 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the seventh meeting of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee in 2023. Before we begin, I can remind those members using electronic devices to please switch them to silent. Our first item of business this morning is a pre-legislative scrutiny of Scotland's future agricultural policy. Our evidence session today is with the members of the Agriculture Reform Implementation Oversight Board, the Areob and its Agricultural Policy Development Group. I welcome to the meeting Martin Kennedy, Tim Bailey, Ann Rae MacDonald and Kate Rowell, who are members of Areob and Vicky Swales, who is a member of the Agricultural Policy Development Group. We have approximately 90 minutes this morning for question discussion. We will finish approximately 10.30. I am going to kick off this morning and ask you to consider what the core purpose of Areob is and how it is supporting policy reform and to give us an indication of the board's current work programme. We will kick off with Martin Kennedy. Obviously, the core programme for the Areob is about agricultural policy in the future and how we are going to support the industry. In terms of the progress, I would suggest that the progress is probably slow right now, but to my own mind, and I am sure others would agree, it is going in the right direction. The purpose is extremely important right now, because in terms of future agricultural support, bearing in mind that this is an agricultural bill, agricultural support is going to be vital to maintaining our ability to produce high-quality food. Secondly, to address emissions reduction, and thirdly, to address enhancement of biodiversity, which has been accepted. There has been a loss to a certain degree of biodiversity, but in terms of the ability to address all those three of food climate and biodiversity, that is what the main driver of the Areob is. As I said, progress is probably slow, I would accept that progress is slow in that, and we could have been started on this. I have said on many occasions that we will need to let the industry lead this, because this is agricultural support that is 100 per cent necessary to continue to allow us to produce high-quality food that we are used to. From a Scottish perspective, we are probably in the best place, and we would say that that has been to a degree, because the climate, the maritime climate that we have, we have a fantastic ability to produce high-quality food sustainably. We have been doing it for a long time, sometimes we feel that we do not get the recognition for that, but in terms of the Areob's progress, it is slow, but to my mind it is going in the right direction. However, we need to make sure that we are at a crossroads right now, and if we get that right, we could showcase Scotland right across the world and how we deliver food and address climate emissions and address biodiversity. I do not suppose that I need to tell anybody here how important agriculture is to the economy in Scotland, not just the rural economy, the whole economy in Scotland. It touches every single part of Scotland, every single local authority, every single constituency. It is the absolute bedrock of our whole economy. That is obviously why it is so important to get future support right. We need to get it right quickly, but we need to get it right. As Martin said, progress has definitely been slower than we would like on Areob. It has been slower than industry would be asking for, but it is heading in the right direction. It is so important that we get buy-in from the farming sector. That is a really important part of future plans. The co-design, co-development is showing that the Government and industry can work together to push that forward. It is overall a positive direction that we are moving in, but, as Martin said, slower than most of us would like to go. We would like to be starting to do all the good things that we know that we can do much quicker. Tim, the same question to you, but why is it so slow? We have known that we are going to need something to place cap since 2016, and the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, is nothing unusual. Why has there been so slow progress? I think that it is important to state the obvious at the end of the day when we collectively are designing a kind of made-in-Scotland agricultural policy. That is a hell of a change from where we have been. We have had during our 50 years of a common agricultural policy where the rules, the boundaries and everything else have been fairly clearly set and where our opportunities to do something for the good of our sector have been. We have tweaked the edges. The fact that you can rip that up and start again has been, from my point of view, a little bit frustrating that we should have taken a bit more of a strategic approach from it because it is so complex. I think that we will have accounted for some of the delay that we have seen because there has been a bit of an element of how we start and what we move on first, et cetera. I would certainly support why Martin and Kate have said that we are starting to get there. I think that the key point of an aerial process is the fact that if we have a made-in-Scotland policy to tackle the climate emergency, restore more nature and maintain productive food systems, we can only do that in consultation with the industry who will ultimately be the ones who have to implement it and adopt it. We would be even further behind if the industry had not been involved in that process. It has taken longer than we would have liked, although we started off when we first met and we were still dealing with the repercussions of Covid. There were limitations in terms of what we could do and in terms of having face-to-face meetings, et cetera, which are always far more productive. Looking at our work, we are obviously looking to build upon the work that was done by the farmer-led groups. To a certain extent, we are a rather different beast to the area. We have a wide range of interests in the area group. The farmer-led groups were very focused. There were three months in which to write a report. The process with the area group is very much Scottish Government-led. The area group is an advisory group. It is not a decision-making group, and that is quite a fundamental issue. As others have said, in terms of what we are dealing with, we are not just looking at it through a carbon lens, because agriculture is so much more than that. It is multi-faceted, as Kate has already said. It plays an integral part right across so many portfolios—economy, tourism, food supply, et cetera. As so many of you here know, there is diversity within agriculture in terms of farm size, farm intensity, land tenure, accessibility to markets, et cetera. That is a huge amount to be considered. You commented that this was really Government-led and also the disappointing delay. We did hear from the farmer-led groups last week, and Andrew Morcid, the arable sector, has engraved the danger of leaving the Scottish Government way behind. We are at the top of the curve compared with the Scottish Government, which is down at the bottom. We are leaving the Scottish Government behind on the things that we are doing. Do you play any part in that? Are you holding the Government to account? You co-chair it, but are you raising the concerns that farmers appear to be leading the way rather than the Government? Potentially, that will have an impact on the policies that you develop. I will stay with Andrew Morcid, and then I will move to Vicki. Yes. The timescales of this are regularly raised. It is key to fulfil the commitment that is being given by the Government for a just transition, because we have a fixed target at the end. It is critical, given the life cycles of nature that we are dealing with, that it can take some considerable time for changes to be made in agriculture and for outcomes to be delivered. At the same time, as Martin alluded to, that is something that we need to get right. We have seen elsewhere the perils of rushing into policy. I will answer that last point and then come to purpose and timescales. I think that some farmers are leading the way. I think that the problem is that the majority of farmers are not in that position necessarily. If they were, we would have seen faster reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, but we would not have seen some of the biodiversity impacts or some of the problems within the sector. The question is, how do we get all farmers to be in the same place that some of the farmers who are in the farm lab groups are? That is a big challenge. In terms of the purpose of ARIOB, I think that members of the farming community and our organisation are in a privileged position to have a seat at the table to co-design future policy. As others have said, it is about replacing the common agricultural policy. We have been part of it for more than 50 years, so that is no insignificant undertaking to do. It is also about ensuring that that policy determines how more than £0.5 billion of taxpayers money will be spent each year supporting the farming sector. That is an important question as well. We all take that role very seriously. We also need to look at agriculture in the wider context of land use more broadly in Scotland, which has a big role to play in tackling the twin challenge of nature crisis and climate emergency, and ensuring that we produce food and timber and all those other goods and services. In terms of the timescales, we have had farm lab groups that we have been through a process since 2016, since the referendum. There has been a long history here. One of the decisions that the Government took early on was about stability and simplicity. This Parliament passed the previous agriculture act, which is essentially committed to retaining EU schemes through to 2024. We then had a group that preceded the farm lab groups, which was the farming and food production future policy group, then the FLGs, then we had Covid, and in that time we have had parliamentary elections and a change in ministers. Not surprisingly, there has been a lag, but we would be the first to say that we are not where we need to be. The clock is ticking and we need to get on quickly in developing this policy and implementing it. Do you think that the Government is in danger of losing any kind of control of farming where you see the early adopters where they are actually taking all the action that they think they need, so they are reducing inputs, looking at methane and carbon, while they wait for policies to be developed? If I may come in, I do not think necessarily. Clearly, some farmers are leading the way. Some of those farmers may be less dependent on some of the support and some of the subsidies that I have just referred to. I would argue that not all of them are leading the way. Many farmers have got the message on climate and are taking strong action. I think that we are behind where we need to be on the biodiversity front. I do not think that sufficient numbers of farmers are taking as much action as they could. That is not to say that some farmers aren't doing amazing work for some of our important habitats and species in Scotland, but we have a really big job to do. I do not think that that is moving away from where policy needs to be. The two need to work together. The industry can help to lead and show the way in some cases. The board's remit is to support policy reform, cut emissions across agriculture, support production of sustainable, high-quality foods, address a twin crisis of climate and nature loss of biodiversity. Some of the highlights from some of your previous meetings are looking at shaping conditionality, data collection, standardisation and baselining, capacity of advisory services, payment methodologies for future agricultural support. You are doing all of that at a timescale where you think that it is too slow. Have you got too much on your plate? Your mics will be operated automatically, so you do not need to touch. Martin? Martin, yes. Sorry, it was the eye contact, Martin. No, no, fine, no, but too much on their plate. Farmers and crofters have always got too much on their plate, but the fact that they are trying to put everything else on other people's plates sometimes gets missing. I think that we have got to remember that. This is about agriculture and food production. We have to take that. This has to be at the core, it is the core principle of what we do. We have taken it for granted for far too long, so farmers and crofters are extremely resilient. Always have been, always will be, but in terms of too much on our plate, no. I do not think that ARIOPP has got too much on its plate because we have got to address all those issues, and that is why it is a co-design. All those issues must be addressed, but at its core must be continuation of food production, because it is not just about agriculture, it is not just about investment. I have never liked the term subsidy, it is about investing