in flood management across fields upstream in order to prevent flood damage downstream and so on. It does not need to come from the public sector, it can come through natural capital markets in a tradable format that brings a good income support to the farmer, as well as the capital measures that are required to do it. We need to make sure that the public support that the farmer gets through farm support schemes dovetails with that. It helps that to happen rather than goes against it. What is happening at the moment is that farmers are naturally holding off from engaging in that private market investment at landscape scale because they do not know how they are going to get supported through farm support. That is exactly how I envisaged the answer that you were going to give because I loved the description of dovetailing, the agricultural payments alongside all the other things that are happening. If I use my constituency as an example, the Hoik flood risk management scheme was only funded to a certain point. Anyone residents living beyond that still get their houses flooded. It is not bringing the whole community within that project, but if it had been the teviet to the summit, it was confined by resource, unfortunately. That is exactly what you have described. It has to be a whole load of things such as NPF4, planning applications, investment on flood risk management and the agricultural payment system. If I could say that that natural capital tool that we mentioned earlier was about a farmer having it using the natural capital process for their own farm management interests, when it just got its testing just now, it is building a tool that works at landscape scale. It is a tool that we are not sort of dictating what should happen at landscape scale, which is providing a means for a partnership of multi-land users and farmers being a major part of it. However, Scottish Water, deeper local authorities and other landowners and so on, we have used that tool collectively to work out where the priorities are for that regional scale. We have already got that with the biosphere. We have the biosphere in Galloway and Southern Ayrshire that covers around 5,500 square kilometres, but it has no powers. It did get £1.7 million with the funding, but there is a model there that may be an exemplar when it comes to the landscape or catchment area type management. What is missing, as Rachel said, is the link between commercial, agriculture and whatever. We have a model there to some extent to deliver some of those policies. Jim Fairlie has got a supplementary on what we have talked about then, Jenny Minto. We are just going to come back to what you were talking about there, that dovetailing. I, like Rachel, like that analogy. We have heard from Martin Kennedy last week that we have to remember that the bill that we are actually scrutinising, which you are talking to today, is an agricultural bill to support agriculture to produce food and to create azaleons in the food system. Does it currently look to you as though we are trying to do too much with one bill with a limited pot of money? At the moment, the way that the cap payments are split is largely pillar one, which is food production, farming and support, and pillar two, which is where a lot of the wider public goods that we are talking about has been delivered so far, and the split of funding is appropriately. So, yes, the echoed budget, where the intention of it should continue to support that broader public goods services that we get from farmers and pay them the service that they produce. We should lose that. The question is how much of that in the way that farmers are producing food can also deliver on the wider public benefits is the critical question. What we are advising and we are suggesting is that there are good examples out there, both in farmers that are operating today and in the science and the evidence out there, that farmers can produce food for that part of the support in a way that, A, it makes sure it continues to be resilient and sustainable given the climate shocks that are coming right now, and A, it can deliver way more from the biodiversity and quite a public interest than has been able to up to now, because of the way that they have been supported up to now. The farming community absolutely accepts that they have a massive role to play in this, nobody denies that. Given the scale of the challenges that we have, all the things that the farming community will do within the confines of the funding that will be available to them, it seems to me that it is not going to be nearly enough, and you talked about private equity coming into the landscape style gains that we have to make. Is there a need to shift some of the focus away from the funding that is in agriculture to look at how we are going to do it on a much bigger scale? Yeah, absolutely. To meet the nature targets and the climate targets, it needs more than what public money is currently available or like to be available, so that the private sector, who wants to pay for this, whether it is the super market that is prepared to put premium in the customer who is prepared to pay that premium on, food that is produced in a more sustainable environment sensible way, or it is the financial sector, private sector who wants to pay for natural capital goods currently in the kind of carbon markets, but there is lots of work going on just now in understanding what the additional benefits are from just carbon, but nature targets as well. Is that investment sitting there? Directly for farming, for regenerative agriculture for instance, the banks for instance would start to get interested in terms of just to make sure that their investments in farming are more sustainable and resilient by supporting that type of farming. Given that you have just mentioned supermarkets and whether they put a premium on this type of food, we