Official Report 382KB pdf
Item 5 is a round-table evidence session on food policy. We have decided to have a round-table discussion because we want to pick the witnesses' brains, get a conversation going about this issue and ensure that we get as much input as possible at this stage to help us to develop a remit for a full-scale inquiry.
Good morning and thank you very much for this opportunity to give evidence. First, I should clarify whom I represent, because I suspect that my submission might have been slightly unclear about that. For the past three months I have been a part-time senior land use policy officer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; I spend the rest of my time at home on a tenanted farm in South Lanarkshire. I used to be a policy manager for the Soil Association, but I no longer have any formal contact with it.
I am chair of the Scottish Association of Farmers Markets and I thank the committee for inviting me to the meeting.
Perhaps we can take all the thanks for granted.
I want to put across our concerns about regulation with regard to abattoirs—or their lack—and about the future of local food being sold at farmers markets.
I skip over Alasdair Morgan, who is a committee member.
My credentials are in my submission, but I hope that I transcend policy and food production. The most important single issue is that we implement what began as a good, innovative and cross-cutting proposal and that we persuade participants in the food industry to bury their current positions in order to put something together that is truly collaborative and in Scotland's interests.
I skip over Peter Peacock, another committee member.
The one issue that I want to be considered is increasing competition. That large area would include, for example, labelling, reopening the debate on genetic modification, regulation and the procurement process.
I move to James Withers, who is representing the National Farmers Union Scotland instead of Jim McLaren.
Jim sends his apologies.
That is okay.
I am chief executive of the NFUS. The union has about 9,000 members who are mostly full-time farmers; indeed, we represent about two thirds of Scotland's full-time farmers.
I suppose that the best introduction that I can give is to say that I am an ageing academic. I represent myself, although I should mention that I am chairman of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation, a member of the board of Quality Meat Scotland and a member of the board of Scottish Natural Heritage. I also serve on the Scottish advisory group for Linking Environment and Farming. I have other links to the industry that I will set aside.
Des McNulty, who is sitting next to Professor Thomas, is a committee member. On my left is John Scott, who is the deputy convener of the committee, and I am Roseanna Cunningham, the committee convener. I think that I have met a number of the witnesses on a number of different occasions.
Thank you, convener.
I should say that he does not really mean that; he is kicking me under the table.
Is the concept of local food an important one? Various witnesses—James Withers, for example—have already highlighted the paramount importance of food security and the need to ensure future production in Scotland's hills and upland areas. What part does local food play in the food supply chain? Is there a need for more collaboration? I will keep away from the subject of food miles, but is local food important in reducing carbon footprints?
That was fairly wide ranging. Does anyone want to pick up the cudgel to start with?
It is well documented that farmers markets are very successful and here to stay. Most of our organisers say that the markets are holding up in the current climate. The public are going to farmers markets, especially if they are nearby, because of carbon footprint concerns.
Carey Coombs, you had a lot to say about local food in your submission. Do you want to pick up on any of those issues?
I will expand on my submission. Part of the problem with the food system is a kind of disconnect. The importance of local food lies in understanding where food comes from and how it is produced. We are coming up with solutions in relation to food quality such as ear tagging, assurance schemes and other things, but those are possibly less necessary if there is a deeper understanding, and less distance, between producer and consumer.
I know that some farmers are quite scathing about farmers markets. It has been suggested to me that if we all had to use them, it would put us back to medieval practices. Does NFU Scotland have a particular take on that?
If there have been criticisms of farmers markets, it is because they have been held up—by the Government, more than by anyone involved in the farmers markets movement—as the answer to farming's prayers, much as organic food, diversification and the development of farm shops have been. For a farmer whose farm is halfway up a hill in the middle of north-west Scotland, a farmers market is not necessarily an option, and nor is turning the barn into a bed and breakfast.
Why is the option not there?
Having a farm shop, for example, is not an option, because there are more sheep passing the end of the farm road than people. Those farms are not on a tourist trail—the option is not there for everyone.
Leaving aside the idea of a farm shop, what about the market concept?
The farmers market concept?
Why would a market not help the farmers that you are talking about?
They could be in the depths of Sutherland, some distance away from a town centre that draws enough people for a farmers market. The other issue is that where there is the option of holding a farmers market, there are issues surrounding abattoir and kill capacity, and the restructuring of that process—one of Sally Crystal's points—to make it work.