in the business of agriculture that gets a huge return off the back of it. In terms of how we can deliver, farmers and crofters are key because we are managing excess of 70 per cent of the land in Scotland. We can deliver that, so we need to have that on our plate, because if we do not have that all, we tend to fall back into the situation where we are looking at things in silos. We cannot do that, we cannot look at things in silos, we need to look at food, climate and biodiversity all in the same globe. By doing that, we can take everybody's interests at heart and look at it. If we look at one thing simply, whether it is carbon footprint or whether it is biodiversity or gains from—I mean, one very, very quick example. A topography of our farm is 800 feet, 2,500 feet. We have continental cattle, continental sheep on the low ground, very extensive on the high ground. On the high ground, the carbon footprint is very poor, but the reality is that the biodiversity benefits that bring is very, very high. On the low ground, the output is great, the carbon footprint is good, but in terms of biodiversity benefits, it is not so good. We cannot afford to simply single out a sector and look at it in its own right. We have to look at it, we cannot afford to look at it in silos. On that investment, and again coming back to the comment subsidies, which I really hate the term, it is an investment in the return. If we do not get that right, it is the infrastructure that is built on the back of agriculture that is at stake here. It is the markets, it is the abattoirs, it is the processors, it is the packers that are now beginning to get really concerned about the output of Scottish agriculture. If it depletes any further, then the impact that can have on critical mass that keeps them viable is going to be unsustainable for them. I am going to come back to you again. I am going to ask the whole board, given the explanation that Martin has just given. We have a wide range of stakeholders within the area of. Is there general consensus about where you are right now and how you are going to go forward? I will come to you with that. I think that in broad terms and at high level, I think that all area of members, I would suggest share the understanding and the aspiration of where we need to get to and is behind the Scottish Government's vision that it set out. Of course, the devil is always in the detail, so when you get down and drill down into different policy choices, different kinds of payments, different emphasis on things, then there will be differing views with the stakeholders around the table. I think that Martin is absolutely right that the broad thrust of what we need to do, understanding that agriculture is multifunctional, its primary function is to produce food, but you cannot produce food without a healthy natural environment, without a stable climate in which to operate. All those things come together and we need to think about our economy as part of that. You cannot separate out these issues, Martin is absolutely right, but no, there will be differences of opinion on different elements of policy and that is good and healthy and we debate robustly those things and we will come to different views, but at the end of the day, Government will have to make a decision as to what choices it is going to make in terms of that policy framework and exactly how it deploys that more than half a billion pounds of public money. Are those policy differences, are those detailed differences, are they causing part of the delay? I don't think that that's where the delay is coming from, no, I think it's many of the other things we've talked about there in terms of the process. We have to acknowledge and the Scottish Government has been very clear in setting this out to Ariobb the process which has to be gone through, so we need to produce an agriculture act which creates the powers which can then enact that policy at the moment we are operating under the existing legislation and the existing schemes which were carried over from the common agricultural policy. So this Parliament has to do its work, that bill has to be in place, there has to be secondary legislation, there has to be policy development, so inevitably we are unfortunately looking at those timelines through to 2027-2028 before we actually see implementation of this policy. The problem probably is that we should have started sooner but it's like the old Irish adage of, I want to get there, well I wouldn't start from here. We are where we are so we just need to press on as quickly as we can and I would say take every opportunity within the existing legislation and the existing opportunities can make some changes in the next couple of years, we don't necessarily need to wait for the new legislation to make some changes so I'm thinking there about things like capping of current payments, of how we deploy the existing budget, of making more conditional and that's going to have a conditionality on payments that can happen in 2025. So there are some shorter term options for things we can do. Just through the chair. Tim, please. To be fair it's a good follow-on from what Vicki said, what you were asking really Jim around, whether the difference of opinions were delaying decisions and I would agree, I think broadly we're all in the right place. Everyone signs up to the fact that agriculture has got to meet its climate undertake its climate duties, its climate responsibilities, similarly around nature and similarly that within a realm of producing food for our nation. Where it's come around to is around process and I suppose my play through our job all along has been a case of we need more urgency and we need more ambition and come back to Vicki's point is utilising existing tools to help that happen because my poor colleagues here have heard me endlessly talk about the runway. We've got a runway to 2032 to enable our sector to fulfil its target to hit 31% reduction by 2032. We're now in 2023 and as we were chatting earlier, if we want to breed low methane cattle for example and a heifer yet gets conceived now then it won't be having it, it won't be delivering any low methane beef for at least another five years. That takes us 2028 so we need to be doing stuff now in the interim so we need more ambition around the interim programmes. Soil testing, carbon footprint audits, animal health and welfare plans are a good start but we need far far far more than that if agriculture has got any hope of getting anywhere near the target in 2032 and there are things we can do within our realm around that and a lot of that is around processes is don't just sequence things in cereals we need to be doing a lot more stuff in parallel. Okay I'm hearing that there's general agreement across the board at a high level and I would agree to the principles in general but where are the disagreements in real terms, where are the details that are causing the difficulty so that this process gets done smoothly, Martin? So obviously I said it right at the start we're probably across roads now and in terms of where the budget split's going to be and as Vicky's highlighted there's over half a billion pounds worth of money coming in agriculture right now which I think is still a real terms is relatively cheap given the fact that we know 2020-2021 public spending in Scotland was 99 billion which means for every pound we're spending in public spending we're only spending half of one penny on public security on food security and I think well things that's not very much to pay considering what's at risk here if we don't get it right. So in terms of that difference of opinion obviously when I say we're at the crossroads where we see in the sort of four tier structure we're looking at tier one sort of the base payments that's getting we're looking at we're all in agreement with this sort of tiered structure approach tier two where you're looking at the enhanced payments then you have tier three and tier four above that obviously where the tensions will come is from an agricultural perspective we feel that it's absolutely imperative that the time from an agricultural perspective that the bulk of the existing split of that budget should be within tier one and tier two and you would include things like VC voluntary coupled support and less favoured area support within that as well because we that is deemed still as a direct payment less favoured area support scheme is a pillar two payment currently but speaking to farmers in 85 percent so this is about 85 percent the land in Scotland or in that LFA area and they deemed see that as a direct support so that's where tensions will come because you know others and I can fully understandably see that we should be putting far more into the environment more into climate more into emissions but let's not forget if we don't get this right if we don't support the primary production element within Scotland we're at risk of exporting our emissions and indeed exporting you know we're here to do our bit for the country but we're not here to try and solve global emissions and let's not forget that if we don't do it here we could be importing products from other parts of the world that don't have the same care and attention for animal welfare and certainly don't have the same care and attention for the environment as well so we need to be careful that's where the tensions one of the key tensions will probably happen Jim Kate yes yes um going back to your your very first question Jim I think we've seen in the past we are focusing too too narrowly on one thing gets us and I mean historically um payments have been focused on on producing more and more and more and more without looking at anything else and that's why we are where we are so I think it's vital that the areob and policy makers in general look right across the board at all these different things you're talking about and that means it means short term as as Vicky's been saying there's maybe more we can do in the short term to change things to get on that journey um but as Tim has has very eloquently said it's this is a long term game you know five years it's not very much in farming time really when you start to think about the changes you want to make so I think we need you know the sort of things that we've been talking about and I think again it's broad we're in broad agreement on this is that farms are not it's not one of the size fits all for policy we need to absolutely consider every single sector what fits in in lewis is not going to fit any slow they in we need to make sure that we we look at farms on a a case by case basis so that they can all play to their strengths and do whatever they can do to hit all these different targets and we need to make sure that we don't end up with unintended consequences if we do go down one route and not the other so all those things are things that are being discussed at ariope but I think I think it was an made the very key point that we are an oversight advisory board it's not us that are actually making the decisions all we can do is input into that board and and try to make sure that the Scottish Government make the decisions that are best for everybody. Okay yeah vicki i've got a quick sub view it seems to me there's where some of the real tension is coming from farmers want to produce food they want to do it sustainably but other parts of the ariope want to look after biodiversity and climate change where do you sit on that? Well I don't think it's quite as polarised as you presented Jim to be honest I mean I think it's not an either or it's an and and we have to do both these things we have to produce food but we have to do it sustainably. Well there are always trade-offs and there are decisions to be made and so to come to your specific question about when we get into the policy and where the differences are Martin's absolutely right and he's alluded to those it's about how the budget is then deployed across the four tiers of the framework that the Scottish Government has set out and what level of what you put in each of those tiers and particularly in tier two which a lot of weight is being put on that particularly by the Scottish Government saying that's the engine room of its delivery that's where the enhanced conditionality is going to come so currently about two-thirds of of the budget is spent on direct payments which map on to those tier one tier two we would argue that if you're going to have any chance of meeting your nature and climate targets as part of that you're going to have to look really seriously at that deployment of money because that leaves very little money to deploy on the other measures on the tier three on tier four on things like advice training support for farmers on the other aspects around nature restoration which sit in tier three on the supply chain measures such as processing and marketing grants and all those other things the more money is left locked up in direct payments under the current system where most of that money goes to the