Chamber and committees

That answer is brilliant, because my next question is about whether there is a risk of impacting the availability of services for people who would wish to access treatment that does not require a formal diagnosis in different settings away from the medical setting. Is that risk a worry to you? I see nodding heads.

I want to explore the impact of the label “addicted”, which is a contested term—some people like it but others do not. I am wondering about the interaction with the Equality Act 2010, because addiction is not a protected characteristic under that act when it comes to things such as employment law. Does anybody have a comment on that?

Thank you for that. My final question is about the fact that, under the bill, a treatment determination should be made “in person”. Would that, in itself, cause any problems? As we know, treatment is, for example, delivered by teleconference in some remote and more rural areas. I do not know whether anybody has a comment to make on that.

Do you think that that reflects the human rights-based model of practice that we are seeking to ensure that we have, so that people can realise their rights and the duty bearers are taken to task, with an independent advocate who is available?

Yes, it is a brief one about the timescales for treatment that Emma Harper has been exploring. I wonder whether we need more detail in the bill SFabout when the clock actually starts and what the starting of that clock actually encompasses. If somebody is seeking access to residential rehab, there is usually quite a lengthy pre-rehab phase, and I wonder whether there is enough detail in the bill to encompass that.

Those contributions have been really helpful in setting a marker for us to think about the issues. We do not think about food security in such terms, so that is pretty helpful.

I am not sure, convener. I think that Tim Eagle is next.

Dr Vera Eory mentioned soil passports. That would be a good way of thinking about how we baseline and understand what soil health in an agricultural business looks like. I absolutely get that there is a set of principles for regenerative agriculture and that it will be, and look, different in each place. Nonetheless, how do we actually empower farmers? David McKay talked about farmers being able to look at their phone and see all the data on soil health on their farm and what is working well. Might a soil passport fit in with that kind of thinking?

Good afternoon. I want to spend a wee bit of time speaking about regenerative farming. We have danced around that this morning, although a lot of your answers have alluded to it. One of the very first speeches that I made when I came to this place was on the subject. It is new to a lot of people, but I learned about it way back in the early 1990s from taking environmental science courses in Canada. We were starting to think about dust bowls, compacted soils and the very real threats at that time.

How do we make the concept of regenerative farming more accessible to our farmers in Scotland and enable them to understand it? Knowledge exchange is important. David McKay talked about that, and I have been out on a farm in my area with the Soil Association to see it in practice. As I come from Ayrshire, you will not be surprised to know that my grandfather was a dairy farmer and I have friends who are dairy farmers. A lot of really interesting things are happening down there, such as the First Milk co-operative, which has a regenerative farming programme and is rewarding farmers with financial benefit for producing soils that are healthy by, for example, ensuring that there is clover and that the swards are healthy. There are also individual farms such as Mossgiel Organic Farm, which is working towards net zero and is able to gain public procurement contracts because it is recognised that the farm offers a valuable, nutritious product.

How do we make the move to regenerative farming accessible and well understood for those who are at the soil face, so to speak? I do not think that we do that at present. I am also concerned about the tier 4 issue. Is there enough resource around that? How do we address that?

David, will you start, as you have touched on that aspect already?

Is it the case that, if the move towards sustainable and regenerative agriculture is done correctly, it will not necessarily impact on businesses’ long-term profitability if they are supported along the way to get themselves to that position? Even if we consider reducing herd sizes and reducing consumption, if that is done on a whole-farm basis and a societal basis that drives the kind of cultural change that we know that we have needed for the past 30 or 40 years, it should not affect profitability or our food security in Scotland.

The committee has been concerned about how we ensure that we get the right tree in the right place and that we think about trees on farms as something that is beneficial, as opposed to the argument that comes back to saying, “We can’t eat a tree.” That is a part of the whole thing that we need to consider.