It might sound ironic, but local food is a global problem. We are in a situation in which the world's food supply, relative to population growth, is diminishing. The United Kingdom will always be able to buy its food on the world market at the right price, and prices will go up, but in countries where food is short there will be population movements, unrest and so on, and we will have to pick up those problems too.
Would you be part of the group that would call for more land to be turned over to—or put into—food production?
I would argue for more land to be put into food production, but there is a limit to the amount of available land. Globally, the amount of available land is reducing because of water shortages and the impact of climate change, and we do not want to chop down forests elsewhere. There is a problem with regard to the Scottish situation, because there are some land areas in Scotland that have historically been farmed from which people are walking away because the farming has become unsustainable. That is a problem for Scotland—we need to maintain the focus of farming and food production in rural areas where, frankly, there is not a lot else that can be done to maintain an economic and viable sustainability.
This is a hugely loaded question, but do you believe that we should continue to subsidise that sector?
The answer is yes.
Yes? That is fine.
It is important, in a Scottish context, to consider what we mean by local food. In Scotland, we should think about the whole ambit. It is important that we include, for example, sea fish, game, vegetables and processed products that we make locally; it is not just about red meat. It is important to recognise that we have the capacity to produce food, but we need access to processing and distribution to reach our markets.
As an organisation, the SRPBA represents landowners and farmers. We obviously support local food production. It is important not only for the farming economy, but for sustaining rural communities that might not survive if farming did not remain in the area. The issue is often price. That is often the reason why local production is declining. As James Withers said, there are also problems in the hill sheep and livestock sector.
Michael Gibson mentioned sea fish. If we consider the economic value of the various sectors of food production in Scotland, beef comes top of the list at about £450 million and aquaculture is next at about £400 million. From memory, the sea fish sector is worth about £370 million. The sheep sector is worth £135 million and the pig sector is worth about half of that. Aquaculture, as distinct from fishing, is an important part of the Scottish food system.
You are warning us not to become too focused on land-based food production.
Yes. Aquaculture is the single biggest element of Scottish food exports.
I think that Professor Thomas and Karen Smyth, in particular, are agreed in their comments. The recent report by the Scottish Agricultural College and the NFUS states that desertification is taking place, at least in hill and upland areas, with the huge decline in the number of sheep and cattle. The other things that you talked about are inherently static at the moment. The quantum shift is in livestock production, given the factors that you mentioned. Does anyone want to comment on the potential for desertification?
I was about to say that there are a lot of good comments and insights in the Royal Society of Edinburgh report that was published yesterday or the day before. The report is well worth reading. Economic activity in hill and upland areas must be maintained. People say that agriculture has declined in importance and is no longer the bricks of the wall; I argue that, although it might not be the bricks, it is the cement. Agriculture is often the element that maintains the socioeconomic structures in an area. It ensures that there are enough people to keep the local shop and school going.
There is huge concern about the depopulation of the uplands, but we must be careful not to assume that historic practice will necessarily be the best approach in the future. I speak as someone who has been a hill farmer in Argyll, so I know what the problems are. The hill farm that I farmed in Argyll was not best suited to running a large stock of sheep. That is not to say that sheep farming is not or will not be important, but we should have an open mind on the matter. There are historic reasons why we have a large sheep and cattle population.
A lot of cattle and sheep have been removed from the hills. That is largely because of the lack of confidence that has been expressed in the policy that has come forward. There is a question mark over how we might deal with the single farm payment beyond 2013 and the less favoured area support scheme is under scrutiny. Also, people have not been making a living from cattle and sheep. Those are some of the reasons for the decline.
There has been a fundamental shift in what happens in our remote areas. We do not necessarily need to go into the number of factors that brought about that shift, but the reality is that people and animals are going. We need to consider how the public money that is spent in rural areas is targeted. A significant chunk of money goes into rural areas, either in direct payments to farmers or through rural development funding. We could spend that money better without necessarily adding another lump of public money to the system.
We will come back to that point. After we hear from Peter Peacock, I will ask Carey Coombs to comment, because he commented on the rural development fund in his written submission.
The discussion has already demonstrated the width of the issue and how difficult it is to grapple with. I want to focus on the policy question about local food, because I have not yet heard an answer to that. Perhaps I should declare that I am a great fan of local food. I like going to local farmers markets. I started doing that in continental Europe and I am glad that farmers markets are coming to Scotland in a big way. I am attracted by the emphasis on more local production and fewer food miles.