larger farmers and is paid out on a per hectare basis then you're going to run into real problems about delivery so I don't see the budget increasing particularly in the longer term so how that money works is going to be a really important factor it's going to have to work really hard and I think that's where we would see some differences about how you spend that money perhaps compared to some other members on the board. Is this supplementary on Vickie's response? So does Ariel have a strategy in place to mitigate threats to food security in that case? So Ariel hasn't specifically discussed food security as an issue yet I guess it depends what you mean Rachel by food security if we take it in its broader sense it's not just about how much food we produce it's a wide range of factors it includes thinking about poverty and whether people can afford to buy nutritious food and have access to it as well as the quantum of food that we produce and also how we produce it and whether that's sustainable or not so if you're talking about whether some of these policy decisions would have impacts on overall food production in Scotland yes they could the extent to which that feeds into food security and becomes a problem I think is a whole other conversation that we could probably spend another committee session talking about. I'm going to bring in Tim briefly and then move on to another question from Ariann Burgess. It was just a very quick response to your question there Rachel. So as Vickie says no it doesn't directly I mean from my point of view we've been involved my organisation that's owned by sort of 60 pharma corps in Scotland SCOS we part of the government's food security task force that reported in June and one of the key actions off the back of that was a food security unit so that process is in motion and that will sit within the agricultural and rural economy directorate so in that respect that agriculture and food security will sit side by side within the directorate which wouldn't have happened until more recent times albeit that's very early work in progress so there's indirect input but not directly but opportunity to build on that really. Ariann Burgess. Thanks, convener. Continuing on so it's been really helpful to hear about your discussions around the design of future agricultural policy and you've covered quite a lot of what I wanted to ask but I just wanted to go a little bit deeper the papers for today highlighted that Ariob has been considering definitions of regenerative and agroecology and I'll just say I'll start with I'm going to direct this question to Vickie and then Ann and then if anyone else wants to come in. I'd be interested to hear if you think including definitions of these terms or a list of principles are needed for the bill or or somewhere in order to help farmers understand that direction of travel and I'd also appreciate hearing your thoughts on the presentation that Ariob received from climate exchange on their study on the potential for an agricultural approach in Scotland. Thanks very much, Ariann. Yes, I mean that there's been some discussion in Ariob around some of these terms although again perhaps not extensively in terms of I think we all recognise that the term regenerative is used somewhat loosely with different interpretations by people. Agroecology I can't think of it off the top of my head but there is a more defined terminology for what we mean by agroecology but even within that it can mean quite a different types of farming systems including organic but not exclusively but tends to mean more about farming with nature and for climate so I think it would be helpful to articulate better both in terms of the policy and in terms of perhaps some principles for the bill as you suggest exactly what is meant so it's referred to in the high-level vision that the Scottish Government put out and it refers to things like nature restoration and climate mitigation and adaptation but if we could drill down and agree some principles as to what we mean in a Scottish context I think that that would be very helpful and I think the bill itself if it has a clear purpose and principles at the start of it that would very much help determine what then flows throughout the rest of that bill. I had another question which was about the climate exchange study I think you had a presentation from climate exchange you weren't there because you're not on aerial right? Yes so I don't know that one of the members wants comment on that. I can at the first question as well but just this climate exchange okay so in terms of regenerative terminology around these is very difficult to define and many people would say regenerative farming is a good practice and you mentioned what was mentioned by Andrew Moyer you heard from last week in terms of his farm fairly large farm but in terms of being regenerative his carbon stocks have risen over the last 50 years so this is about regenerative to my mind is actually putting back into the farm into the land into our biggest carbon sink is what we've done and doing in a manner that's very much in line with enhancing biodiversity as well in terms of woodland that's on Andrew's farm as well I think is to be commended but I think that's a classic example of where we are and it's not just about the big farms quite often the big farms play an awful lot in terms of emissions reduction because they have the technology that's involved to reduce emissions be more accurate when it comes to applications as well. In terms of the climate exchange I think it's very very often we get strong strong views from climate exchange committee and I think to be honest quite frustrating and I suppose I'm from my own perspective here now I always find it very frustrating when we do hear comments that comes from particularly against the beef side it's quite frustrating because the beef we're getting a real kick in just now because methane's so bad and it is bad there's no doubt about that but methane's about you know 25 times worse than than what carbon is a carbon equivalent however methane does break down to carbon and water sequester back into the soil that's been through green pastures that's been grazed and that's why livestock is so important and we've seen you know we've got to have this from a science base as well we'll have to look at the science and obviously recently we've seen James Hutton fantastic research organisation we're all proud of in Scotland and James Hutton were out and this is very much linked to regenerative so James Hutton Institute were in Macedonia last year looking at where they can help areas of ground that are struggling to grow beans peas pulses any other leguminous plants that are helpful to the soil and they discovered there that they couldn't actually plant much at all because because they were rid of livestock a number of years ago and the carbon assessment is now only sitting at half a percent so they've discovered now although they felt they couldn't afford to keep livestock they now can't afford not to have livestock because that was what was helping the the soil carbon with the ability to then grow crops later on further down line so this is James Hutton Institute this is not myself this is James Hutton you look at Rothamstead in Hertfordshire on the 23rd of December they put out their most recent report and given the scientific facts on this they've got data going back to 1850 which is absolutely incredible that's what kicked off the Rothamstead research institute in Hertfordshire and they've discovered now in terms of methane emissions in terms of emissions reduction methane is bad but nitrous oxide is 300 times worse than what carbon is but however Rothamstead have have have discovered now that the importance of livestock in terms of farm yard manure and the effect that has on the soil structure and the influence that has on aerobic metabolisation of nitrous oxide is massive so the difference that makes in arable soils if you've got farm yard manure involved it makes a huge difference so that reduces the nitrous oxide emissions which is the biggest issue around emissions from from agriculture. Thanks Martin we're going to move to Ann and then Kate and then we're going to move on to the next question. Thank you so going back to your question on definitions I would agree with Vicky I think it would be hugely helpful to have more of a definition within the documentation albeit that you know it needs to be flexible enough and adaptable enough to cope with the varying situations and different types of agriculture there is out there. Also in terms of economics which must be key to underpinning all of all of this along with the carbon and the biodiversity it's vital that you know the figures add up in terms of production and also in terms of costs and that looking at the huge variability in terms of what we can grow and produce across Scotland is taken into account on the climate on the climate exchange you know it is it is very apparent that we need muck is a key component of that as is grazing we the biodiversity to get optimal biodiversity results then that rarely means simply closing the gate so it's vital that that we look right across the right across the piece. So I think it's quite important to make sure you understand that things terms like regenerative agriculture and agriecology first of all are not understood by farmers on the ground at all and can become somewhat divisive they're not necessarily always seen as a positive thing by farmers because of you know for various reasons but they need to be defined and they need to be properly explained to farmers and I'm here as a member of ARIOBE and representing quality meat Scotland but I'm also a farmer and I think it's really important to get across that every single farmer I know wants to improve their farm for future generations you know we are all I'm a fifth generation farmer we're all in this for the long term you know the whole long term centuries we don't want to be making things worse absolutely after my family my farm is the thing that I love most in the entire world and it's really really important to me that it's it's left in a really good way for my children if that's what they want to do you know I know where every bird's nest is I know different trees I know I emotionally absolutely love the place and I want it to be left in as good a way as possible and what we need to do is we need to help the support farm most farmers feel like that we need to support them to do that and part of that as well is to give more positive recognition and not just beat them on the heads for all the things that they are supposedly doing wrong when all they've actually been doing over the generations is following policy signals we need to be giving the right policy signals we need to be giving them the right positive recognition for what they're doing what they're already doing what the potential that they could be doing and we need to just get that message out right through industry and right through the whole society that farmers you know want to do the right thing and will do the right thing if they're supported in the right way to do it thank you Jenny Minto thank you convener and thank you panel and Kate thank you for that last comment following on really from that I represent our island butte which has got a mixture of farming and one of the key things in farming certainly on the islands and actually throughout our island butte is the sustainability of population and how the investment shall we say which I think is the right term to use is it connects much more amongst the wider community so Martin in your comments you talked about ELFAS I wonder if you could expand a bit more on what you what the aerial board is advising with regards to ELFAS payments and also sorry I'm getting the noises off from a sedentary position and also about the views of how you've been looking at ensuring that population is sustainable across Scotland and actually the interconnectivity as well of farming from the west coast to the east coast big question Martin can you start yeah it is it is a big question in terms of the ELFAS less fair idea support scheme so there's a subgroup set up with anariob now looking at LFE support where it should be positioned and the importance of it and so they haven't reported fully back yet but they are you know the understanding is and to be honest from you know right across the group the understanding of how important ELFAS is is absolutely vital for areas such as Argyll and Islands is absolutely vital you know all the islands we really depend on that we've talked about it has been a lifeline it's absolutely a lifeline for these people to because a deep population the social economic values that's brought off the back of that when you look at what happens in a rural areas it doesn't matter whether it's events or shows but like agricultural shows which tends to be the biggest event that happens in a local community has driven by you know active farmers that are on the ground