have been down this road before and generally these things get brought in as incentives and then become sticks to beat you with at a later date. Given the fact also that we are in a cost of living crisis right now, people will not be able to afford to pay that premium, so that funding is going to have to come from different sources, isn't it? Well, I think that the key habitats that we need for biodiversity and for climate such as woodland, peatland restoration, hedgerows for instance, organic soils, the carbon in those, and the nature benefits on top of that carbon in the way that they are managed, there's a value there that the financial sector prevents investing. That then leads to that danger of Scotland losing its natural, sorry, I cut across you there, I do apologise. That then leads to Scotland being in danger of losing the value of its natural capital to big organisations who are not actually living here. That may be a bigger question than what you're here to actually think about, it's just sorry, the process is going through my mind as we speak. We'll obviously, the farmer can receive an income from that in a way that they've not had been able to up to now. Okay, thank you. Thanks, convener, and can I just echo what other members have said about this being a really interesting and informative session? We spoke earlier about knowledge gaps and Ross mentioned digital data, but when looking at improving biodiversity on farmland, what are your key research and development areas, and how do you envisage that evidence generated through on-going research will feed into the agriculture policy of the Scottish Government? We're saying that there's five actions that all farmers can take for nature. Number one is to make sure that they're planning and integrating what they're doing in a whole-farm approach, in the landscape approach that we've discussed. Number two is soil. If there's one take-home message for what we want to do with our codes of support in farming is to improve our soil health, because it just generates so much outcomes across the public agenda, not just resilient food production, obviously the climate agenda in terms of reducing emissions from soils and sequestriant carbon to that matter, and then biodiversity. We haven't mentioned so far today that half our biodiversity is actually below the soil, therefore it's not above it. Number three is enhancing the habitat network, so creating space for nature, providing those fuel margins, those hedgerows, those pieces of wetlands, those species-rich grasslands, unimprwy grasslands, linking them up across the farm. Number four is creating new habitats, so we get that scale. Number five is specific species targets, the sort of things that Des has mentioned that we can take. They're all very easy to implement and measure. I suppose it goes back to we just need to make sure that we get enough of what's happening at scale, and we are able to know when it's happening, and that's where that data thing comes in. We've got a database that is truly national that allows us to be updated regularly enough to know that all those five elements are action-hunger. If I may just to come in on that, I absolutely agree with Ross about his number two on soils. We're learning so much about the soils, brilliant work at the James Hutton Institute. We're finding species new to science being found in the equivalent of a teaspoon full of soil, in particular some of our mountain and woodland soils, and the composition of fungi in particular within the soils is so important in terms of influencing carbon sequestration. And if only we could communicate more to farmers and other land users about the importance of soils and soil condition, I think that would make a world of difference, because people are fascinated by soils and really understand the importance of soils, not just for sustaining biodiversity and food, of course, but also in terms of sequestering carbon. Jenny Minto. Have you have supplemented on this? No, I don't have a supplementary, but I was agreeing there, because I remember being at a meeting where a farmer spoke very passionately. He's based on Lismor, and he had been in the 1970s how to increase crops, specifically strawberries, and he said the smell when he put the chemicals on the field, he should have realised he was killing things. I was just nodding in agreement that I'm not entirely clear of why you've come to me. So apologies for that, going off on a tangent. I'm mixing up my GEMs and my GFs. To soil, there is one area of contention at the moment, and it does have an implication when it comes to NatureScot as well. Improving soil is really important, and one of the ways that we can do that is increase or a big apart and decrease the input of nitrogen fertilisers, reduce the use of pesticides, whatever. However, to maintain our output, we've got to improve how crops fix nitrogen, for example, or are able to uptake and use the nutrients that are in the soil more effectively, because if not, we would see a drop-off in yield. What should you have used on the use of GE, so genetic modification of potatoes or cereals or grass, to ensure that it can uptake the available nutrients in the soil far more effectively than currently? Is that something you think should be in the mix? I suppose there's a different question around the unknown consequences of genetically modified crops on Nature, which is something that we're concerned about. If we're going to use genetic modified crops, do we have enough science and evidence as to what the likely impacts are on the nature that we're unforeseen? Separately, maybe not this or that specific question. Whatever crop you're putting in the soil, what we're saying is that if it requires a lot of extractive, additional and inorganic inputs to achieve it, and treating the soils as substrates, that's not the direction that we need to go in if we're