I return to the issue of public money. My view is, and always has been, that farmers are not just food producers. We must acknowledge that farming is a multifunctional pursuit. James Withers suggested that perhaps we should not be calling for more money to support farmers. However, I believe that we need to build the case to reward farmers with much more money. The only way to do that is to pay them for delivering social and environmental services. That is why I struggle with the issue of the single farm payment at the moment. The single farm payment is historically based and is perceived to reward farmers for doing very little, although I accept that they have to maintain environmental conditions. It is a problem for farmers to hold up their hands and say, "I am earning this money." I, as a farmer, would like to hold up my hands and say that. That is why I am an advocate and supporter of environmental organisations that would like the money to be used for supporting agri-environment schemes and such like. The way forward for farmers in the uplands is to pay them for delivering in the new market of agri-environmental services. The market does not support much apart from food at the moment, but it is clear that it could do so.
That is an interesting argument. You are saying that you want to pay farmers for environmental and social outcomes when, in fact, perhaps we should be paying farmers to get on with growing food.
There is an open market for growing food. That is where we appear to be, with a global marketplace. However, there is not a market for other services.
To follow on from what Peter Peacock said, it would be interesting to get some of what we are talking about in proportion. What proportion of the food calories that we consume in Scotland comes from local production? I suspect that it is infinitesimal. It would be interesting to know what proportion you think that it could get to, without our going back to some kind of stone age culture. If the proportion is not going to be huge, perhaps we should not spend too much time talking about it, as opposed to about other things. I merely put that point across; it can be knocked down.
That is interesting. There were a wide variety of submissions. If the primary focus is food production, that changes the parameters of what we are talking about. The primary focus might be something else.
There is an element of people questioning whether local food is important and saying that we should be considering the global aspect and that farmers should be looking to increase their food production to sell on a wider scale. I totally agree with that, but the tendency has been to base all food policy on a multiple vision of global sales and supermarkets and so on. There is a place for local food and for food that is produced on a smaller scale. If we can keep small farmers in business by encouraging them to produce fish, meat or whatever—I am not suggesting that it should be just meat—we should do so.
I did not get the impression that anybody here was writing them off.
It was said that they are small scale and would not grow.
There are questions about the proportion of the whole business that they really encompass. It is fair to say that we get very focused on them, but part of the reason for that is that they are much more obvious; people go into their town centres and see the farmers market, which is distinctive. The markets have other benefits, which we should not overlook.
I am keen for members to take away the point that it would be disastrous to get to a position in which we had to choose between supporting farmers for environmental work and supporting them for food production. That has been the failing of agricultural policies for 60 years. After the second world war, we had an emphasis purely on food production. That was tremendously successful for the first 20 years, but then it went too far and we ended up with grain mountains and wine lakes, which had environmental consequences. We then took a knee-jerk turn from that and said that the environment was the most important thing, because we had enough food. We thought that we could relax and go environmental, but now we are worried about food production again. That sort of ping-pong is dangerous. We need to map out a policy that focuses on producing food well and which delivers an environmental by-product. Some 75 per cent of Scotland's land mass is farmed 365 days a year by farmers; they do a management job, but they produce food at the same time.
That is useful.
I will try to address a couple of the questions that members have asked. Alasdair Morgan simply reflected the fact that we are dealing with complex problems to which there are no simple single solutions. Often, single-issue lobby groups simplify issues because it is the only way to deal with complexity.
John Scott has chivalrously decided to forego his position in the list, so we will hear from Karen Smyth and then Michael Gibson.
In response to Alasdair Morgan's question about whether we want to produce environmental benefits, food, a place for people to live and so on, I would say, "All of the above." The production of food and the achievement of environmental gains in the same area are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Many environmental management practices are carried out where food is produced.
In answering Alasdair Morgan's question, we must surely consider a Scotland-wide food policy that is pertinent to the richest and the poorest areas of the country. We should remember that Scotland has a well-defined, sophisticated processing and manufacturing sector that often needs high volumes of produce from productive areas and good, consistent supply chains. Our hills and uplands present a particular problem, but they must fit into a wider policy, as must local food issues.