if it wasn't for active farmers and crofters these shows simply would not happen these are the things that are the the sort of taken for granted elements that just always happens but it doesn't happen itself so that social economic values that is one of the to my mind is a classic public good and a public benefit to what's been driven by investment in agriculture throughout scotland and we don't appreciate that enough there's so many things within agriculture we have taken for granted for so long you know we have a fantastic tourism industry right now the tourism industry are here because they want to see the fantastic music patterns they want to see active they don't want to go into communities that's been absolutely depleted and deserted and left to go completely wild with no activity in it at all that would be extremely frustrating and in terms of the support interconnection i think that's we've obviously got serious issues from an island perspective at the minute as well because obviously ferries does does get raised limited to what ariop can do to sort of ferries but the reality is that we've got issues there from a lot of our members that are concerned about that so that but the connections between is vital because this is about population and if you don't have population you don't have people living and working on the land then you don't have that ability to try and have the people in the land that can build an environment and build on biodiversity as well i'm proud of what we've got at home as well i'm again small family farm but where we are at home we're delighted with the biodiversity we have some would argue it could be greater but for an example last sunday we were on that when it was feeding sheep it was at home very rare occasion and it was great to see that the lap wings were all back and they were there for two reasons and two reasons alone because we've got good grazing management and we've got predators that are under under control that's why they're there and it's quite often that's overlooked but again this is what happens in rural areas we're doing our absolute utmost because as Kate said earlier you know family always comes first but second is what you're doing in the farm you want to put back into these that ground what you've taken out of there was a third part of the question sorry Jenny was it interconnection and the l-class and there's another bit yeah hear the connections between east and west the interconnections yeah so in terms of that because i mean and we see that in in some areas already that's happening you mean between farms or yeah so we've not looked at that specifically within areob that sometimes happens within the industry anyway because we do see livestock move in particular because we do see arbal farms that will maybe winter cattle on the east and they get the benefit of the dung and sorry you know mentioned the muck is so important putting that back onto the soil that does actually work and it helps so it's something that should probably be more encouraged than again through from a sort of maybe it's something we could look at cooperatively as well i don't know but but it does actually happen in practice and we see that within regions not just from east to west as well but something could be enhanced greater yeah very very briefly excuse me okay oh thanks can be no try to be quick i think if we get this right there's huge opportunity for farmers for communities in the rural economy i think one thing to look at is how that investment is currently deployed so the highlands and islands represent 50 percent of scotland's agricultural area but they currently get 16 percent of what's called the pillow one money they do slightly better out of the rural development support get about 38 percent so they actually get a really bad deal out of the current way the system works so there is actually opportunity to change that in future even within elphas which is seen as effectively a farm income support most of the money goes to the better quality land within the lfa and not to the poorer quality land the more marginal areas which arguably need the greater levels of support to underpin the agricultural activity so there's some fundamental flaws in the current policy and in those less favoured areas we need to stop thinking about them as agriculturally disadvantaged we need to think about them as environmentally advantaged they are the areas that can do a huge amount for delivering for nature and climate we think of them as high nature value farming and crofting areas they've got a huge amount to deliver they do have a lot of the peatland resource and i know you've had conversations about this there's a massive job to be done there to restore degraded peatland but i actually think there are jobs and opportunities in that for people in those places so we don't necessarily need to look at some of these changes as negative there's actually a lot of opportunity for very many businesses in this Mr Allan thank you convener you mentioned as a panel some of the consensus that exists and some of the variety of views that there are i just wonder what the obstacles are that you would identify this is a question for anyone who wants to come in perhaps obstacles on which there is a consensus what are the obstacles in the way of reaching a conclusion tackle that just i'll ask this because you've mentioned progress is perhaps slower than you want so what's what's the stumbling blocks what's the challenges i suppose one of the biggest and most obvious stumbling block is how much money is going to be available at the end of the day because as has already been mentioned there's a huge amount that this bill is being expected to do and if the budget is sweeties then that is what the outcome is going to be so it's absolutely critical that that is pitched at a level that is meaningful that can deliver in terms of stability of food supply and making our agricultural industry resilient and also vibrant in order to attract new young people so that it can then deliver on all the biodiversity the climate change the socio economic aspects which we've we've also covered particularly in areas like highlands and islands and and further downstream industries the shops the businesses the downstream services of markets etc. I think Alasdair did come back to my earlier point I think in general there's not we're not sitting there are loggerheads around the area up table kind of arguing back and forward in terms of the toss around different things I mean you know as as Anne said earlier and Kate likewise you know we are there to give oversight in terms of what is presented to us so a lot of where we've been at has been around process and because the need to get our new agricultural bill drafted and into consultation has been the I think the vast bulk of the resource taken up by officials within in the department so that's that has you know weighed on their minds and that has certainly affected to some degree in terms of the pace we've been able to go at with air now you know that's now going underneath scrutiny and I think it's really it's really just a case about getting getting the pace of material pulled together the structured framework put in place in terms of how we how we meet what the topics are and can't suppose come back to Jim's point earlier around what that what the focus is and what the prioritisation was in there so yeah we're not that's the good thing I think in the day there's not there's not obstacles about decision making I think we're actually all eager eager to get on and get going quicker on a lot more things viking then martin yeah I'd like to pick up on a couple of things my colleagues have said there so I totally agree the funding question is a really big one because we know that the scale of need to deliver against all these objectives is huge so just to deliver the environmental land management never mind everything else and the broader supports for the industry one assessment recently it's more than the existing budget alone so if we add everything else in in terms of rural development and food processing and advice and support and everything potentially we're looking at a budget of a billion pounds annually which you know is probably not going to be on the table the other big question is that there's actually only commitment to funding from the UK treasury to 2024 and we have no idea what happens after that point so the case has to be made for that ongoing funding but in terms of the issues that I agreed totally with Tim that there isn't disagreement but I think there is a consensus that some of these things are difficult when you look at tier two which is going to have to deliver a lot how you come up with something that's environmentally effective that's practical for farmers to operate and which government can actually deliver and monitor and report against to the audit office audit Scotland who will be looking and scrutinising this is a really difficult job and we are grappling with that and having conversations with government about how you do that and do it in the most effective way but it's not easy just before coming to martin can I ask so you say there's no conflict so is there compromise because I'm quite sure Vicki will have a different opinion on capping than Martin does and I'm quite sure Vicki will have a different opinion from maybe Tim on genetic editing or whatever so when you respond can you bear that in mind you know we're talking about pots of money Martin yeah so go back to the question from Alasdair where have we had obstacles and we've overcome the obstacles to get consensus probably the tiered structure is one of them so a great comment to an agreement that the tiered structure is you know because we've always felt agricultural support you know we need that direct support but we need to come to a way of trying to meet your objectives in climate by diversity as well so the tiered structure that we've all come to consensus is now actually Scottish government have still got to the ones that has been highlighted already we're advising that's the way forward so we're advising through consensus that's the way forward we feel that's probably is the right way forward and that is part of that consensus you're right on the capping issue there is disagreements there I would suggest because you know I would feel another colleagues would feel that the capping process could be done a lot smarter in terms of we could be doing front loading to help the smaller units because when in terms of economy a scale you've got small units that maybe have for example 25 maybe 30 cows they've got a tractor on the loader you've got another bigger farm 140 200 cows they've also got a tractor on the loader but the but the cost for that maintenance of that piece of equipment is far greater per cow so front loading which has been adopted before in the past is something we would feel is a far smarter way of capping because we could actually ask some of the bigger farms to do an awful lot more and some of them already doing that and it comes back to again the recognition that they're not maybe getting from what they're already doing and I'm afraid I'm going to bring it right back to the we need to get this right in terms of our ability to still produce that quantity of food production as well because if we don't it's not just us that's at risk there's a huge economic risk here if we don't get this right we've seen likes of solcoats done be a down in solcoats of just invested 12 million pounds in updating their abattoir to get it right up to spec in terms of animal welfare for output they're relying on a thousand farmers to produce high quality beef to keep that unit viable there's 380 jobs there 80 percent of them come from the local area fantastic because they've got a butcher's academy delivering that a great system if that drops to 750 farmers because they can't afford to keep beef on the ground does that then implode then the economic impact that has the whole infrastructure around that area and that's one very very small example of what could happen right across the country if we don't get this right in terms of critical mass and that's not just about beef it's about fruit and veg it's about it's about right across her whole array of products that were produced in extremely well in scotland we've got a follow-up from alison then the supplement from arianne just when you mentioned earlier on or one of you mentioned earlier on about the opportunity to do things in new but there is a tension is there not you've mentioned the challenges of of trying to second guess what the UK will will will commit themselves to in terms of budget in the longer term are there other things about that wider UK context that present let's just say challenges given that we've got eukema that this committee has been looking at in the subsea control bill and various other things how do you fit what you're doing into that wider picture so yeah so absolutely has a huge bearing because with internal market