l support plan some clear targets for how much progress we're going to make on things and how we're going to measure that Sarah mentioned the COP28 the FAO just brought a roadmap for food systems in a 1.5 world it's got you know these are global big numbers but really clear targets about where we want to be by when to deliver that. Roda's got a query and something every said Pete. Just a tiny supplementary to that you're talking about the sunset clause and when the support plan has to come in place should we be using this legislation to remove the sunset clause to give more time to make sure we don't end up with unintended consequences? I think that's above my pay grade I'm not a lawyer but I think that is something in the bill that allows an extension of the sunset. The main thing was just not to delay the change because we're waiting for the rural support plan. I think everybody would agree on that. 25 would probably be a compromise on both sides. I think it's really important to remember particularly when we're talking about livestock production systems that they are long term and if you're looking for producers to make differences it makes changes to how they produce food you know farmers might only buy a bull once every five years so you have one chance particularly potentially within that timeline of the rural support plan to influence their decision making and I think you know we cannot lose sight of you know when we're talking about farming and crofting businesses they are biological businesses impacted by things like the weather and it's not a closed loop system where you can just you know pull a lever and the production system changes so having as long a running time as possible to give businesses the chance to prepare is good and I also think it's important that we consult I think consultation is good because it helps to explain the why what it is we're trying to do to bring people with us and then also allow the wider industry ecosystem roundabout farmers to also place themselves in the best way to help support that transition and I think that is why it's worthwhile putting time into consultation explaining the why but also making sure we understand how businesses will react to different parts of that rural support plan because there's no point in putting something in there if a business can't actually make a change within that time frame. Thank you for all that clarity around the multi-year funding because that was one of the questions I had around you know how's that possible if the UK government isn't coming forward with that I wondered how you were getting on I think you've been in conversation with them and then the other simple question I have is that I think Pete in the nourish evidence written evidence you were calling for longer than five years support plans so I'd be interested to maybe start with Johnny and come back to you. Of course on that funding question we're dealing with a current UK government but that current UK government in all likelihood is only got 12 more months to go at max and therefore you're looking at who will or might form the next UK government so our responsibility on behalf of our members is to lobby all the political parties in Westminster to get commitments so that arguably you would have cross party support on such a commitment but certainly talking to all the leading parties in Westminster to seek as I say a multi-annual ring fence budget for the whole of the UK and increased in order that you know Scotland's share is safeguarded if you like for at least the 25 through the 29 period and that then gives Scottish government a foundation to build on that as the core budget to then ensure that there are sufficient resources in there and I've said many many times we could come up with the best ad bill in the world the best schemes and measures and all the rest of it but it's a house of cards if we have no funding behind it so that you know that that's always the elephant in the room in my opinion is if the resources aren't there then we are really going to be struggling because farming and crofting and the entire agrifood supply chain is being asked to do more but with less and I would agree sorry just to echo what Pete said I think we've really got to get a bit more ambitious and a bit more creative about how do we leave her in private sector finance as well we can't simply keep relying on it on a public place which is already under significant pressure Pete do you want to address the question on the longer plan term I think what I'd suggested in our evidence was that we have a 20-year horizon for this that we look at for you know so that we're setting out from the beginning a long-term ambition that this first five-year plan fits into laser ground for contributes to you know so that we've got our eyes on the longer term prize because as Sarah says into 20 years in the life of farming business actually isn't very long but it's it's the only 20 years we've got to get to net zero and restore nature and also to get us on a more prosperous trajectory so so just having a later that 20-year timescale but I think the SIUC evidence was interesting because it says and I don't know if we can do this try not to align them too closely with the parliamentary terms so that it doesn't become you don't get a sort of hold-up when you're in election year that's all. Can I just ask if johnny can build on some of his earlier points about that link between production and support appreciate it's a link not a tie but I wonder we've heard earlier on from Leslie about the regime that is likely to exist for safer English hill farmers so there is a distinction being made or likely to be made in policy in the two countries so I suppose my question earlier on is how do we ensure that we're able to act in a way that meets Scottish needs on this and we're not pressurising to doing something that breaks that link completely in the way that may be happening I think that's a really really important issue to raise in the context of how the bill and the powers within the bill will be used going forward and as we're all aware Scottish Government's intention is to produce a four tiered system with tier one and tier two being the sort of where the heavy lifting is done the difference between what we're intending to do here in Scotland and what's happening in England is that we will retain a component of financial stability in tier one which is very much equivalent to what we have under our basic payment scheme and our things like a less third area support scheme that is absolutely critical if you look at the profile of Scottish agriculture to have that financial underpinning that financial stability component is vital for so many farming and crofting interests in Scotland yes there are businesses and enterprises that can stand on their own two feet there's no doubt about that but you know traditionally they've been relatively unsupported sectors like pigs and poultry soft fruit the vegetable sector and so on but once we move into a sort of livestock permanent grass upland areas the reliance on an element of direct support is critical however we are very very clear that simply occupying an area of land to receive a support payment to do the same old things that we've always done is not going to cut it when we need to tackle new challenges so therefore the difference with the system we want to move to and where we are today is to ensure that that tier two element of management options the enhanced payment is not about occupying land but is about how you manage the land and how you manage your agricultural enterprises and you're doing that in an efficient way in an effective way that delivers on the environmental needs as well as the bottom line of the agricultural business and that's the big departure so the difference between ourselves and england if we can draw that very direct comparable is that their direct payments are being phased out completely and will do so by 2027 and for upland producers and you know certainly speaking to colleagues at NFU in england upland producers in the north of england down in the southwest they are now on something of a a cliff edge to use that phrase which is being used a lot because they don't have the options in terms of picking up the environmental measures and so on to make that stack up as a viable business and it goes back to a number of points that have been made unless you have that underpinning financial viability you don't have the people