I want us to move on from local food because time is on the wane. We have done local food to death, so we should turn to food security, which most of us agree is a key issue. I would like the witnesses to identify some of the barriers to food production in Scotland and Europe, and to give us their ideas on possible solutions.
Before John Scott asked his question, I had intended to raise a debating point, which, as it turns out, is quite pertinent. Let us assume that we want to maintain or increase production. There are two ways of going about that. We could intensify production on high-quality ground, thereby freeing up land that was not deemed productive. The alternative approach would be to integrate food production with the wider environment. I know where my tendencies lie—I favour the integrated approach, because I do not consider looking after the environment and food production to be separate objectives. However, that is a topical debate.
I take your point.
Does anyone flat out disagree with anything that has been said so far? Please do not be afraid to say so. It is interesting that it appears that no one has heard anything that they flat out disagree with.
I suppose that we go back to John Scott's original question, which was about what the barriers are.
Labour costs are a barrier.
There are labour barriers—there is a significant labour shortage—and skills and training barriers. Many of the skills in the agricultural industry are passed on through generations rather than being taught in academic institutions. The University of Aberdeen was the last major university to offer an agriculture degree, which I think has now been dropped. We need to think about how to support our specialist agricultural colleges.
I just want to confirm that the regulatory regime under which we operate applies across the European Union.
Yes.
So Scotland is not unique in not being able to compete with developing countries. That is the result of our choosing—or not—to comply with a regulatory regime that is imposed by the EU.
Yes. Issues arise within the EU, but those are mostly down to decisions about when to implement specific measures and how strictly to implement them.
I appreciate that.
I am talking about a more global issue, whereby the principles of free trade are not necessarily principles of fair trade. The fact that we operate on a different platform is not reflected in the price of products on Tesco's shelves.
You threw in the fact that the tenanted sector is stagnant. Before we hear from Des McNulty, will you amplify that slightly?
I do not want to open a can of worms, but I have probably already done so.
It is okay for us to discuss cans of worms.
Ever since the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 was passed, landowners have been afraid of the right to buy. They have been frightened that, at some point, an absolute right to buy might come into force, which would mean that one day a tenant could wake up and decide that they wanted to take their farm. That has meant that, unfortunately, not enough land has been let, which has been one of the biggest hurdles. The fear of a right to buy might be irrational, but it remains a difficulty as regards the availability of land for let. Another issue is that new entrants from outwith the industry who want to rent land do not have the same financial back-up or financial foundation that is available to those who are already in the industry.
James Withers has raised some interesting questions. I have scribbled those down as issues to which we might choose to return.
I want to pursue the points that James Withers raised. He suggested that, as is being said of the UK mortgage market, the system is fundamentally broken because there is a basic lack of confidence in it and no one knows how to resolve the big structural problems that exist. Essentially—if I understood the point correctly—the big issue with the supply of skilled people who could become farmers is not necessarily a shortage of agricultural colleges, but the process by which people become farmers or tenant farmers. People need support to be able to set themselves up in business and to become trained within the industry. Whereas in other countries around the world—as was the case here perhaps 40 or 50 years ago—recruitment into farming is a matter of custom and practice and things are handed on from father to son or within local communities, in this country that process has in a sense come to an end. However, we have a situation in which new entrants, whose skills and energy could perhaps resolve some of the problems that are being experienced at a global level, face barriers to get into farming. That is the problem that we need to sort out. We agree on the problem, but what is the solution?
The tenant farming forum and the Scottish Government have done a lot of work on new entrants schemes and how to support new entrants. However—this may be a bit of a cliché—the best new entrants scheme is a profitable industry. We can address small training issues and even some of the tenancy issues, but the biggest concern is the fundamental profitability of the industry. Really, the existing generation of farmers stay in the industry because it is in their blood. When the accountant visits the farm, he usually leaves in tears asking, "What on earth are you doing?" The farmer says, "Well, I have always been a farmer and my father was a farmer." The committee understandably wants to hear about detailed matters such as training, issues of labelling and public procurement, but there is a fundamental issue of profitability. We need to consider the whole structure of how we support farming. If we get that right, new entrants will come along because the single biggest barrier will have gone.