act as well because that's very relevant to what's going to happen you mentioned gene editing as well you know if we're going to use that in crops in south of the border can we then use that in products or feed stuff up here we're going to the malton barley in scotland that could be an issue internal market acts extremely important in this because we need to have some sort of broad speaking framework between so we're all working from the same page to a similar degree the outcome could be exactly the same in fact we believe that we could achieve that outcome far better because we're seeing a policy difference here than what's south of the border because south of the border we are seeing and that is evidence we're seeing a reaction in terms of people just backing off and just farming to the ditch or farming to the fence side because they're not seeing now there's going to be there's going to be concerns about that so I think we've got to take that in mind in terms of UK influence and where the budget is going to be and 100 percent agree with vicky here and others that budget is so crucial and that we're only guaranteed that to the end of 2024 or indeed the end of the parliament that we need to see that multi annual framework coming back into agriculture. Tim's already alluded really well in terms of whether it's livestock breeding programmes or whether it's crop rotations you're looking five six years ahead that's what agriculture's all about it's not a short time industry we've got to look to the future and five five years just goes in a blink of an eye so that more of a multi annual financial framework that was delivered by Europe and we got used to that for a number of years over a seven year period he knew what was going to be there that's not there at the present time and that's really really concerning. I'm going to take the next supplementary from Ariane but I realise you want to come in on this Tim but we'll take the supplementary first. Actually, convener, I was going to ask questions around the subsidy control and your chemise so you've started to cover that already. Rachel Hamilton. It's a supplemental on this particular point about divergence. Does Ariob have a role in discussing divergence from EU alignment within the future of replacing cap particularly on the benefits to environment and health? For example, Martin mentioned gene editing. Is this something that you discuss as a group? It's not something really that we've touched on yet. There's been so many other things to consider. It is obviously very important and something that does need to be taken into account but we haven't done any more than mention it. It's worth saying, going back to the previous point, that in Scotland we're doing this for the first time and I think that we need to recognise that the officials are working really hard and are probably overstretched and are having to do an awful lot and you seem to be looking for a lot of conflict within Ariob and that's what's stopping things. It's not, it's just being the actual capacity for the officials to move forward and to get things organised that has probably slowed it down more than anything I would say. Thanks. Tim and then we'll move on to the next topic. All I was going to make the point was around Alice's question about the funding, UK funding. Clearly, that's a critical area. We don't have visibility on the ultra-critical importance to our sector but at some point agriculture is devolved to the Scottish Government. As Martin said, it represents a little more than half a penny of every pound of moneys that this Parliament decides how to spend. At some point decisions can have to be made. They can't necessarily wait until what comes out of Westminster now. If, in light of some of the stuff that we've talked about already, if we ended up repitching the farming sector as the national food and countryside service, perhaps that would be easier for the Scottish Government to say, well, we will commit to the existing budgets over the next five years because that is the reality. We are providing the food, we are maintaining the countryside, we are linking up the western east coming back to Jenny's point. That is going to be a massive issue or is a massive issue in terms of signalling, in terms of what new policy looks like. As participants last week were talking about, Jim Walker was talking about last week's session, cows are getting off here and out there and everywhere because they don't know where things are going. Ultimately, we can come up with officials, with the Government, through Ariobb, in terms of more flesh on the teared structure. Ultimately, all we are saying is that, literally, you are going to get X, or you are going to get Y, or you are going to get Z, but we don't actually know what X, Y and Z are. We are not going to know that for another two years. How many other thousands of cows are going to be put off, sheep are going to be put off, shepherds are going to be put off, areas are going to be put off. At some point, decision day is going to have to be taken, whether there is that exact clarity from Westminster, and it is all about decisions and choices. Now we have a slightly different topic with Karen Adam. Thanks, convener. Good morning and thank you for your testimony so far. It has been really enlightening. I am quite curious to understand what your expectations are. What are your expectations from the agricultural bill, and have they changed from when you first came into this, and if so, in what way? I do not think that they have changed. It is very clear that the agriculture bill, its purpose is to create the powers for the Scottish Government to be able to deliver its agriculture policy and the payments that are attached to that in very simple terms. That remains the case in terms of our expectations. The bill will also determine, as I understand it, how the forestry grants are spent. I think that Tim Dryde to talk about this is actually more than just agriculture. We are actually talking about some broader aspects of land use here in terms of what the powers will be created for. It is clear that it has a really important role to, as we started off saying, to make sure that how we see agriculture and how we see land use in Scotland will be able to deliver sustainable food supplies in a way that is positive for nature and gets us to net zero. That is at the heart of what the bill has got to try to do. Of course, all the detail that will not be in the bill, as we understand it, is a framework bill. It will be quite high level. There will be a lot of secondary legislation that will have to come, which will inevitably get less scrutiny, because each scheme that is required, each payment will have a whole set of secondary legislation related to it that will set out the exact criteria and how the schemes are going to operate. All of that has yet to come and will be several years down the line. On the expectations that have been changed, I do not believe that they have. I agree with Vicky that the expectations coming into this was about trying to have the advice of the Scottish Government to make the right decisions in delivering on food, climate and biodiversity. To be honest, that is a short answer, but no, it has not changed. We are all aspiring to try and get that right for so many reasons, because we have one of the best opportunities here to really put Scotland on the map. We are on the map already, but we have a greater opportunity to go back to what Kate mentioned earlier on. If we do not get the buy-in from farmers and crofters here, we will lose the opportunity to take that forward. That is why we need to reflect back to the just transition, because we need to do it in a manner that we do not see farmers and crofters falling off a cliff, because that is when we see that, again, we go back to the resilience of the industry that will survive, but everything else around it will completely fall apart. In terms of resilience, we have a great opportunity here. In terms of things changing, no, the aspiration is still to get that right for so many reasons. I am always the eternal optimist. Sometimes it is challenging, but I think that we have a right to be optimistic, because we have an opportunity to get that right for the industry and for the country to showcase us all. I agree with the comments and expectations. I do not think that that has changed. Just to supplement what Martin said, the agriculture bill needs to have enough flexibility in it to allow changes so that we do not end up with those unintended consequences that I mentioned before. There needs to be the flexibility in there so that, as time goes on and things change, we can adapt—the Scottish Government can adapt and change policy as necessary to hit the right targets on the right things. That was just the point that I wanted to make. I am likewise. Expectations have not changed in terms of what has come out within the consultation paper from my point of view. It is a chance to build on what we have now and to look at things in a different way. The organisation that I represent, we are owned by the agricultural sector, we are owned by 60 co-ops in Scotland, and there are agricultural co-ops in all your constituencies. What is where we have provision within the new agricultural bill will be that, particularly when it comes down to tier 3 funding, we will allow agricultural co-opratives to potentially secure funds. Of course I would say that, but agricultural co-opratives represent about a third of our agricultural turnover in Scotland, so we are not talking about a fringe element. That is why I am talking about the engine room across all our sectors, from unsupported through to fully supported. However, it has provided a very effective means of delivery, because at the end of the day, whether you have 50 or 500 or 2,000 or 200 growers and farmers and crofters within those groups, they are all aligned to a common purpose now already, predominantly based around food production and marketing. However, there is lots of work that we are now starting to do about an aligned approach to environment, aligned approach to sustainability and aligned approach to climate change. That is a great positive in terms of the new agricultural policy. Clearly, what funding goes into tier 3 will be critical to help that, but it is so far so good. I am going to bring in Vicky and then Ann. Sorry, it was just a quick comeback in terms of the content of the bill in a sense, it is slightly broadening it out from our expectations, but I think that we have touched on definitions around regenerative agriculture, for example, agriculture ecology, so we need a clear purpose in the bill. We need some clear statements and principles right up front about what the bill is trying to deliver. Martin has alluded to the need for a framework. We have left the common agricultural policy. We would argue that we should be looking at the minimum of three years, but probably at least a five-year framework. We would argue that there should be a requirement for government to produce a strategic plan, which would be analogous to what is happening in Europe at the moment, setting out exactly what it proposes to do. It is rationale for doing it, the schemes and measures within it and that it should have to report back to Parliament on progress on delivering that strategic plan. We would obviously like to see some targets included in that as well, linking through to targets, the climate targets, the nature targets that will come in the natural environment bill, we can think about food production, we can think about organic agriculture, we can think about targets for lots of different things. Those already exist in some other legislation, so it should certainly point to that. There is some content for the bill there that I think is going to be absolutely essential. I am going to move on to Rachel. Just a very quick point, because others have covered it. In addition to delivering on the carbon and biodiversity fronts, it needs to be adaptable enough as farming itself is evolving all the time with increased technology and science and to provide a sufficient bedrock for a viable industry, so that that industry is in a position to reinvest, to be innovative and to attract future generations. In terms of policy stability, that is really important because, as we have heard numerous times before, because of the length of time on life cycles or even smaller issues, the lead in time for buying a tractor these days is a year minimum. Fundamentals like that have to be taken into account. Every time there is a change or significant change in policy, not only does that impact on the ground and farmers and crofters having to get their head around that and understand what is required and change their farm policy, but it also has a big impact on the delivery. For arped, for example, what impact does that have on computers, in terms of cost of that and also the general resourcing? My plea would be that we have policy stability that allows outcomes