on the ground to carry out the types of land management and high quality food production that we actually want to achieve simultaneously so that's the fundamental difference between what's happening in scotland and england and as our president martin kennedy often says he'd far rather be on this side of the border right now with that trajectory rather than being on the other side of the border facing actually some really stark choices it's one thing if you're a big agri business in the southeast of england and your market focused you can just say well i actually don't need that and i'll just farm and i'll farm hard so i think we'll see some previous consequences in certain parts of england it'll actually be counterproductive in terms of environmental delivery whereas actually if you're a hill farmer on the island mole you absolutely need that underpinning so to ensure that you can continue to deliver the environmental and social contribution that you make to those areas and that goes back to Kate's point about underpinning rural communities thank you convener we sort of jump there is there any any members got any further questions on rural support plans jim the johnny you mentioned earlier on that you would look to see an increase in funding largely because of inflation so let me ask the question what justifies farming getting an increase in funding when every other sector across the country is looking for an increase in funding largely because of inflation where's the justification for farming to get it i didn't say largely because of inflation i said it's been eroded in real terms because of inflation repressive my apologies but the the real reason why we need an uplift in funding is that farming and crofting is going to is being asked to do more and that comes at a cost in terms of delivery the outcomes that we we all want to see but they don't come without cost and as i said earlier you can't deliver those public goods whether it's food security climate biodiversity at private expense otherwise that that is the quickest way to run down the viability of agricultural businesses currently scotland gets about 17 percent of the agricultural budget i think i'm correct in saying that if there is a have you got any indication of whether that level of funding will continue to come to scotland at that percentage rate or is there a need for that to increase as well well that's why we're on record is asking for at least the UK government future UK government to provide a further one billion at least for the whole of the UK which means it was going from about 3.5 up to about 4.5 billion of which currently scotland gets 17 percent now i'm also very clear that actually there's a strong justification for scotland actually getting a bigger share of that budget and if you go back to the view review of 2020 a lord views recommendations not only was it that scotland should get this additional 25.7 million per year during the current spending review period but actually he recommended to the UK government that there was a review of how those funding allocations were made across the UK those funding allocations were based on historic production levels not on what we are doing in terms of delivering on climate biodiversity and other things and if you look at scotland's land mass and not just its land mass but actually its it's comparative strength in things like peatland restoration woodland creation biodiversity there is a very very strong case that scotland should receive more than 17 percent i couldn't put a figure on it but i would say at least quarter of the budget 25 percent should become in scotland michael gove gave a commitment some time ago that under no circumstances would agriculture be barnatised on the basis of what you've just said have you got any concerns about that happening in the future if it wasn't ring fenced on a multi annual basis and just came part of the block grant i'm pretty sure it would become barnatised and would fall from 17 percent of what our commitment would be to nine percent or whatever it might be and that would be effectively halving what we we get so that is an additional reason why we needed to be separated out and if and it's quite clear that the UK government can give ring fence multi annual commitments to certain sectors there's there's a component of funding comes from UK government to the fisheries sector for example or indeed to different parts of UK government in terms of different departments so that's the reason why if it's ring fenced and therefore those funds can only be used for specific purposes it does not have to be barnatised it's not part of the block grant now it's not to stop scottish government utilising what comes in the block grant to add to that but essentially it's it's an effective separate budget and retaining that in order to maintain that at least 17 percent share and as i say there's an argument for it going higher is really really important for all of us if we're going to achieve the outcomes of what okay thank you john kerb one of the civil servants said that there was a semantic around the multi annual multi annual year funding which was promised by the UK government up until the end of the parliament would you say that that was multi annual funding the commitment that George Eustis made in November 2020 which was a basically a reiteration of the Tory party manifesto commitment of 2019 said multi annual funding and when Rishi Sunak was chancellor of the Exchequer in the budget of 2021 his spending review then made it multi annual it was a three year to the end of the parliament to 2025 effectively so in my opinion it is multi annual and that's what we want to see repeated from the next UK government okay and there is one area that's just missed on the rural support plan but if you might want to just stick into this topic so up to now we've had multi year funding ring fenced but again i mean ask you ring fenced and when's it ring fenced when it's not ring fenced you talked about unallocated money but there was 61 million taken out of thought most people regarded as ring fenced money because the bureau of you as you said identified that scotland didn't get enough money but the scottish government took the decision to remove that from the agriculture budget so was that part of the 17 percent that you mentioned or was it over and above it was over and above so why do you think let's be very very clear so it's scottish government received 620 million pounds per year from the UK government as a ring fenced contribution as part of the UK delivery of agriculture excuse me and rural development spending we've had it on record from the UK treasury and from the scotland office that that's 620 million pounds has been spent the piece that has been the uncommitted piece is additional funding that scottish government provided to that rural economy budget and therefore it's not being taken out of the ring fenced element so what happened to the but money the 61 million additional that is part of the ring fence it's in it was part of the 620 million yes because it's it was 595 million of direct support another support the but is the extra 25 million taken the 620 million so so they i'm just to get this clear on my head so the ring fenced money was all spent in agriculture yes but the scottish government still removed how much from the 33 million in september 22 and 28 million in november 23 in about 61 million pounds despite the inflationary pressures i'm just stating fact you're obviously convenient trying to draw me into something of a political discussion well i'm not because you're asking for guarantees on ring fenced funding and funding it was allocated to agriculture to be spent on agriculture and that that has not happened in the last couple of years yes the ring fence has been spent what hasn't been spent is the additional funding that scottish government put in and where clearly on record is calling scottish government to return that we've written we've had meetings with the deputy first minister and we've written last week to the first minister seeking that that be urgently addressed that the money is fully returned and is it allocated to appropriate use in that budget okay so i'm when it comes to the five year funding plan that we'd like to see go alongside the the future rural plan and the moment the expectation is that future farming funding should still be UK money and not by the block grant is that correct so it would be UK government for