We are in danger of talking ourselves into our boots in saying that the whole situation is broken. I do not think that the farming system is broken, but the wrong signals and the wrong messages are coming out. Farmers are insecure at the moment. The lack of confidence comes from global changes—fertiliser prices have a fundamental effect on how we farm in Scotland, particularly on grassland—and from not knowing what will happen under the next round of reform of the common agricultural policy. For people who are involved in a very long production cycle, such things matter. We also have a fear of a free market—which is, as we said, not necessarily a fair market—and we fear the influence that the multiples can exert on producers, as happened in the dairy industry. Access to land is prohibitive, both for new entrants and for farmers who want to expand. Very often, that is due to our current fiscal situation. In that context, it is important that the Government provides a coherent long-term policy that can give food producers the confidence to go forward.
However, many of those challenges cannot be directly affected by the Scottish Government. It is important that we try to establish what tools the Scottish Government has that could make a difference. The Scottish Government cannot necessarily have an impact on international oil prices—not yet anyway.
I appreciate that—
Some of those points are extremely valid—I also hear them from friends who are in farming—but the cost of fuel and the cost of feed are almost externally imposed costs that need to be managed somehow. In the circumstances, what can the Scottish Government do to help to make things better?
One thing that Scottish Government policy could do is to ensure that we can farm better and get better value for our produce. We need a better and stronger market and we need to do things better. However, we are in danger of concentrating on terrestrial agriculture when we should be looking at food in its widest sense. We need to consider what we can produce in Scotland with an overarching food policy.
I will let Karen Smyth and Carey Coombs respond before we have a brief suspension.
Briefly, I agree with what James Withers said about barriers. One barrier that I want to highlight is regulation. Over the years, we have noticed that the Scottish Government has introduced gold plating into many of the European Union regulations. That has placed additional burdens on farmers that have caused many problems. That is one issue that could be addressed.
I want to pick up on Michael Gibson's comment that the farming system is not broken. That may be the case, but it is potentially broken. We have some serious major issues such as climate change and peak oil. I take Michael Gibson's point, but I do not think that we should belittle the problems.
I suspend the meeting for two or three minutes to allow people to refresh themselves.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
There is still a lot to talk about, so we could perhaps move on to the role that research can play in food production and food security—although I do not want this to turn into a 45 minute discussion on genetically modified food, because there is more to research science and technology than that. I am also interested in some of the land use issues that have come up, although I know that the Scottish Government is launching a separate land use inquiry. We can discuss those two issues now and try to cover one or two others later.
I can kick off on the research question. The reality is that Scotland has never been well placed in its agricultural resource assets. Some 85 per cent of the country has less favoured area status, and it has always been a difficult country in which to be successful in agriculture. It has been successful historically because it has been particularly strong in scientific research and industry innovation. My argument is therefore that we abandon the assumption that we need strength in those areas at our great peril.
You seem to be painting an apocalyptic picture—essentially, that our research basis has almost reached the point at which there is insufficient critical mass to sustain the development of our rural areas at a time when we most need that development to increase food production capability. Is that what you are saying?
I would not want the situation to sound quite as difficult as that. Over the years, the research institutions have been very good at focusing on the great priorities. Therefore, to some extent, the rationalisation and adjustments in our system have maintained a strength and quality in particular areas. However, we have lost whole sectors—and whole institutes—that were important historically and which are still important. My concern is that, if there is further erosion, we will not be able to respond to challenges.
As I am chairman of both the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute and the management board of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, research is close to my heart. I do not quite share Phil Thomas's apocalyptic view, but we need to understand a lot more about land use and the options that are available to us.
Who should provide that vision?
We can try to interact as much as possible with the major funders, but many of the questions are international, and at the Macaulay we interact a lot with international collaborations and with international funders.
In Scotland, we have never really had an equivalent of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia. The CSIRO is widely known in Australia, right across society. Advances are taught in schools—for example, the advances that allowed wheat to be grown in areas where it could not have been grown before—as part and parcel of Australian history. I know of no organisation in Scotland that has ever had a public status or acceptance that is equivalent to CSIRO's. I may be wrong. Does Phil Thomas want to contradict me?
Yes, I will contradict you on the issue of status: the Scottish agriculture research institutes and the SAC were actually leading the CSIRO by many years. However, you have a point when you talk about acceptance and recognition. The general public has not widely appreciated the strength of our agricultural research base.
I want to pick up on a question raised by previous speakers—the question of what is the right research. Tim Lang, who reviewed the Scottish diet action plan, has forecast that food production could move away from the productionist paradigm and towards either a technological paradigm or an ecologically integrated paradigm. That is the sort of debate that we might have to get involved in. It might not be as clear cut as that, but those are the sorts of argument that we will have to consider.