to be delivered and an efficient use of resources from all fronts. Can I ask anyone from the panel what your assessment is of the uptake of the national test programme? We will talk about flexibility and adaptability, but we also need safeguards in the legislation. Can I ask you what you would want to see in the face of the bill that potentially safeguarded payments for tier 1 or tier 2 or some reassurance about conditionality going forward to bring more certainty rather than waiting for secondary legislation that there is going to be, as we have heard, not as much scrutiny. What would you expect to see in the front of the bill? In the face of the bill, I would be desperate to see sustainable food production on the face of the bill. In terms of that, baseline payments have been highlighted. From my perspective, I am sure that the importance of seeing that 50 per cent base payment is achievable through management options in the tier 2 payments. If we go down the route of having income for gone or additional costs, those options will not be taken up. If we take up those management options, we will have a great opportunity here to get the buy-in from the industry. That goes back to the point that I made earlier. If we get that right and highlight that in the face of the bill, we will get the buy-in from the industry, then we are on the right track. If we lose the industry right at the start, forget it, and I really mean that. We have to get the industry, because we are the people who will have to deliver it. It is the farmers and crofters that have 1 per cent of our population producing the food for us. We have another 99 per cent that seems to have a great idea how we can do it. We need to take some of them on board, but the experts on how to do it are the ones that are on the ground at the minute. It is an agricultural bill that makes sure that we have food production absolutely in the face of the bill. On that particular point, if you are listening to farmers, why are other groups such as fast setting up? I think that there are other groups setting up, because they want that related back to Scotland. The industry is very keen to hear from the Scottish Government what is happening and the delivery of what the outcomes are coming. It is not getting out yet. We are beginning to get that progress, but it is slow. I said right at the start that this is extremely slow. I am involved in the fast group as well. The fast group is there. There are craff butchers in the fast group, so that is the whole wider group that just wants to hear what is happening. That is why that group is set up. It highlights exactly what I talked about earlier on, because if we do not get this right, the critical mass aspect for everybody else that is relying on that is incredible. It involves likes of a butchers or processors that are keen to see what is happening. I was going to answer the question in relation to the national test programme, but I cannot pick up on that. You have been searching for some contention to some extent. You are asking to come back to the point about the face of the bill. There are issues around, as I said before, if we continue to fix two thirds of the budget in direct payments, we are limiting what is available for everything else that has to deliver. Those direct payments are not working in terms of delivering against all the objectives and all the outcomes that we are trying to achieve, which is problematic. If we fix in the bill that 50 per cent will remain in the base payment and 50 per cent of those direct payments will be in tier 2, I do not think that the Government has a cat in health chance of meeting its objectives in terms of agriculture going forward under the current way that those payments are deployed. That is why we are looking at transforming. We absolutely need to transform our farming policy and our farming and food systems to deliver against those outcomes, so there are some really difficult choices to be made there. You suggest that we are looking for contentious areas, absolutely, because I want to know how the ARIOB reports or makes recommendations. That is absolutely critical. You said that you would come to a consensual... There is no consensus over capping. There is no consensus over tier 1, tier 2 payments. How do you move forward? What is your role, Martin, as the co-chair and advising the Government on that? You are absolutely right. I am looking for contentious areas and finding out how we resolve those. That is... We are there to obviously advise Scottish Government. There are views taken, there are broad views taken right across the board tier. You have just highlighted and Ricky has highlighted where that contentious issues are going to be. Again, it comes back to if we see there is not a current health chancellor reaching some of the targets in climate and biodiversity. My argument from that and others would be if we want people to buy into this unless we do this correctly. We will then lose the industry. It is not just agriculture that is at stake here. This is about the Scottish economy that is driven on the back of food production and market and processing. Without that in Scotland, food and drink is our biggest economic driver. We cannot forget that. If we lose that opportunity... You have put that on record already. That is a specific question. Are you making compromises on the behalf of farmers to then speak with a single voice? Hands up here and probably as co-chair. I have been challenged on this. I will be absolutely honest. I have been challenged on this. As co-chair, I should be taking the consensus and not putting forward my personal or the industry's views. I would be failing in my job as NFE Scotland president if I did not put forward where the industry, I think, the direction of travel should be going. If that was the case, then quite frankly I would probably not be so keen to carry on because I am the electorate as president NFE Scotland. I am on this group as ariob as co-chair and I accept the fact. I have been challenged on that by accepting the fact that I have got to try and come to that consensus with the cabinet secretary. That sometimes is difficult but we have got to try and get there. I would be failing in my job if I did not take forward the views of where I think the industry stands right now. That is helpful. Tim, briefly and then bring Rachel back in. I think again that it is the stage of the process that we are in. To use the analogy, we know that we need to build a house. We have agreed on the aspect. We have dug the trenches and the ffounds that we are in, which we can all broadly agree on. We are only at the point now where the walls and the roof are going on. What the plan of the house looks like inside is yet to be agreed and that contention will happen. We have not come to that stage because we have been slow to get to this point. I would dispute that the foundations are in place. I would like to ask you what your assessment is of the uptake and progress of the national test programme. It is disappointing. Why do I think that it is disappointing? That would be the next question, I imagine. From my perspective, I think that it is because, while we can see that it is the early foundation stones of what a future policy might look like, the rest of that signalling, the rest of the potential flesh on the bone and the skeletons around it is not clear. They are sitting there a little bit off left field. They are sitting a little bit disjointed because farmers, crofters at large, cannot actually see how it all fits in the big picture. That is on one hand. Secondly, there is an element for some of it. I know this from a small farm living in a rural community, having farming friends and everything else. Some are sitting back waiting because there is a slight fear that if they are not already doing a carbon footprint audit, which a number of folk have been, as you heard last week. However, I do not know if we are starting this journey because I am not quite sure whether this will help me or will it hinder me down the road. The easiest thing is to sit back a little bit and see what we get to. That is my assessment. Where does that responsibility sit that the farmers do not know what the national test programme is supposed to deliver? Is that you guys, or is it the Government, or is it...? It would be within the wider communications that come out from Government, which there has been increased efforts around. Originally it was pretty hidden, I would say, how it all fits together. I would hope that that is starting to change, but the first year claimed period has now passed. I have got Vicky and then Keith. It is important to remember that there are two parts to the national test programme. There is the preparing for sustainable farming and testing for sustainable farming. So preparing for sustainable farming is where the money is on the table already for doing things like soil testing, carbon audits and the animal health plan that has been brought in. Nature Scotland is looking at a simple biodiversity audit that could be introduced. We are talking about 23. We have yet to see whether that is possible or not. We really hope that it will be. Obviously, the take-up has not been sufficient of that. I think that farmers are watching, waiting. There has been communication problems and it has not got out there as much. There has been the second part, which is testing, which is difficult because we do not quite know what we are testing yet because we have not developed all that detail, but they have gone out and done surveys with farmers. The plan is to try to get a cohort of farmers to work with Government to look at what could be some of the measures introduced to think around tier 2 and how that could work in practice. I think that they need to put more money into that. They need to develop it, to grow it, to get a serious cohort, a representative sample of farms and crops across Scotland, to work with farmers to work out what would work practically on the ground and deliver against the objectives and to use that to inform the thinking of the policy development as it goes forward. The challenge, of course, is where does the money come from. We have had a pot of money set aside to do that national test programme, but all the other payments have to continue under the current legislation, so it is quite difficult to find significant sums of money to do a lot of that work. There is a pot of money there. There could be more, if Government made those choices, to invest more in that side of things. Can I bring in Kate and then you can come back in? Yes, sure. It was on Vicky's point. To agree with him, the problem is that farmers do not see this bigger picture. That is absolutely down to communications, and I would say that Scottish Government communications, because they are the ones that have to communicate that. I do not think that farmers do understand how everything fits together in the way that we are privileged enough to do. I think that there has been an issue of getting that out there, and that is partly why the FAS group has been set up, because there were other parts of industry who were hearing literally nothing at all. I absolutely understand that there is a balance between putting out lots of incomplete information, which is just going to cause confusion, as I alluded to. You have to get your head around policy or not putting out anything. I think that the balance was the wrong way to begin with. I think that that is improving, and the FAS group has been a way of the whole sector to try to get that information out. I think that it also needs to mention that, as far as I know, there have been delivery issues. There is not the capacity in a lot of the advisory services and a lot of the testing services to do all that work in a big mass all at once. That is also an issue, and something else that we have flagged up at ARIOB, along with the improving communications need. I feel in my head that I am getting conflicted messages from last week's panel to this week's panel, because, on one hand, ARIOB is saying that there is not the capacity in their culture advisers, and on the other panel, we had Jim Walker saying that he can only describe the net zero measures as embarrassing, because farmers are already carrying out those audits on their own backs. If we want farmers to be successful and be part of meeting net zero targets, surely ARIOB should be engaging with farmers to ensure that they are part of that, rather than creating a new middle group of people that are benefiting it, rather than bringing the economic benefit back into farmers that Vicky had described as perhaps being not in those words, but there were some that were leading, the majority leading the way, but most of the farmers were not carrying this out. I am really frustrated about this, because it seems as though farmers are the last in the group of getting benefit from this. Part of the problem is that some of the farmers that were in the farmer-led groups that you were talking