agriculture however the bill would suggest that that money could then be diverted to wherever as a saving or whatever so it's not actually ring fenced within the legislation that's in front of us is that right if it comes through the existing process it would be ring fenced and has to be spent on the elements to or the purposes to which it is intended that's exactly what UK treasury were looking for okay and whilst ring fencing is not a legal binding term it is a commitment in that sense that any devolved administration who receives ring fenced funding from Westminster cannot then shovel that sideways into other parts of spending okay thanks Kate Forbes is that sorry can i just ask is there not a danger there going on the premise of the points that you've just made that if the UK government don't ring fenced it they could then banlethite it they could simply allocate it through the block grant and therefore it is not ring fenced okay thank you that's why our sorry that's why our ask of whoever forms the next UK government is to effectively cut and paste the settlement that we've just had over the last five years but with additional funding in it so it is ring fenced Scotland gets 17% and actually the argument is we should get more because that was a recommendation of the B review okay Kate we just very briefly on that point and the distinction between ring fencing and non-ring fencing and my i would assume that the agricultural sector would is more interested in what is ring fenced over the next five years because that provides a basic minimum guarantee notwithstanding that future Governments may wish to top that up in terms of devolved Governments as additional commitments become available but the real focus would be on ring fencing and clearly extending that as much as possible i think your assumption is sport and my second point is just for the record my understanding notwithstanding your understandable concerns in terms of budget movements that that budget will be returned in subsequent budgets according to the the cabinet secretary but clearly again the point being that you would prefer ring fenced budgets which ultimately come from the UK government so that five-year plan is more important than anything else yes but clearly we have had it on verbally and in writing that that funding will be returned our continual request of Scottish Government is to say when and what will it be used for and that's that's the issue that still remains outstanding thanks thank you arianne bodges thanks convener we've kind of started to get into this area already which is the we wanted to move on to the section part two in the bill which is the powers to provide support so provisions in this section gives Scottish ministers powers to provide support and additional powers about supports of such as conditions eligibility requirements guidance capping refusing or recovering support and exceptional market conditions so i'd be interested to hear from maybe maybe not pete and johnny for a wee while but get to hear from them too but some other people to start around the level of what you think what your thoughts are on the level of detail in the bill and also your views around powers to cap the agricultural payments and the whole kind of potential for redistribution and also ideas of tapering and we also started to touch in on the tier system and you know what kind of detail we might want in there so and also the levels of power parliamentary scrutiny let's start with all of that and then i've got a special question for professor Jenny McDermott as part of this to say that you want to kick off i just want to kick off by saying that we are fundamentally opposed to the concept of capping that we don't see any evidence from any other support schemes that capping has worked and i think that there are different ways to deliver the outcome in some ways and one of the the best ways that we have seen used operated in in recent years is this concept of front loading and again when we come down to businesses there's quite often a cost of doing business that exists whether you are a large farm or a small farm so this concept of front loading would actually help the small producers you know that we know who are more exposed to market volatility and the cost of doing business and are often in more geographically challenging locations you know in terms of that that more holistic support so i think i just wanted to make sure that that was part of our evidence and i wanted to reiterate that again today around providing support to exceptional market conditions i again i think this is something that should be fundamentally you know a strong part of this element of the bill again reiterating it in a climate crisis in a biodiversity crisis we know that different parts of the globe are being impacted by weather events by you know the ability to produce food including our own and it is important that we have the mechanisms within this bill to be able to support businesses whether it's from disease movement of disease so you know that the big challenge worry at the moment is around african spine fever and you know will it ever reach our shores in the UK and what ability do we have to protect our businesses here and mitigate against that as that as a market challenge so i think it's really important that in this very very uncertain you know geopolitical and you know wider landscape that we have that ability to intervene quite rapidly to the different challenges that may come across our producers to maintain the business viability at the core we're asking a lot of our businesses at the moment you know to change production methods to reduce emissions and to invest in new pieces of technology and i think you know if we're asking businesses to invest in the long term it should be a piece of this this legislation to say that actually should something that we do not foresee right now that we've got your back that's risk mitigation and i think that speaks very clearly to businesses to save you invest we'll make sure that you know should something happen that we're there for you at really basic level johnny i appreciate you don't really want to hear from me anymore but i what it does encourage us around part two of the bill is that there is clearly a lot of scope and a lot of flexibility within those powers the bill creates the powers and i've said time and time before and i'll continue to say it's then about ultimately how those powers are used and that's going to be the key element the important thing though is the flexibility there are powers to provide support on a on say a regional basis there are powers to provide support on on land quality land type basis which is good because that then creates an opportunity for things like a disadvantaged area support where you might want additional support in our what is traditionally less favoured areas and there is powers to support particular enterprises which again you know thinking about where we are today and coupled support within our circular beef sector is important so that would still allow us opportunities to do that in some form albeit we might want to attach more conditions to that support in what we're trying to achieve so the scope of the powers i think is is right because fundamentally we need that flexibility and we need that coverage the big questions are though about how those powers are then used and and that's that obviously when you step away from the primary legislation and the secondary legislation and can i just entirely endorse what sarah's just said about capping um front loading would be a far smarter way to do things and we have a history of front loading uh if you think about the previous iteration of the of the of the coupled support scheme that we have in in the particular beef sector the old beef calf scheme that had a a significantly higher payment rate per calf for the first 10 calves and that that skewed things towards the smaller producer towards particularly in the crofting counties and so on where see clearly the the cost of production per unit if you like the without the the economies of scale it's really important that we actually do that so capping is a very blunt thing but i think there are different ways to do things and certainly the concept which is also referred to in the bill of tapering payments merits some looking at as well i've got seara and leslie and then peat all big apart it was peat sorry peat first sorry so it's the rural support plan as we said