Would you tell the clerks how to access that information so that the rest of us can read it?
Yes. I have simply summarised my starting point for the debate on GM.
It is critical that we keep quality research in the public sector, and GM is a good example. We have got into a "GM—yes or no?" debate, but we should be saying, "GM—maybe, but let the scientists do the work so that we can make a rational decision."
Whether we as a nation accept GM food and GM crops is a public debate that has yet to be had. However, GM technology is already with us and already having an impact. I will give two specific examples. Increasingly, vaccines are produced by GM technology, and unless we are to opt out of using all the new vaccines that become available, we will not be able to sidestep GM technology.
There are two separate issues. Medicinal use of GM technology should not be confused with food production; it can be a separate issue. Also, the fact that GM technology may be used worldwide does not necessarily mean that we have to use it. There may be reasons for that and I am sure that we could debate it all day.
Government and policy makers will always have to make tough decisions and there will always be a little bit of a dilemma. It is extremely important that good, independent, trustworthy evidence is available to them to help them in that process.
I was making the point that Australians grow up knowing about advances and, through their school system, are made conscious of the relevance and importance of those advances to the Australian economy. I do not sense an equivalent connection in Scotland.
On the Food Standards Agency, individuals are becoming more dislocated from knowledge of where their food came from and how it was produced.
The convener has charged me with moving on again to another question. We want to talk a little about the effect that competing land use priorities—such as wind farms for energy, flood management, recreation, housing and growing biofuels—have on food production. Should we work towards a more spatially planned use of our land or would it smack of the Soviet state to suggest that we move towards an absolutely planned, integrated type of agriculture? I would be interested to hear your views on how best to use our land, given the competing demands on it and the discussion about food policy.
That is a really important issue. At the moment, there are competing signals. If I have a hectare of farmland somewhere in the central belt, I have no idea what people want me to do with it. Should I flood it to protect the town, grow biofuels on it, grow food on it or plant it all with trees? All those options appear to have some worthwhile gain somewhere along the line.
That is part and parcel of the argument that every piece of legislation or regulation should be subject to rural proofing.
Yes.
Alasdair Morgan is pulling a face. Do you want to speak?
No, I always pull a face.
The issue of targets and priorities has concerned us for some time: we have targets for biofuels, forestry and so on, but not for food production. I am not saying that we should have a target for food production or that biofuels and forestry are unimportant, but food production has to be taken into consideration with the other land use objectives that the Government sets.
If we look at land as a resource, land managers are simple and basic about what they do with it, which depends on the signal that they get about the likely future flow of funds from that resource. They have in front of them a matrix of opportunity, if you like, and that matrix is very restricted in certain parts of Scotland. For example, you can have only cattle or sheep in certain places; in other places, it might be possible to have a bit of forestry or the opportunity to look at renewables and some environmental schemes.
I have no particular answer, but I will throw something into the mix that follows on nicely from what Michael Gibson said. The decision is not just one about different types of land use; it is about which agricultural commodities are used as well. If, in the future, we seek to align production closer to diet, there might be a case for looking at growing more fruit and veg, for example, given the constraints of the Scottish climate and topography.
I am a great believer in market forces. Someone asked earlier what the Scottish Parliament could do. One thing that it could do—and which it does—is influence the market by making regulations, pronouncements and policy statements. Very often market forces move much more quickly than any Government might anticipate and sometimes the outcomes are not necessarily the desired ones.
I do not want us to go too far down that line, but many people were aware of that possibility, which is why many people in the Parliament at the time wanted the legislation to go further than it did. Some things become self-fulfilling prophecies. If people do not play along and legislation does not result in what we want, we can go back and people might be confronted with even greater legislative demands. That relates to the tenant farmer issue. If the legislation had gone further, it might have prevented the situation that Professor Thomas mentioned.
I am interested in land use planning. In recent years, around our towns and cities and sometimes well beyond them, rural areas have been suburbanised, with significant amounts of generally good-quality farmland being converted into housing. There is an impact on climate change because much of that housing is not close to public transport. Should we prevent such development and state that we are not going to have mass suburbanisation? Should we monitor the boundaries of built communities and force people to build on brownfield sites and have higher population density? How does that relate to the rural housing crisis? We hear that it is difficult for people who work in rural areas to access housing.