to last week are probably some of the top-performing farmers. There is a huge difference between the top-performing quartile in farmers and the bottom in terms of business efficiency and productivity and a whole load of different metrics. Probably the farmers in those farmer-led groups are at the forefront of the thinking of what the sector needs to do on multiple different fronts, and they are leading the way. The reality is that there are an awful lot of farmers that are not in that position. For various reasons, whether it is economics, whether it is a knowledge issue, whether it is an advisory issue or whatever, are not at that place. The job of policy and the job of some of this investment is to ensure that all those other farmers are up where those leading farmers are. It is helping farmers to understand that for many of the climate related measures, for example, if we look at the marginal abatement cost curves, many of those things make good business sense for farmers to do already. They will actually improve the profitability of the farm and save money overall, but not all farmers know that and not all farmers are practising that. Whether it is through education and training and advice, whether it is through regulation, whether it is through incentives, whether it is a whole package of things that are needed to get every farmer in Scotland to be where we need them to be to manage their land to deliver those outcomes that we are looking for. I was just going to add to that that there can also be differences by sector. A lot of the more intensive sectors, for example, pigs and poultry in particular dairy, have already been driven down the road of having to do certain audits by processors, so that will have made a key influence on how far they are down the road. As Vicky said, as we have touched on before, there is a massive range in terms of the scale of farming business from the crops common grazing to the bigger intensive units. I am Jenny Minto. It was just really on the uptake and the preparing for sustainable farming. I think that there will be a far bigger uptake this coming year, which is my view. That is what I am getting from the soil testing company that we use. I was number 389 back in January that applied for the soil testing part of it. We have done our carbon audits because we have been involved in the beef efficiency scheme and we have continued to do that. I think that the communication that has been highlighted was actually poor at the start. I think that it is getting better, but that uptake needs to be a lot stronger, because if we do not do that, then other countries are going to take the lead. I have a lot of farmers doing that on a regular basis, but the uptake that I see will increase. My personal view is that that is coming from the soil companies. A lot of people have switched on to that happening, and this year is the year that the uptake will be far greater. I hope that that happens. We will be doing our part to try to put that message out, but this is a communication issue that has got to come from the Scottish Government that could be easily done through forms that have got to be done in the face of the forms that have got to be done in May, so that they have got the opportunity to take that up. It is an absolute necessity as I am concerned to do those audits, because if we do not do them, there will be other countries that will take that lead, and then we need that reinforcement to show where Scotland is. If we are doing that, particularly with the carbon assessment that we are now getting in our soils, it will highlight where we are in Scotland in global terms, and that will make a big difference when it comes to training our products. Tim, do you want to take that a comment? I suppose that it was by way of reassurance in terms of one area of work that has been undertaken quite a lot of it, below the radar, but which is to the wider benefit of the entire Scottish cattle sector. There is a follow-on from what Jim Walker was berating a little bit last week around data and saying that there is a lot of industry-related data that is held within the Scottish EID service in Huntley, which we oversee. That data has all now been mined effectively, and dashboards are now available to every single cattle keeper in Scotland utilising their data that they have put on in terms of registering the birth of animals, in terms of the death of animals and so on, which is called my herd stats. That has now been presented back into a performance dashboard that every producer can see, to see how efficient their carving is, how their mortality rates are. They can link that up with other parts of the supply chain. It is all around improving productivity, so that is free to use and that is all off the back of data that they are originally. That is a key point in terms of saying that there is a start, but how much more can we do that does not, one, create a lot of bureaucratic burden but provides opportunities for farmers going forward to make decisions built around data? That is now launched. Everyone has that available. We are actually going to move on to that in our final question, but just to close off the national testing framework, Jenny Minto has got a supplementary question. I think that it falls into this topic of conversation. I was interested in views on the monitor farms and how that is feeding into the area of process. I should have asked the last time as well, tenant farmers, what work have you been doing to ensure that they are included in the way forward? The monitor farm programme has just started again, the next iteration of it. We have had the first meetings for all the nine farms and the idea for it is very much as a platform to get all this sort of information out, working with the monitor farms themselves to see what changes they want to make and then cascading that out to the wider community. It does absolutely work. I am a past monitor farmer myself and I know how some of the things that we did 10 years ago I have cascaded out. It does work, but it needs to be ramped up. There is much more of a focus on business efficiency and on sustainability right through the whole programme. There is much more collaboration between the nine monitor farms, so they are not as much in isolation as they were in previous programmes. On the tenant thing, I can assure you that it is brought up regularly. Martin and I are both tenant farmers, specifically things like carbon credits and who gets them in that sort of tenant situation, planting trees, all that sort of thing. It is all brought up at Arreol. I would say probably more on the fringes. It is not specific topics, but always a consideration in whichever subject that we are looking at. Just before we move on to the last, we have actually run out of time, but if nobody is rushing away, it would be good to get another 10 minutes or so on our final question. That would be helpful. I will move to Jim Fairlie. Thank you, convener. I do me a surprise there. Yet there are key areas of uncertainty around future policy. Tim, you just touched on data there, where are the research gaps. Martin, I notice that you seem to be disagreeing with Vicky when she was talking about the LFA side of things. What are the differences there in terms of what Arreol should be doing and what areas of research are Arreol abusing to help to develop the policy? Martin, have you given the fact that I have decided your LFA thing coming to you after that, Vicky? Okay. In terms of the LFA, it comes back to the sort of contentions that we have in there and trying to come to that consensus, which is going to be challenging. Our view has always been that LFA farmers are 100 per cent reliant on that support and where that is coming from and what is delivering in the wider economic points that Jenny had mentioned earlier on. Do you have a specific research that you are looking at in terms of where the LFA should go? Is it based purely on rural day population, i.e. keeping farmers there, or do you dispute science that perhaps Vicky would use? I would dispute the science to a degree that Vicky would use, because in terms of the LFA's going to the better land all the time, it depends on a per hectare basis. That may be the case, but for a business basis, it is going to some of the biggest units that there is that are delivering an awful lot in terms of employment and biodiversity benefits as well. If you look at it purely in a per hectare basis, because the LFA system is designed and set up to recognise where some parts of the sector, particularly the beef side, is struggling, there is a waiting towards that depending on your stock and density. I will not go into the details a bit, but depending on the stock and density, that gives you an uplift if you are supporting beef production, which is extremely important in those areas. Without that, they simply would not be there. We can tweak it or what. If that support is not going into those areas, those people will not be there. In terms of that real deep population, that will happen. I could practically guarantee that, because that is an issue. We will lose the people. There are people that we can put. On how do we change that slightly? If we still had LFA support as a direct payment within tier 1 and tier 2, there could be conditions within that to say that you are taking part in various options that are there under enhanced payments in tier 2. That would not be an issue. If you are still partaking in your carbinar, and you are doing your salt testing, those baseline issues under tier 2, if you do that, then you are eligible for your LFA payment. That is putting conditions on it, but it is still being seen as a direct payment. I will come to you, Vic. I promise that I just want to explore this a wee second. If the LFA support is altered in a way that does not support producing calves, those calves are then sold down to the lower, down the country. That in itself is helping the carbon or the quality of the soil further down the country. Are you saying that it is not just about keeping people there, it builds into the whole thing of how we maintain the carbon? It builds into all soils, not just in the hill soil. It builds into the whole thing, because traditionally the calves in the hills go down to the lower ground. For an example, my father-in-law in Fife fathins a few hundred cattle every year. They are not his own cattle, he is a finisher. That is why we have to look at things on a more circular basis. He is a finisher that buys calves from the upland areas. He puts a lot of dung on his soil in Fife. His carbon assessment, from an arable perspective, is a very traditional farmer and is very, very good in the saw, because they have been doing their carbon assessment in the saw. That is partly to do, because the amount of dung has come back in the soils. We cannot look at it in isolation. We need to get away from that, because if we have an effect of reducing the numbers that are in the uplands, then the effect that has not only in the viability of our lowland producers that have finished in the cattle because they can do it far more efficiently than what we are doing, but the effect that we are also seeing now is that we are losing that ability to keep our own infrastructure in place. We are seeing it already this year to a large extent. The huge number of cattle that is now going south of the border will no longer get finished in Scotland, because there will be a southern arbitrage going to get the benefit of that, because they are going to be finished down there. Why is that happening? Because there is less cattle south of the border now as well. The impact that that has is massive. We are looking at critical mass plus, and the wider benefit. I am sorry, Martin. We are really short on time. I want to be clear that I am not arguing against money going into those hill and upland areas, Jim. In fact, I am arguing that more money will get a really poor deal out of the current system, as I highlighted when I said that they are only getting 16 per cent of pillow 1 support, the basic payments and other schemes, and yet they are 50 per cent of the area. We would approach it differently in terms of how you better support farming and crofting in those areas. We have ideas around the high-nature value farming scheme or payment, which could be potentially either situated in tier 2 or possibly in tier 3. Can I ask you how does that feed into making sure that there is a critical mass of numbers? Because it is about supporting the high-nature value farming systems and the livestock production that takes place there. But if there is not enough cattle on the ground in the first place, that system falls down. I fully understand the position that you are taking, but how does not having enough numbers on the ground support the critical mass as well as doing the high-nature value farming? You have to look at the whole package of support that is potentially going into those areas across all the tiers and how you support the farming and