what jim said what's the justification for how we're spending these different bits of money and parliament needs to look at that and say why we're spending money here rather than there at the moment if we went if you look the base budget which is in the financial memorandum around 89 percent of the budget is going to go for tier one and tier two measures with only 11 percent for tiers three and four which has to do a lot of the change management heavy lifting advice training support for co-operation you know support for organic support for agroforestry you know capital investment is got a lot is expected tier three and four and at the moment the base budget isn't going to allow much for that so because my understanding of it is sorry through through the convener my apology convener my understanding of it is that tier one and two may well be getting the vast majority of the funding but there's going to be additional condition sorry additional conditionality added into that which will actually pave the way for tier three and four to be able to do its work and if i'm wrong no absolutely and as johnny says you know tier two is going to make a change to how what farmers get paid to do so all i'm saying is that parliament needs to look at it in around how is that budget going to deliver on things so if you look at the moment at how we spend that money we need probably to move more money to supporting supply chains rather than individual farms particularly support the sort of vulnerable areas that sarah has talked about how can this bit of the economy the bit of the royal economy be supported because not just about individual farms it's about supply chain but the question is at the moment there are egregiously large payments going to wealthy businesses which as johnny says could stand on their own two feet you know very large payments going to businesses which are very prosperous and that's not a good use of public money and we need to scrutinise that when the royal support plan comes forward and says are we spending this public money wisely and i think it's important to say whether we call it capping whether we call it tapering whether we call it digressivity the whole point is that giving businesses very large sums of money which they don't need isn't a good use of public money and Ireland which is not the most most unsuccessful livestock producer has introduced very sharp digressivity so that 66 000 euros is as good as it gets if you're an Irish farmer in terms of base payments so and Ireland's managing to run the livestock industry in that way so i think we just have to scrutinise these things really carefully and not just assume that the way we spend the money at the moment is the way we're going to keep spending the money. Leslie. Just very short and brief point i think one of the key concerns that i have is the issue of transition and if i had the time we had the time i would ask you johnny about what you think it will cost to your members to enable that transition to happen whether it by it be buying new equipment it be new organisations it be building new infrastructures for for local networks and so on but what it strikes me in this whole conversation is whatever powers we have we need to be able to support that transition and potentially that yield gap that you get as people move to more regenerative systems so simply that that comes under consideration when you are looking at developing those support plans thank you and i think you had a question for for jenny yeah thanks cuvina yes so um i asked that this question last week as well but i'd be interested here from your perspective when you mentioned the cost of living crisis and people being able to access nutritious food so in terms of support i wondered what your thoughts are with the Scottish Government having powers to subsidise not just the production side but also the sale price of certain foods like fruit and veg to help more people afford healthy sustainable food well i think it should sort of i know we're talking about the agricultural bill here but i do think it has to be all the way through the supply chain if it's going to be affordable and it's going to make a difference in terms of health so subsidising or giving payments to horticulture for example it needs to make sure that that then provides a product that is affordable to people in terms of a cost of living crisis we know that in terms of what people purchase if on a very very low income doesn't tend to be fruit and vegetables it's expensive relative to other foods so it's not that's where you don't have a choice in terms of people talking about food choice but when you're at that level of income there isn't really a choice and so i think yes it needs to be at both ends of the spectrum if you're actually going to sort of draw in health i know this is again agricultural bill but as Karen sort of said can you make sure that you know it is a food systems approach so yeah i think it has to come from both directions and in terms of your work on food systems have you done any work on how the government could subsidise Scottish farmers and subsidise customers or the sale price and ensure that that works for the Scottish farmers because you aren't keeping it local is there any mechanisms in place for that that you're aware of i'm not aware of but other people might be of that um and i think sort of some of the messaging again it's this how the messaging comes out sort of there's a very strong local fresh sort of view on fruit and vegetables for example in terms of fresh it doesn't necessarily mean it's the most nutritious so frozen vegetables can often see can be more nutritious they may be more affordable so um i'm not sure how much link that has been made there but it definitely needs to be sort of a link through the food system through the supply chain to see what comes out the other end and it's got to be sort of beneficial at both ends for the production but also making sure that goes all the way through to something like the consumer term like this point yeah just to draw a few of these bits together really in terms of johnny you know talked about food production being public good nutrition environmental change affordability etc then to come back to Leslie's question about do we know the cost of so the dairy sector i think it'd be fair to say milk kind of fits a lot of these brackets in terms of something we can produce well in scotland it's very nutritious has environmental progress to do there's been estimate that to achieve net zero we're 15 per litre and to put in the context of the current uh i i i i can't guarantee its exact price this week but we're talking roughly 35 per litre that's what what farmers have been getting to a height of the cost of living crisis after Ukraine got 50 per litre so the price that has come back is the amount of money that would be needed to hit net zero how much does it need to be 15 per litre 15 well that yeah an additional 15 so so to come back then about income yeah yeah so basically you know to come back to the point about public good good use taxpayers money to help contain that and that's kind of the qualification of it it doesn't come for free there is a cost associated with delivering these outcomes absolutely um ritchell hamilton i just want to challenge um professor mcdamit on the concept that by supporting um horticulturists that um vegetables could become cheaper because if you look at seasonal vegetables such as kale turnips potatoes cabbage kale they're very affordable right now what is the mechanism through this bill that you believe could be um implemented in order to allow horticulturists to ultimately produce it for free to give to customers because that's what would happen through the lens of the bill through the lens of the bill uh well i guess it's where you've decided to put subsidies i mean one thing i would say on certain produce in terms of local um going down to the consumer end it's also got to look at what is desirable and local may not always be desirable but if you're trying to um say make it more affordable then i guess from a lay perspective then that's where some of the subsidies are going to have to come in if it's not affordable to produce at the moment so how do you determine what is affordable and what is not affordable so for example the things that i just talked about like the cauliflower the kale the cabbage the potatoes the carrots i mean what is what i'm trying to establish i think is is trying