Chamber and committees

On stakeholders helping us change course, the calf scheme is probably the prime example. We are enhancing greening through the plan. I think that the initial numbers of farmers practising greening were about 2,500 at one time, and I know that, although I cannot remember the exact number, significantly more are adopting greening now.

The ecological focus area requirements were initially based on 5 per cent of the land, and that is increasing to 7 per cent, so that is changing. We had to fight tooth and nail to get that. There are very specific issues in Orkney in particular. We had to take the Orkney issue, look at what is happening there and then make sure that we had included enough options in the system to allow Orkney farmers to take part in the scheme while not losing productivity.

Those are two examples alone. Other things are going on all the time, so if people were not able to give you precise examples, I am sorry, but that is not on us. We are doing the things on the ground that matter. We had a lot of lobbying about the Orkney situation, so we took actions to ensure that Orkney farmers were able to take part in the system and become part of the EFA without it affecting their productivity to the point where they just dropped out of the system.

The biggest issue that we will have here is if we create systems where farmers just say, “You know what? I’m out.” We would then have no negotiating position with them and no ability to have their behaviours work in the way that we want in order to deliver the objectives. It is very important that we keep farmers on board.

It goes back to the point I was making about James Rebanks earlier. In England, farmers are coming out of the system left, right and centre because it is just not worth their while. We have to avoid that. We have got to get these people, who are our partners in delivering this, on board.

We will look at every available lever that we have in order to get the best value for every pound that we spend. If that means that front loading comes out as the most effective way of doing that, that is what we will do. We will look at various opportunities to make the money that we have go further. As we said earlier, the budget is not as high as we would like it to be, so it has to work a hell of a lot harder. That might mean front loading, it might mean capping—all those things are in the mix. We will hammer those things out. We will have the agreements, disagreements and squabbles within the policy delivery group that will enable us to come back with answers that will then be locked into what the 2030 system will be. However, front loading is definitely on the cards.

We have been clear right from the outset that we want to be world leaders in sustainable regenerative agriculture. That is a very simple statement to make, but, of course, there are a whole load of nuances and caveats within that.

There will be criticisms of the plan—I understand that people will always have differing views—but we have been clear from the outset that we are asking our farming community to help us to deliver world-class sustainable regenerative agriculture in order to improve our biodiversity and make sure that we have resilience in our food systems and thriving rural communities. We want people to come with us on that journey.

As someone who has been shepherding and farming for more than 30 years, I know that, in reality, people in the sector often do not pay any attention to the stuff that they hear coming out from Government. What they are doing is farming: tending their sheep, growing their crops and doing the things that they do on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, we have to make sure that our farming community knows what we are doing and why we are doing it, so that they can buy into it. The purpose of our approach is to ensure that we take that journey together.

Some of the criticisms that I have heard—I watched two of your evidence sessions and I read the Official Report of the third session—are absolutely ludicrous. A lot of the people who are making those criticisms were sitting in the rooms while we had those discussions. During the two years in which I sat on the agriculture reform implementation oversight board, which was in existence for five years, we often went round in circles because we thought we had agreement on certain things and then we were taken back to square 1 again.

The route map that we set out right at the start is the vision. The vision is to make sure that we have sustainable agriculture, are producing food in this country, are improving our biodiversity, are sequestering emissions, are preventing emissions from happening in the first place, and are putting rural communities at the front and centre of all of that so that they can continue to thrive.

I do not think that it is a sub-outcome. It is intrinsic to everything that agriculture in Scotland is about. Whether we are talking about sheep, cattle, pigs or poultry, everything comes back to animal health and welfare. The whole farm plan requires farmers to have an animal welfare programme. We have probably the highest animal welfare standards in the world, to use the Carlsberg way of saying that. The issue is intrinsic to what the Scottish industry is not only required to do but proud to do, because it gives us a global standing as being one of the best countries in the world for livestock production. I do not accept that it is a secondary thing. It is front and centre of what we are in relation to agriculture in Scotland.

As an example, we introduced a 410-day calf scheme. I do not know whether we have written to the committee about that, but we will provide it with a copy of our analysis report, which shows that the policy has reduced emissions in year 1. We might go further, but there will be ongoing benefits from the policy. We are looking at the genetics of the cattle that produce less methane, how we feed cattle to reduce methane, and how we can reduce emissions from agricultural machinery.

The cabinet secretary has described the overall picture, but every portfolio across Government is looking at individual areas to consider what can be done. We are doing a number of things in the agriculture sector. For example, peatland restoration will help us to sequester carbon, and we will still be able to allow farmers to graze the land, because we know that there are systems in place. The name has gone right out of my head, but some farmers are grazing peatland that has been restored.