I will pick up on that.
Will you hold on a second? Do the witnesses want to pick up on what Des McNulty said, or shall we let it lie just now?
I have great sympathy with what Des McNulty said. Local authorities tend to rush to agree to applications because we need more housing, but there is little thought about where developments are being situated and whether they are close to public transport such as buses. We do not have good, well-thought-out policy on the matter. Policy needs to be reviewed, because urbanisation is coming into the middle of the countryside and taking up good, valuable farmland.
We have to do much more to co-ordinate the roles of central Government and local authorities in planning and the development of land. At present, we get sporadic developments and there is huge inconsistency. Something appears to be all right on one side of a local boundary but not on the other. We seem to be torn between a number of priorities. On the one hand, we want to give people new houses but, on the other, we want to preserve things in aspic. We need to think carefully about how we plan in the broadest sense. Planning seldom takes account of food production or how to achieve infill. Often, that leads to bad use of our inner-city and town areas, which are not developed in the way that they should be.
Your point is that there is not enough brownfield regeneration.
Those who are old enough to remember will be aware that the last time that we felt that we did not have enough food—after the second world war—the policy was that good agricultural land should not be built on or used for forestry. Perhaps we need to go back to that presumption. Over the past 20 years, good agricultural land has been assigned for housing because food production no longer appeared to be vital. Perhaps that presumption in favour of food production will come back into play. That follows on from Des McNulty's point.
The issue is a bit more complex than food production. As has been alluded to, the issue is what kind of food we should produce. For example, what mechanisms make people produce beef instead of frozen veg? We know that people are driven to that type of production by the market and by the subsidies that are available. In Scotland, we have tended to concentrate on niche—that is, more profitable—sectors such as beef production. However, in attempting to address the global food crisis, one would not necessarily go for the most profitable products such as beef, which takes a long time to produce. One would go for whatever put calories in people's bellies, basically.
The question is whether we have reached the stage at which there should be an overriding priority for land use that everything else should follow.
We have talked about the part that technology can play in increasing production and how science and research can improve food quality, but we have not addressed the prior question—prior even to the issue of land use—of what Scotland's role should be. As Professor Thomas said, Scotland is clearly not the world's bread basket, given that it comprises mainly less favoured area. Does that mean that our national food policy should be to fill European and worldwide niche markets for high-quality products, for which the regulatory burdens are perhaps a benefit? Alternatively, as Alasdair Morgan suggested, should we think about having more volume and less quality to try to meet some of those world targets?
That is a no-brainer. Scotland has to be at the top of the quality market because we cannot compete in commodity markets, by and large.
That has implications for land use.
That is right. Quality foodstuffs should be our niche.
However, food security is also an issue in an uncertain global market, in which someone else could turn off the supply on which we have been reliant. The issue of food security cannot be ignored.
That is also true.
John Scott will move us on to the impact of the climate change legislation.
This is a topical issue. It is argued that cattle produce too much methane so we should eat less beef. Obviously—I declare an interest as a beef and sheep farmer—I would not want that, but I want to hear people's views about what impact global warming should have on food production. Where should the balance be struck?
We want to consider those issues in the context of the carbon emissions reduction targets that the UK and Scotland are signing up to. Following on in the spirit of James Withers's earlier comments, what are people's views on how those targets will impact on cattle farming, biofuels and food production?
I, too, declare an interest as a beef farmer. That said, I acknowledge that methane is a gas that is at the top of the agenda. However, the situation is much more complex. We should be looking to optimise rather than maximise cattle numbers. The knee-jerk reaction of calling for a decimation of cattle numbers would be a nonsense.
So you are saying that we should look more towards the fertiliser side of things than to the capacity of a cow to produce methane.
It would be a nonsense to call for a decimation of cattle numbers. That said, methane must be looked at in the mix; we must not shy away from addressing the issue.
I have no idea about the relative flatulence of my cows. The issue is important. We need to do quite a lot of research into the definitions of the terms that we use when talking about climate change and global warming. We need to define what we mean when we say "carbon footprint" or "food miles". We need to put such terminology into everyday language. Different groups bandy about terms for different reasons—it seems almost to be done ad hoc. However, food miles, for example, are not necessarily a bad thing.