to work out through the lens of this bill what you're trying to suggest should be achieved if say a bag of carrots is currently 19 pence i get well it's i mean it is sort of if it can be that and it can be profitable to produce that but not necessarily consumers want to buy all of that there's all sorts of complex issues which Pete can probably go into a bit more around it isn't just making something like that cheap how do you sort of what do you do with it how does it form into sort of meals we don't eat individual foods so how can that a be desirable as a food compared to something else i mean one of the issues are you buy kale or get it at a very low price if you're on a very low income you can't afford to throw that away and perhaps children won't eat it there are other things that are safer to buy so it's got to be a bigger picture i think i'm not answering your question no you absolutely are because does this then mean that through the lens of this bill what you're trying to do is achieve a change of culture to or change of attitude towards food i think it's a change of society in terms of the attitude to food in terms of what people across the whole of the population are eating we've not had a lot of success in changing diets over the last several decades apart from probably making them worse so it is looking at the whole culture of why people are doing it and tying that up with what's being produced thank you thank you we're probably going to enter into the good food nation rather than what this this bill is actually capable of delivering i've got Pete and then got Tim then a question from rhoda yes and just really following on that point i think we can't expect this bill to do everything good nation has to join up with it but i think it is worth saying that the end point we all want to get to is where we support a strong local food economy and more scottish veg are ending up being eaten by scottish people and more scottish high quality food is being eaten by scottish people and i think we already do have some mechanisms where we do that we provide best start foods which potentially could bring a higher scottish content in we do have public procurement and we still seem to wrestling with getting more direct short food chains from scottish farmers on to the public play in schools and hospitals and prisons we're still struggling with that i think but there's some really innovative stuff that's happening that we need to build on in terms of that and some of it's happening in the third sector last night we were down at empty kitchens fool hearts in granton they just about three said two millionth meal made to support people local community and we're discussing what is it people like most about your meals people said the vegetables that's what the feedback they're getting from their customers who they're supporting over a number of weeks when they're going through a difficult time with free freshly cooked meals and similarly we've seen on uist fantastic project there five hundred meals on wheels going out using local uist produce to vulnerable households so there's the beginnings of this work happening i think and we need to join up those those dots and it's worth remembering the original us farm bill back in the 30s was all about supporting consumers to eat farm produce from the states 80 years on 80% of the budget in the farm bill goes to consumers not to producers now there's all sorts problems with SNAP and where it's turned out but it is worth saying that you know the us joined that up a long time ago and we need to be thinking in scotland about how we join this up so we're not just putting money in one end and but not getting the results we want out of the other end. Let's come back to your your terminology convener about the business end of the bill and the topic there i mean the within part three of the bill is the very welcome power to modify the cap legislation around the fruit and veg aid scheme now that whole scheme the whole funding behind that has enabled the continued production of affordable fruit and vegetables and you know the reality of that is i mean there's three po's in scotland who between them produce about seven eight percent of uk vining peas 15 percent of strawberries and 20 percent of broccoli for three million quid a year so affordable food high quality environmental improvements investment in technology for point five percent of the overall agricultural budget so you know there's a mechanism there that ultimately we should be looking not to extend to all sectors but certainly those sectors whether it's not whether the whether supply chain challenge and whether there's a lack of price discovery. Rhoda Grant. Can I just turn to section 10 which is the refusal or recovery of support where it's in the public interest and ask people what they believe that to include and when would funding be refused or recovered? I suppose this comes into the cross compliance ecosystem that we have at the moment where rural payments and services you know effectively audit farmers go out and they'll do a check on what they've claimed versus what they have delivered. There was quite a comprehensive piece of work done under Fergus Ewing in 2017 I think or around that area which looked at basically how we could ensure that we're delivering good public services you know good value for public money but also you know in this space where we are asking things that are new of farmers that we're not just going in with a very blunt instrument and saying you know you say that you have claimed a payment for establishing 10 hectares of wildflowers and there's only eight hectares here well yes because there's been a slug or a bird issue etc I think what that was proposed there was more of a penalty kind of red card system which worked to enable farmers rather than just being a blunt instrument around recovery and I would suggest that you know that's a piece of work that is re-looked at because I think it involved a lot of stakeholder collaboration and potentially provided a lot of the building blocks and Brian Pack also did quite a comprehensive review of this back in 2011 which again there's still a lot of you know an unactioned pieces in there that we could use to help build a better system than what is in place at the moment. Johnny. I was actually part of that simplification task force that Fergus Ewing established and it was effectively to look to see how we could create a bit more flexibility and simplicity within what was the CAP's rules and regulations around compliance. Now I'm the first to put my hand up and say we absolutely have to have going forward and I think Pete Ego would this earlier on. We have to have some sort of verification and audit process to ensure that you know we're not just throwing taxpayer money and it's not accountable and all the rest of it so we'll have to have that but we also have to ensure that it's light and it's proportionate but equally it's effective so that actually we remove the fear factor for many farmers and crofters about breaching rules and regulations around the receipt of support so I think we've got an opportunity here but I'm not surprised that there's an element in the bill that says the ability to refuse or recover payments. I would have been really surprised if that wasn't in there. I think the key question eroder is what will that look like in practice in terms of that compliance framework and the ability to recover. What will be the inspection regime going forward because at the moment we're still 90 odd percent given by the rules and regulations of Europe. We did a cut and paste in the Scots law under the agriculture EU retained law act of 2020 so I think there's a this bill one of the additional side benefits if you like is a chance to review how we put in place a compliance and an audit mechanism that is more suited to our needs and doesn't put the fear of God in the farmers and crofters or indeed those who are carrying out the inspections. Can I just make one point on about the carrots and the broccoli and other things? I think one thing we need to be really mindful of is actually how it goes back to that conversation we had earlier about risk and sharing risk. The cost of establishing a field let's say 10 hectares of carrots or broccoli runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds that's the investment that farmers have to make up front and then if we get extreme weather events which we've seen certainly in Angus and