going to have our soils resilient from the point of view of food production and from the point of view of climate and nature. We need to have crops that are able to make the most of the organic matter in the soil's ability to provide the nutrient content, and whether that's genetic modified or otherwise, that's the fundamental question. Certainly the likes of the Hutton Institute would suggest that there's huge advances in technology that we can use to apply to crops that would reduce their impact on the natural environment. First of all, let's diversify the cropping system because the more diverse crops are, the more likely it's going to be that soil improvement will happen. Let's bring the leggings into the system. I have to be part of livestock if we're using agricultural or genetic systems as part of cropping because they protect a lot of the organic matter. At the bottom of the tree is the use of organic inputs. We're going to have to continue to be there in order to maintain productivity, at least while we're transitioning to our agricultural system, but let's minimise them and, therefore, there's good technology to try and make target them better so that they have the least impact on the wider nature. This is a piece up to this section, if that's okay, convener. You talked about the research in soil, and as I'm talking to you on this one, you talked about the research in soil, and I'm going to find out more of some of the stuff that you've been looking at. Again, I'm going to irritate my colleagues, this has been a fascinating session. Farmers will take up whatever we ask them to do if they believe in it and they trust it. What we're hearing a lot from the farmer community just now is the different science being thrown at them with different requirements. How do we get a set of scientific data that they can put their trust in and buy into so that we actually achieve the outcomes of that? We're very—sorry. Just in carbon audits, for a point of view, there are a number of carbon auditing tools around. In Scotland, as I understand it, the majority of farmers are using agriculture by the SRUC. I think that this is something for the industry to lead on. Ultimately, the use of these tools has helped the industry to understand its performance and improve its performance as a whole. It is something that can support individual farmers by sharing the results that they are getting from use of the tools and rationalising the metrics that the tools are using. It is equivalent to how technology is developed in other spheres, such as video technology. Ultimately, a commonly used metric will emerge. I don't think that we can probably easily build a metric and insist on everybody using a single metric. It needs to come from the bottom up and sharing that data and understanding where their variables are. There is an important challenge there in developing a series of biodiversity metrics that everyone signs up to. Therefore, more people have confidence in them. The Scottish Government has committed to having a centre for biodiversity expertise, and there is some early planning around that. That will be an important focal point for providing the evidence base on biodiversity change in the drivers and what you need to do to get the best for biodiversity. I think that people will have a lot of confidence in that. We are very fortunate in Scotland in that so many research centres work together. We have terrific collaboration across Scotland of centres such as the SRUC, James Huffman Institute, UHI and some of the mainstream university departments. That is something that we need to build on. We have great expertise within the Scottish Government and in research, for instance. I have a very brief supplementary from Rachael Hamilton. Can you talk about making it streamlined in terms of what we are using to look at farm outputs, agricultural outputs? We were with a group of people who created the report 1.5 degrees farming. I think that it was called last night. I asked the question about whether we should be calculating methane emissions by GWP 100 or GWP star. There was an overwhelming consensus that we should be ensuring that methane is calculated with one calculation rather than both of those, because it is skewing the data. What is your opinion on that? There is an issue that the way that the IPCC measures emissions and sets emission targets tends to confuse the ask from individual farmers. For instance, it is in net emissions that they are dealing with rather than the total emissions that are coming from land. I suppose that the difference between the two metrics is an example of that. I do not really know apart from what we must not do is let the decisions stop when people are starting to take action. I suppose that over time, as the science gets better and the understanding of how those particular targets are measured, it will come a bit at the parent that one is better than the other. However, at the moment, let us just get farmers looking at ways in which they can introduce methane emissions from animals and not to worry about which target they are hitting. I am not too worried about the fact that we have to recognise that any effort that farmers are making to reduce emissions that are not recognised by the IPCC's targets are not that they are recognised in the way that they get supported for that. The effort that they put into is supported by the sports system, rather than the measures that the IPCC targets. It has been a fantastic session, which I can expect, given that Ross is a former Aberdeen Agri colleague of mine, I would expect nothing less. Thank you very much, Des and Ross. That has been a great session. Thank you for your time this morning and giving us a little bit extra time for our questions. That concludes our meeting in public. We now move into private session, and I suspend the meeting for a five-minute comfort break.