crofting that is taking place there, which in turn retains that critical mass that you are talking about. Of course, it is as important for delivering for nature to have some of those livestock grazing in those places, to have the cropping and grazing systems on the maca and in the western isles, for example. Agriculture is going to continue. What we are talking about is why we are losing critical mass from these places, because the current system does not support them very well. Now, there will also need to be some change, some land-use change in some parts of Scotland. We need to think about that alongside agriculture. There is no pathway that will get us to net zero without transforming how we farm and produce food, without land-use change, which will include some woodland expansion, without dietary change and without reducing waste. That is just what the science tells us. There are different choices within the pathways that we can choose, and we are doing some work as RSPBL conservation scientists at the moment, which is being peer reviewed, looking at different pathways. You can just about get to net zero if you deploy every possible tool in the toolkit, but it means some really difficult choices about the future. It has some implications for livestock production in Scotland. That is just the reality. I also wanted to say earlier that I really think that there is some opportunity in here. You had a whole conversation about peatland restoration. We are crying out for people with skills, land management skills, who can use machinery to do peatland restoration. There are 1.4 million hectares of degraded peatland in Scotland, which, in the inventory, land is an emitting sector. The sequestering effect of land, the trees and everything else, is not sufficient to counter the emissions from land, particularly from peatland at the moment. Sorry, I am going off, but it is really important that there is opportunity in that. The academic advisory panel is advising ARIAB. There is lots of research coming in. We need more research into agroecological farming methods, because, traditionally, a lot of that has gone into the more traditional conventional farming sectors. James Hutton and SIEC are doing loads of stuff, and we are drawing on all of that to inform our thinking. It is a brief question at the very end. If you have identified any data or research gaps in the course of your work, how are they being addressed or how might they be addressed? All the time, we are trying to identify data research, and what we did through the FLGs took on a lot of data from a whole range of academic advisers who have given us data from—whether it is from SRUC, obviously, from a hill farming point of view. It is very important, James Hutton. We take these research institutes that are hugely valuable to us. If there is ever a gap at all, we will pull in professionals who understand fully the implications that we are trying to fill that knowledge gap. We have that availability. One that we have not covered is—it probably links back to what Vicky had said, and it was on the terms of relevant to food production—the diet issue. It may be an opportunity for the brain committee to listen to Professor Alice Stanton on what red meat actually does, because we do it so well here in Scotland and other areas listening to some of that research. I know that you are asking us where we get our data from, but if we identify a data gap, we will fill it by the professional research institutes that are involved in that. However, as a suggestion from a dietary point of view, it would be a great opportunity for the committee to hear the reality of what red meat production actually provides. If 1 per cent of land is producing our energy source of food, Vicky, how will all the solutions to meeting that zero within the sphere of this new replacement for cap system be realistic? Sorry, Rachael Hamilton. I should be quite sure. You were talking about the change of land use. I will phrase it differently. What percentage of what you are doing overseeing Scottish Government's work will contribute to meeting that zero targets? Agriculture and how we produce food and wider land use, particularly rural land use, has an enormous role to play in sectors and the contribution to us getting to net zero, and of course not forgetting nature, because we face a nature and climate emergency. The evidence from the Committee on Climate Change was very clear to you from Chris Stark. No, it wasn't. What they were saying was that land that shouldn't be kept in full-time pasture was no longer sequestrating carbon and should go into trees. I have never heard that before. What they are saying is that if you think in terms of grasslands and its carbon sequestration ability, permanent grassland and the longer it has been there, it reaches an equilibrium, so it is not constantly sequestering. That is the issue. In some cases, the alternative or other land uses of planting trees, particularly broadleaf woodland, where we are planting for the very long term. When you get into commercial forestry and you have short rotations, then obviously you have a different carbon cycle going on there compared to a broadleaf tree that might be there for 200 or 300 years, which is locking up that carbon as it grows. It is quite complicated, but I think that what the committee was trying to say to you in the sense of agriculture and land use and the emissions from agriculture and what is in the inventory under the land use, land use change and forestry category has a really important role. As other sectors reduce their emissions over time, transport, housing and everything else, it shines the light on agriculture because we cannot produce food without emissions, that is just the reality. We interact with the soil, livestock, graze, cow's burp, that is just the reality. The sequestering effect of land is really important in thinking about the overall net position, but the problem with the wider land sector at the minute is that it is an emitting sector, so if you look at Llu Llu CF in the inventory, it is showing it as a small above the line emitting greenhouse gases. The reality is that you have a lot of sequestering below the line, which is the trees soaking up carbon and peatland in good heart, but because we have so much degraded peatland in Scotland, 1.4 million hectares, it is a massive, in fact it is the largest emitting sector of any sector. Until we bring that down, we have a very important role. I think that we are maybe just getting into too much detail. I am quite sure that everybody else would want to give their opinion on that. We are really short of time. I am going to stop you there. I am going to make one comment. It is not a question, it is her comment. The thing that concerns me about the evidence that we got last week from the CCC was the word probably. The word probably would reduce the amount of greenhouse gas that was being sequestered. My question is for you. You have said in the past that 97 per cent of the funding, if we are talking about uncertainty of future policy, has come from the UK Government. If that stops in 2024 or there is no certainty, where do you see us going there? That is a massive risk. We cannot afford that to stop. If that stops, our ability to produce and deliver the outcomes that we are all trying to achieve from a climate and biodiversity point of view completely disappears. What will happen? It relates directly to the last question. What will happen is that we will see, particularly 85 per cent of the area, that we will just contract and what they are producing. That is exactly what will happen. It relates directly to what will happen on the ground in terms of rank vegetation that has been highlighted already. We then get into the issue of wildfires and we just cannot control them. I am not going into the details, but I spoke to the fire service who are extremely concerned about this in Scotland in terms of wildfires if we let rank vegetation go off. We will no longer be in a position of keeping it grazed and keeping it in a carbon sequestrate and stay. Very briefly, on the building and the equilibrium of that carbon, again I will come back to Rothamstead and speak to the scientist who put that report out, Andrew Neill. If we build our soils, we can actually build the carbon. Yes, it can, because we have depleted soils at the minute. If we build our soils, we can add to the carbon. We can keep that, so we can actually do that. It is only saturated if our soil level stays the same. I would like the committee to invite the UK Government Minister to come and speak to that particular question. Do you, as an organisation—I am asking you as the NFU now, given the fact that the area will not be—speak to the UK Government about getting an assurance about those payments? Absolutely. I was in London last week on that specific issue, so at every opportunity we are down making sure that we—because this is so important, absolutely so important, because that funding, which is £637 million relatively speaking, comes into the agriculture directly. Of that £637 million, £620 million comes from Westminster, so that is absolutely vital that that has continued. That is about keeping our ability to deliver what the outcomes have been achieved. As I said, I am optimistic. I think that I have a great opportunity to do it here, but we will not do it without the funding. I am going to ask the convener the last question. It is quite a difficult question, but you will be able to answer it fairly quickly. This is specifically for the members of the area, so you are all there representing a sector of some sort, but those sectors that you represent already have lines of communication with the Government. It has been suggested that the area is actually just another layer, another way for the Government to stop making decisions and it is just another talking shop. It is focal justified by saying that the arable sector is forging ahead, not waiting for ARIOB to advise the Government and the Government to act. We had, again, Jim Walker talking about the sector of carbon efficiency programme, which was developed, funded and costed, but we have not seen anything move forward with that, but it is now being adopted in an island. Can you justify your position and not just being a talking shop, which is actually ARIOB's reason for the delay in slowness and production of policy? Whatever happens, there will be a policy decision. Whatever happens, there will be an agricultural bill and there will be outcomes in primary legislation delivering the flexibility and that secondary legislation will come behind it. Whatever happens, and we are getting to that process pretty quickly, the industry is desperate to see that progress, but if we are not involved in that process now, then what is going to happen? The reason that I would suggest that we absolutely justify our involvement in this is to get the correct outcomes, which is going to allow us to continue to produce the food that we take for granted and deliver the outcomes that we are also trying to keep. This is specifically about ARIOB, not ARIOB. That is absolutely about ARIOB, because it is still a given because we have to be involved in steering that direction of travel. Government has to make those decisions that are going to be made. Quite frankly, the reason that I would imagine that most of us agreed to sit on this was to make sure that we influence that in the way that we need it to go as an industry. I would totally contest anything about ARIOB holding this back. I think that, if anything, we have pushed this forward much quicker than it would have gone without us. I totally agree with Kate's last point there. I think that ARIOB has been at pains to speed up the process and to ensure that the realities and practicalities of how this policy can be delivered on the ground are heard front and centre. When we started off the ARIOB process, we were all very clear, but all of us were very clear that at the end of the day there were three legs to a stool here. There was the climate emergency, there was nature restoration and there was food production. If food production was not the third leg of that stool, then many of us were not going to be involved. That is reflected in the vision there. It is reflected in with a lot more of the detail that is now coming through the route map and other parts around that. It sounds a pretty basic thing to say, but we put that on record and got that agreed prior to the side events in Ukraine, which has just got vindicated more than ever. Maybe a small couple of words, but that is absolutely critical because we are not going to get the nature restoration and the climate change unless we have food producers buying into that. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the additional 20 minutes because I know you are all very very busy people. He has been a really useful session. That concludes our meeting in public. We will now move into pirate session and I suspend the meeting for 10 minutes.