Perthshire and southern Aberdeenshire recently or indeed a supermarket just effectively saying well that's out of spec I'm not having it so all that risk is carried by the primary producer and I'd add into that the availability of things like seasonal labour has been a big challenge in a concern over recent years as well so there are plenty of people who are currently producing high quality fruit and veg in Scotland but if we let the risks escalate any further then it's an easier and very much simpler decision to say I'm not taking that risk I'll just plant some grain and then I'll really irritate Pete and I'll sell it to some distiller and that is that is the choice facing an offer you know and it's important I mean 1% of Scotland's land mass is under some sort of fruit and veg production but it's 16% of agricultural output punches way above its weight and we need to nurture and nourish that in many ways to actually grow that but therefore things like reducing the risk elements out of that and there's lots of risks and as I say issues around labour and all these other things the capital investment required energy costs all these other things which have really impacted on that sector is is making people wobble right now and that's the last thing we want to do just before we move on to the last theme you know this this is a very uh the bill has got lots of scope very little limitation on it um NFUS think it's a great bill rspb think it's a great bill so it's all going to come down to the second legislation because it'll either deliver for NFUS or it'll deliver for RSPB or it might or it might be somewhere in between so you've talked about capping and Pete has got his views on on capping our front loading as we might call it and we know that the government already have the ability to to cap but is there any safeguards you would like to see before we leave it to secondary legislation relating to where the bulk of the money goes so the NFUS would like 80% of the funding in pillar one you know what guarantees are you going to be able to deliver on that what confidence have you got on the bill as it stands just now that you're going to get what you want and Pete what confidence have you got that you will get what you want and that is front loading and whatever so as the bill says just now how can you have any confidence going forward the bill is silent on on things like funding allocations and and that's that's probably right um yes we're very clear that we want at least 80% or the vast that vast majority 80% to go into the the future direct support which will be tier one and tier two but farms and crofters will have to you know you know deliver on the outcomes required if they're going to unlock that support um if we put something like 80% on the face of the bill but let's say that budget was actually cut from 600 whenever or 700 million down to 300 million 80% ain't going to cut it all of a sudden we're talking about so you need flexibility in terms of what budget shares going to each of the different tiers because you don't know what your absolute amount is to start with this so that would create overnight the cliff edge that we all refer to and they all say we have to avoid if we want a just transition out of this process so having that sort of thing on the face of the bill or even in the explanatory notes i don't think would be helpful because because there are unknowns we need to have the ability to put that into the secondary legislation there are so many unknowns that we we cannot factor into the face of the bill because we don't know what the funding settlement will be in absolute terms and therefore why would we say 80% is what we need but when it might be actually 100% or near 100% or it might be 60% okay pete i think main thing is bring forward the rural support plan before the secondary legislation because we need to have that logical setting out of why we're spending money on these schemes what are we going to deliver as a result of these schemes some of the current schemes are dead weight and everybody agrees with that that they've led to inertia they haven't been helpful so if we're going to keep spending that money in that way we have to justify why we spend that money in that way and not on other things i think from our point of view and for RSVB as well if i speak for them is that we need to see more money going into the engines of change in tier 3 and tier 4 particularly around innovation UK now England has innovation grants for farmers we don't spend nearly enough money on innovation we don't spend enough money on corporation and supply chain support on farmer clusters we don't spend enough money on agroforestry it's good we got commitment to organics and we need to follow through on that we don't spend nearly enough money on up the farm track advice direct advice to farmers that we're going to need to support tier 4 transition so the main thing is not to treat tier 3 and 4 as a residual budget which is whatever's left over once tiers 1 and 2 have had their say we need to give those equal status because we won't get the change we need without investing at that end do you mean that in terms of mindset of how what is set to deliver or volume of cash well both i think it's having a strategic approach to managing this transformation for food climate and nature in Scottish agriculture over a 20-year period initially with the first five-year plan but i think so it's a mindset thing these other engines of change are really really important we did a big consultation exercise support by scots government this time last year and people came up with all sorts of ideas for how to spend tier 3 and 4 money and wanted to see more cash going into those we can't decide how much cash is needed until we have the real support plan but i think the real support plan should come forward and say if it's 10 million quid a year for advisory services what will that deliver if it's 20 million quid a year what will that deliver if it's 10 million quid for corporation what will that deliver we need to have those figures in the real support plan so farmers can scrutinise that and say okay for now for the first five years that's a good way of spending public money okay thank you very very very briefly johnny actually that transition piece is critical because you know we are saying 80 in direct support today but in five years time we might be actually saying that that's cheap that those balances are shifted so if you put it into the primary legislation you kind of locked into that and again i go back to the point 80 or 20 percent of what that's the fundamental question i don't think anybody's suggesting a percentage per se it was any few s it came up to saying they were wanting 80 percent at this point but not on the bill no this is about how we allocate the funding we get going forward absolutely but it's the direction of travel that we need to be clear of rather than any specific amounts of money or percentages it's it's you know you talked about a transition there's very little about transition on the on the face of the bill that's not there we might think that's going to be part of the process but currently there's nothing to legislate for for that transition um beaches a final theme final theme and i think it was touched on at the beginning of the session i think by sarah um so interested to hear views on the power to provide for continuing professional development and are there any areas where you think cpd should be required or particularly encouraged since and so i think that alongside any capital grant funding and any direct support you need to have a really strong cpd system i think there's a couple of of you know cpds not something that you know new concept it's used for almost every professional work works working environment and i think what's important in with farming and crofting and supply chain associated is that it is led by the businesses so for example quality meet scotland has ran the monitor farm programme i'm through government funding for the last i think 20 years and that has provided you know communities with the tools and you know bringing experts into the local communities working with local farmers to help share knowledge that already exists farmers learn best from other farmers and i think it's important that we can't just use blunt instruments that work for the accountancy sector but we provide the tools the toolbox is effectively for businesses to to take what they need from