New legislation and changes to farm payments

I write this as the combine is going in my neighbour’s fields, taking advantage of a dry (and brief) weather window to get the spring barley harvested. It has been a difficult growing season this year, with a very wet and cold Spring followed by what could at best be described as an ‘unpredictable’ summer.

Likewise in politics, instead of changing seasons, we have a change of government in Westminster and a policy reset by the Scottish Government at Holyrood.

Attention has now turned to the government’s new legislative programme for the year ahead. John Swinney delivered his first Programme for Government as First Minister in early September, setting out in a more detail what we can expect from his ‘new’ administration.

Titled 'Serving Scotland', the document built upon four key themes that the SNP leader when he took the reins set out in May: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency and ensuring high quality and sustainable public services.

Natural Environment Bill

We were pleased to see the commitment to introduce a Natural Environment Bill included in the package. This was by no means guaranteed and it is worth recognising the impact of the campaign led by Scottish Environment LINK, Scotland Loves Nature.

This Bill will include legally binding targets for nature restoration, which already exist in England and Wales through the UK Environment Act.

In our response to an earlier consultation on the Biodiversity Strategy and nature targets, we highlighted evidence that agroecological and organic farming can lead to improved environmental outcomes, including species richness across a range of habitats. We look forward to seeing the detail of the legislation that is brought forward.

Climate targets

Beyond the Natural Environment Bill, there was also an expected commitment to a Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Target) Bill to reset the government’s approach to reaching net zero after former First Minister Humza Yousaf announced in April that the 2030 target to cut emissions by 75% would be scrapped.

Scotland will instead adopt a similar approach to England, on the advice of the UK Climate Change Committee, to move to five-year carbon ‘budgets’ to measure progress towards the overarching goal.

But when it came to food and farming, the Programme for Government was noticeably light on detail. There was an expected nod to the National Good Food Nation Plan, which has been delayed but should now be finalised by the end of the parliamentary year, but very little on agriculture.

Changes to basic payments

The document re-iterated the position set out previously as part of the Route Map for agricultural reform, that farmers and crofters would be supported to reduce emissions and deliver greater biodiversity outcomes, ‘through greater uptake of key baselining activities such as carbon and biodiversity audits and soil analysis’.

These three actions form part of the Whole Farm Plan requirement that is being phased in as a condition on the basic payment.

From May next year, all farming and crofting businesses will have to comply with two of a total of five actions listed. In addition to the biodiversity audit, carbon audit and soil analysis, the other two are an animal health and welfare declaration and an Integrated Pest Management Plan. Eventually, all five will be compulsory, but from 2025, you only need to be able to provide evidence at the time of any RPID inspection that you have carried out two of the five.

We remain in conversation with Scottish Government civil servants about how these new requirements relate to organic producers, who already complete livestock management and crop management plans as part of the certification process, and we hope to have more to update on that front soon.

Data and benchmarking

But overall, we recognise and support the value of baselining information at a farm level, and then using that data to inform changes to practice where needed to help meet the government’s ambitions around emissions reduction and nature restoration.

We have already set out our thinking on this in a UK-wide policy report, Planning for Change – the role of Whole Farm Plans in the agricultural transition, that included the Scottish case study of Woodend Farm in Berwickshire.

We conclude that whole farm planning can deliver environmental and economic co-benefits. However, simply having a plan may not, in and of itself, be enough. The data collection and assessment process must be followed up by actions geared towards meeting clearly stated sustainability objectives.

Again, organic producers have something of a head start here, as the ‘whole farm’ or whole systems approach is very much embedded in organic certification.

The importance of accurate data and benchmarking is clear. Last week, Soil Association Exchange published a new report, From Data to Decisions, including detailed insights from the first cohort of 658 farms surveyed between summer 2022 and summer 2024.

Measuring outcomes across six areas – soil health, carbon, biodiversity, animal welfare, water and people and society – SA Exchange provides a valuable resource for assessing and understanding the impact of various nature-friendly actions on farms. As more farmers access this information about their own business, they will also need to be supported by government policy – as well as potential private funding streams – to deliver on government objectives for sustainable farming.