Has the NFUS considered the impact of the proposed climate change bill on agriculture?
As Carey Coombs pointed out, we could effect an 80 per cent reduction in livestock emissions simply by getting rid our cattle. However, we probably do not want the knock-on impacts of doing that. I return to the issue of measuring food production impact.
So the debate thus far has been only on the negative outcomes and not on some of the positives.
Earlier, we discussed the issue of research and development. In meeting climate change targets, we should consider R and D. There are ways in which we can reduce methane emissions, for example by housing livestock and giving them foodstuffs that reduce emissions. However, the wider public might pose questions about that, and public perceptions of quality might be affected. Quality and the way in which we deal with our livestock have to be taken into account.
The 80 per cent target is hugely challenging for every sector, including agriculture. The good news for agriculture is that many of the things that we would do in order to reach or approach the target are also financially beneficial. The economics and the doing of the job often go together. I will give a simple example to do with methane. Any process that speeds up or intensifies the production of livestock or milk, making it more efficient, also reduces the amount of methane that is produced per unit of food produced. The equation is very simple. The things that are more efficient economically are also more efficient in terms of reducing the production of methane. That is the plus in the equation.
What about biofuel production and its impact?
I do not think that vast swathes of Scotland will be growing crops for fuel rather than food. The biofuel debate has become polarised. Last year, biofuels were saving the world; this year, they are the end of the world.
We have only eight minutes left. We will have another debate this afternoon with another panel of witnesses, some of whom will be interested in global issues, but are there any significant issues that we have not discussed this morning?
I would just like to point out that regulation can be different from bureaucracy. Regulation is not necessarily a bad thing, but bureaucracy can be a pain in the arse.
Did the official reporters get that? [Laughter.]
Another point relates to food sovereignty—mentioned by another speaker—which concerns where power, capital and influence lie in the food system. It would be worth while having a debate on that in the Scottish context, taking supermarkets, multinationals, food democracy and food justice into account. It is a big subject.
I could not agree more with what Carey Coombs said about regulation. We have to look into that.
This debate is broad, and we have to keep track of the fact that it involves the whole of Scottish food production and not just terrestrial food production. We must also remember that the food debate is part of the health debate.
We have been talking a lot about land use strategy, which must have been frustrating for you, but a marine bill is coming up. Would you say that the marine bill has the potential to be as important for food production as any land use strategy?
Yes, but the important thing is to tie them together. Government must be able to bring together the health debate, the marine debate, the terrestrial debate and the economic debate, and then try to come up with a way of satisfying the whole lot.
It is important to educate the general public about where food comes from and the benefits of local food and so on.
I was going to mention education, but I will not do so now. Two aspects that might seem small compared with the big structural things that we have talked about but which could send an important message are public procurement and labelling. Buildings such as this one should be standard bearers for public procurement of local food, but they are not, so we need to address that. For a variety of reasons, the saltire is appearing on many things at the moment, not least in supermarket aisles, but it means nothing as far as food provenance goes. We need to consider how we can develop our brand and produce to the best possible standards. If we lose control of the brand at retail level, it is gone. Unless the saltire-type labelling means something for the food, we will lose a lot of our good work.
I would emphasise the point that has just been made. The saltire as a brand has been very important in terms of Scotch quality beef, for example. The other issue that was raised, which Michael Gibson just touched on, is marine development. We have tremendous potential in Scotland for further development of aquaculture in conventional fin fish farming and in shellfish and so on. The marine bill and everything associated with it is crucial. At the moment, the framework of regulation that we have in place is, in effect, driving the industry elsewhere. It is genuinely a barrier, compared with the situation in many of our competitor countries. We must have regulation, but it has to be fit for purpose.
A consultation on the marine bill is on-going. The bill will almost certainly come to the committee at some point. I am glad that we touched on procurement, because I am happy to tell you that all the berries that we have been eating this morning are Scottish grown, as is the lunch that is now available outside for those who want to stay to eat. We cracked the whip and ensured that Sodexho provided us with food that is locally sourced. I hope that you enjoy it. I thank all the witnesses for coming. We have had a really good time. We cannot cover every issue in one go but, from our point of view, the morning has been a fantastic exploratory session. I thank all the people from the Scottish Parliament information centre who produced the papers and the various staff who have had to do the work. They will continue to be with us this afternoon.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
Previous
Flood Management LegislationNext
Interests