At this stage, I do not think that it is possible to say, “This and this makes that, which will add up,” because those are all projections and models, and the work is ongoing. We can see how each scheme functions and we will continue to do that.

I will add one point to that, convener. The cabinet secretary talked about the unlikelihood of our getting an increased budget from the UK, and we must bear in mind that the UK Government has already Barnettised the support for agriculture. Some 17.4 per cent of the UK budget for agriculture used to be delivered to Scotland, but that has now been Barnettised to roughly 7.9 per cent.

I also point out that we do not control fuel costs, which is a problem for farming. The cost of diesel is a massive problem—in fact, I think that NFU Scotland has just written to the UK Government to ask it to start taking action on that now, because some farmers are clearly in trouble. We do not control factors relating to fertiliser, although our rural support plan and our programme for reform will look at using much less fertiliser as we go through the years, but that is not an immediate fix.

I take on board the point that you made, and, as the cabinet secretary said, we have talked about that issue extensively. We know the pressures that people are under. There are things that we cannot control and things that we can, and we are doing everything that we can to help.

09:00

I will be very brief.

The views about tier 4 are right. We need to work out how to use funding there, because when a farmer switches on, wants to know more about this and wonders who they should speak to and where they should go, that is where tier 4 will come into its own. We need to ensure that funding is available so that farmers go to the right people who can deliver the right advice in the right way. That will mean that farmers can take it on and implement the things that they need to on their farm.

The work that is being done by Johnnie Balfour, Dee Ward, Tom Bowser and all the others is important. We are going to speak to those guys about how they changed their systems, and they can provide examples. There is also the work that Denise Walton is doing. I was at Denise’s not long ago. We need to consider how these people work and engage with them to find out how to change.

When farmers think, “God, I cannot do without fertiliser,” those people can say, “You can, if you do it this way. This is what worked for me. You might have to tweak it a wee bit on your farm, but it worked for me, so maybe you should try it.” Not everything will work first time. People will make mistakes and things will not happen in the way that farmers anticipated, but every farmer knows that that is what working with nature is like.

There is value in tier 4 and the whole farm plan. They can get us from where we are to where we want to be.

I accept the premise of that question, but there is definitely an element of people thinking, “We didn’t get what we wanted, so this is not working.” As strange as this might sound, I am disappointed that Finlay Carson is not here. He and I had a conversation in which I asked, “What are your genuine concerns? What do you think we haven’t done in the rural support plan?” He said something along the lines of, “We were told that the rural support plan would give us chapter and verse: this will happen by then; this will happen by then; and this will happen by then.” We probably did not have a very eloquent conversation, but it was something along those lines. The rural support plan was never designed to provide that. It is supposed to give us the next steps.

The real work is being done in the advanced policy development group, which I set up in the previous parliamentary session to take account of all the learning and some of the frustrations. There was a lot of frustration within ARIOB, because, at times, it felt as though we were going round in circles—we thought that we had agreement and that we were moving on, but then we were back at square 1. That happened for a number of reasons, including who was in the room and what the objectives of individuals or groups were. I accept that that is what happened.

The purpose of the policy development group is to clearly set out the vision, the things that we have to focus on and the assessments that are needed of where those things fit into the whole system. We then need to deliver that.

At our meeting on 16 November, the group will look at three things. We will look at how we define smallholders and small farmers. We will look at activity—let me put on the record right now that, if you are not an active farmer in 2030, you will find that your support will be very limited indeed, as activity will allow farmers to unlock payments for their businesses. We will look at regions, activity and small farmers. When we have bottomed out those issues, officials will say to me, “This is what we’ve taken from that. These are your options.” As soon as I have made a decision, the committee will know about it. The committee will know about it because the people on the ground who will need to deliver what has been decided will know about it, in advance of the change in 2030.

Last year, when I came to the committee to discuss the Scottish statutory instrument on the less favoured area support scheme payments up to 2030, there was a lot of dispute about whether we were going quickly enough. We are doing things in the way that I have described so that people have a full understanding of what is coming in plenty of time before its implementation.

I take on board the deputy convener’s point. The policy development group will now do the really hard work at pace to ensure that the committee, the Parliament and, most importantly, stakeholders know exactly what will be coming in 2030.

I do not think that we should ever set in stone how much money will be allocated to each tier. We have to have the ability to monitor what is happening and see where changes are being made, so that we can put more money into different areas and take money out of other areas if we need to. That is the purpose of the tiered system, because it gives us the ability to put money in and change people’s behaviours.