RAI committee session on climate change

The Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Islands (RAI) Committee recently held evidence sessions taking stock of progress on agricultural policy reform and preparing for the update to the government’s Climate Change Plan.

Soil Association Scotland was invited to join an expert panel last week that also included climate specialists from Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and Edinburgh University as well as the chair of the Farming for 1.5C inquiry.

The session covered a wide range of topics, from the current trajectory of Scotland’s agriculture sector towards the economy-wide ‘net zero’ ambition for 2045, the best way to approach climate adaptation, and recommendations from the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) on reducing meat and dairy consumption as well as livestock numbers.

The power of farm-level data

One of the key points we tried to get across to MSPs on the committee was the importance of farm level baselining and monitoring.

Services like Soil Association Exchange are already empowering farmers and crofters to make the transition to more sustainable farming by providing detailed data and advice on a range of metrics including soils, carbon, water and biodiversity.

This helps demonstrate what they are already doing to benefit climate and nature – and there is lots of good practice out there – as well as measuring changes over time towards public policy targets and the demands of the supply chain.

Crucially, this is also the path towards financial rewards, whether from public or private payments, so that farms can remain profitable in what are increasingly difficult times.

We flagged our recent visit with Agriculture Minister Jim Fairlie to Kilbucho Farm near Biggar, which has just gone through the Exchange process. The Minister himself also referred to the visit during his evidence session earlier in the morning.

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The Scottish Government has, in our view, rightly adopted a ‘whole farm’ approach, and is asking all recipients of BPS to carry out soil analysis, carbon audits, biodiversity audits, integrated pest management plans and animal health and welfare plans.

We agree with this approach, but there are two things that need to happen next. One is to clearly communicate the benefits of this approach, and how to build upon it to improve the environmental sustainability and profitability of the farm. The Scottish Government has said it will add Nutrient Management Plans in 2028, which is the next logical step, but it must go further than that.

The value of whole farm planning is to build resilience to economic and climate shocks while delivering public goods in line with government policy such as reducing GHG emissions, increasing carbon sequestration and enhancing biodiversity.

The committee heard very clearly from industry representatives the previous week about the constraints of the current IT system, and the problems that is causing. There was a particular point made by the NFUS representative about tailoring future support to suit the IT system, which is where we currently are, with only minor tweaks to existing schemes such as BPS and Greening.

As discussed in last month’s policy blog, until such time that is resolved, it is hard to see how we make significant progress.

The role of soils and trees in climate adaptation

Another topic that was discussed at length by the committee was climate adaptation and increasing frequency of extreme weather events impacting Scotland’s farmers and crofters.

While recognising there are no silver bullet solutions, we talked about the need to build more resilient farm businesses, which took the discussion back to whole farm planning.

A big part of that is focused on soil management, and building healthier soils is vital to climate adaptation – particularly dealing with drought and flooding.

There are a range of things that farmers can do to help their soils, for example, reducing compaction, cover cropping, integrating trees, mixing shallow and deep rooting plants, applying organic manures and composts.

The MSPs on the committee were particularly interested in agroforestry and understanding the limitations of current policy support and barriers to uptake.

We have been working with Woodland Trust Scotland for several years now, looking at how public policy can better support farmers and crofters to integrate trees into their farming systems.

We flagged the recent report which was launched at the Royal Highland Show last June, outlining options for low-density, small scale tree planting. The calculations showed that an investment of £10m would double the area of land under agroforestry.

Diets and livestock numbers

Perhaps the most contentious discussion on the day was around the recommendations from the CCC on diets and livestock numbers.

We made the point that all parties in the Scottish Parliament had signed up to the 2045 emissions reduction target, and that all the modelling so far suggests this will mean that diets have to change.

The CCC has pointed to existing long-term trends, which show a gradual reduction in meat consumption in the UK. In recent years, meat purchases have fallen more steeply, with a 10% fall in overall consumption between 2020 and 2022.

We highlighted to the RAI committee that we already have dietary guidance in place, the Eatwell Guide, which encourages a balanced diet of meat, dairy, fish, fruit, vegetables and pulses. Food Standards Scotland and Edinburgh University were commissioned by the Scottish Government in response to the CCC recommendation to reduce meat and dairy consumption by 20% by 2030. The results found that if high consumers of meat reduced their intake to the levels set out in current guidance (70g of red and processed red meat a day) there would be a 16% reduction in red meat consumption, which would go a considerable way towards the 2030 target.

Soil Association has consistently argued that any cuts in meat eating and rearing must primarily apply to the intensive livestock sector, which often relies on imported soy and grain, which is in turn often associated with mass deforestation and the use of toxic pesticides which are banned for domestic use.

We made the point to the committee that, given our climate and land type, ruminant livestock in well managed grazing systems are essential for a sustainable food system in Scotland, and in many cases, will help to meet corresponding policy objectives around nature restoration and high-quality food production.

We look forward to continuing to engage with the committee as it considers the next Climate Change Plan and future agricultural policy.