them and enabling time to be spent on that we have a lot of single operator businesses within our supply chain so providing time for you know people to be away from animals and you know is important that we get that style of cpd correct but i do you think it is really important that any grant system or any direct support is aligned with a really comprehensive cpd knowledge exchange knowledge transfer system or anekis system and that also allows for innovation you know we can't forget about the role of innovation in this as well i agree with sarah you know cpd is an important aspect of many professions i'll say farming is absolutely a profession takes a lot of expertise and skill and continual learning to do it well and there's a really exciting opportunity within this bit i would say of the bill to join up what we keep asking for which is joining up the production and then the demand side of the supply chain and cpd could really help with that in terms of helping farmers and agricultural workers to understand the market opportunities that exist for their products what's coming next we try and do that without manufacturing members but absolutely could be doing it with primary producers too i think and could form part of this. Johnny. I would echo what's just been said by sarah and joe you know i think it's fundamental that the whole issue that we need to wrestle with as an industry is about managed change and that cpd element and the advisory services and the stuff peat referred to in the sort of tier four element is going to be critical in terms of enabling change and enabling us doing things differently so in that context there's a principle so you have no difficulty with it being part of the bill but there is a key word in there and it's not i don't think it's enforcement but it's effectively making that cpd compulsory and that i think is where we need to tread with extreme caution that's the bit that i think we need to really think very carefully about because actually if if that then excludes individuals from direct support because they are not able or indeed you know have the opportunity to do the right sort of cpd at the right time that they are then have their support withdrawn going back to Rhoda's point then that's probably the ones that we actually want we might not want to lose they're the ones we actually want to improve in terms of their performance and so on so i just think the way in which it is applied will be critical and the bit about enforcement of cpd is what gives me concern not the principle is absolute right but so in your view does it need to change because there is a the line you're referring to is um that persons must must well it says may or must but you know let's lead it as must um meet a minimum criterion for successful completion of cpd does that mean you need to get 20 out of 30 or scores whatever successful completion monitoring and whatever charging of fees there's a whole range of things that must could be included so how do you say that for many that might be easy and accessible you know going back to Sarah's point about monitor farms and all that that sort of thing but it might not be the case for certain individuals in certain circumstances that they can do that similar sort of cpd as others so if that then becomes an eligibility requirement to unlock support i think that's wrong so so this in your view this may need to be amended on the on the face of the bill because it does suggest that uh as you say that there might be a minimum requirement to milk cows or to or to produce beef if you don't come up to a certain standard because the the legislation on that will be subject to negative again providing very little ability for the parliament to scrutinise that so that that may be something that we need to to look at in a bit more depth uh Pete I mean I actually agree I think making something compulsory at this stage in the process potentially generates resistance we don't need you know David will confirm that a lot of existing farms already have to do cpd as part of the contracts with retailers that's common you know and you know it's a benefit qms to put it in as an expectation for for their their standards their farm should standards then to make it compulsory because then if you want to sell your product you've got to have some cpd i think that for a few years you know sell sell people really high quality cpd stuff that's interesting and engaging and that they enjoy doing and then if in 2030 we think oh there's still some farmers who are going no i'm not learning anything you know then i think you look at well actually can you keep on getting public money but it feels to us that the last thing we'll do is to sell a good thing by telling people they have to have it just to confirm that and to agree with joe that there's an opportunity in here to you know support the broader supply chain as well so thank you lazily exactly to that point i think gem first of all incentives are better than compulsory secondly i worry about barriers to entry around cost of having to do things that are compulsory and what that does to smaller farmers but the biggest thing from my experience of having looked at regenerative agriculture transformation across a number of different countries india and the us as well has been that you have to look at the whole supply chain because it's actually actors like procurement managers in organisations that are the ones who hold the difference to change and also the businesses are orientated around those new requirements as well there's an organisation called the future food movement who is doing exactly that and they are working with whole organisations to build that capacity and capability within supply chains in food companies thank you any other points or comments gem popped into my head and it may be absolutely nonsense so please feel free to shoot it down is that farmers who are going going back to the point that you were talking about david farmers going through particular requirements to supply whoever you've got qms you've got tesco you've got march and spencer you've got all of these different schemes all asking different things and if we want to make this as simple as possible for farmers who are already fully stretched to the limit of their resilience in terms of when able to continue to do what they're doing is there not an opportunity in this to be able to have one single scheme that everybody accepts that that's the standard that it should be and i'm talking purely from the farmers point of view saying oh my god here's another layer of something that we're going to have to deal with so how do we take that burden off of them and allow it to be something that they want to buy into it i would say in my views all this of working with different retailers and different processors is that that would be very difficult to do because different retailers are always looking to achieve different outcomes and i think what i think is important is that there could be funding given through this mechanism to provide a suite of options that can then be tailored to different supply chains and two different processors and retailers i think i think that as we look at ricks as the cpd scheme for land agents and things they have a suite of different options that land agents can access whether it's things like you know reading local papers you know the scotish farmer or the farmers weekly attending events or attending a longer term training programme that give different levels of points basically what was kind of flashed through my head as well could you use this as an opportunity to incentivise the bringing in of young people to businesses and say that you know if a business has a younger person working you know as part of the business partnership you know that actually that automatically creates a kind of tick in that cpd box because they may have more recently been to add college university there's different ways to do this i think the important thing is that the bill provides the mechanism for funding that then has input from industry to make sure that the courses in suite of options are suitable for what supply chains require but doesn't that again allow the supermarkets or the big retailers to put that pressure back on to the farmer in order to achieve something for them because they are looking for a market differential differentiation so that's loading it back on to the farm community i think you could see it like that but you could also see it that if that retailer sorry i didn't finish the point that was in my head it stopped it's that whole market supply chain so is there something in here that we should be looking at from the whole market you know we talked previously about the the supermarket adjudicator only stops at that door rather than going right through the whole supply chain so is there not something in here that we should be thinking about in terms of if we're going to put that cpd in there it's everybody's responsibility but not to the point where it's all detrimental to the farmers i think farmers as businesses will make the decision about whether they want to service a particular supply chain and what the demands of that supply chain is so if one supply chain is asking a farmer to do a higher amount of cpd than they are willing to do then they may choose to service another supply chain which is in a detriment to that retailer because then they don't have that same option of suppliers that's what i think it's really important to have the core principle and a wide suite of options for cpd that producers can make that informed choice themselves based on their business their capacity and actually what they want to achieve of their own individual business outcomes you know and that's where i think the flexibility is important but and ultimately if you don't have that within the bill you know bringing it back to the face of the bill you won't then be able to tailor it to individual supply chains and individual retailers and processors thank you johnny yeah i mean jim you've opened up a complete can of worms and it's not just in respect of cpd um i would say fundamentally what we need to get to is whatever the supply chain is asking of the individual producer that that is also then recognised by government in terms of the the support payments that might be associated with that business so if you're being asked to do a carbon audit nutrient management plan waste plan animal health and welfare plan because of your commitment to a contract or whatever it might be or to access a market then that has to be recognised as being equivalent in order to complete your whole farm plan which might be an eligibility requirement for your future tier one or tier two payment the last thing we want is a multitude of different asks for essentially the same things otherwise that will send many farmers you know even more okay so let me be sorry mr sorry convener you okay for me because this relates to the bill it does relate to the bill because what that then does is we've all talked about the the ability for the government to come under scrutiny to say how are we spending this money so if tesco's man march and spenders and any other supermarket says these are the requirements for you to come and supply us and the government says well okay so that you don't have to do that there's therefore no scrutiny other than you're reliant you're asking the supermarkets to then be your credit checkers you see what i mean yeah but i don't think it works that way i mean we've got quality assurance in place and i would have thought membership of quality assurance should be a sufficient safeguard for government in terms of you know that that's all verifiable whether you're producing red meat whether you're producing milk through a red tractor quality assurance whether sqc for our cereal sector the vast majority of farm businesses are quality assured and we want to ensure that they continue on that pathway so as long as there's one of these quality assurance schemes then you're saying that that should be sufficient that to me that should be sufficient for scottish government to say that individual is operating at a standard above the minimum regularity requirement but they're also carrying out things like carbon audits by the busy animal health and welfare plan and and other things if we end up with this whole plethora of different demands for different reasons and they're all slightly different and they don't align that's a recipe for disaster i mean that's just going to put people off and that's you know going back to Pete's point we need to actually engage and incentivise people to to utilise things like their carbon audits to understand whether they can make good decisions around which tier two options for example they might go into it's about informing people rather than being a compliance issue these are decision making tools that we want to get people to think about rather than i've got to do this on that so what if the decision of a business is not to take up single farm payments or any payments and whatever oh yeah but how do you then regulate for zero because you have the backstop of regulation we've got existing regulations around all sorts of environmental standards and animal health and welfare standards which are in regulation they're called statutory management requirements right now under cross compliance so do you have any fears that some regardless of whether you get a direct support payment or not you have to adhere to those conditions yeah but do you think there's any risk of this legislation resulting in what i think some places to refer to as freedom farming so they just go we can actually run a business without having to comply with all these things on to get payments we'll abide by the environmental rules we'll listen to sepa we'll do all that but we're going to freedom farm do you think there's any risk of any businesses opting out of the support system yes because because we're seeing it happen in south of the border thank you can i explain a wee bit more by opting out of the support system you are no longer subject to things like good agriculture environmental condition and actually that's a really important lever for any government to sort of use with farmers to say we need you to do x y and z because if you're not taking that payment you're not under that obligation yeah and you are left to just those basic regulatory requirements and it's very very difficult then to say what's in the public interest of if there's been a breach of those the biggest deterrent or the biggest incentive to comply is actually the loss of direct support and i think we don't want to lose that so keep the direct support and the conditions attached and then you'll get the outcomes from farmers and crofters okay thank you and bring in tim for last word on this yeah i mean i was just going to say on that one i mean certainly we don't want to decouple those the use of those levers but i think in reality for most products most supply chains then freedom farming inverted commerce is probably less for risk because most market supply chains are miles ahead of where government legislation regulations are coming to Jim's point i think it's really around just smart collection of data how we use data it's not very difficult to record whether someone's calling it assured or whether they've passed x number of course with some supplier let's collect that data report it back and then govern the disvalidated data in beneath it okay thank you britchell did you have a very small you want to come back in on that to back up to his point about supply chains are going to do a lot of this but i think actually enforcing environmental standards is still a challenge and it's going to be a challenge as this goes forward for the people who do end up straight in the rivers or you know digging up a rocky knoll because they have a bigger field you know those things do happen we don't have a hugely good track record of actually making sure that we we get on top of those things so so i think what goes with this bill and with the next national environment bill is a you know not a punitive compliance regime but an effective compliance regime okay on a different topic as long as it's a very brief question yes no responses convener thank you yesterday we received a gi q and the government response to the timetable of the land reform bill a number of people in the room today have mentioned what ministers which cross-section legislation ministers should have regard to and one of them being land reform now that has been delayed and i think it is incumbent on this committee to seek clarification from marie gougion the cabinet secretary when that will bill will be we'll see a draft of that bill in relation to this this bill it's our agricultural bill okay i don't know if any witnesses want to respond to that i think yeah we can certainly write to the minister and ask for a clearer idea when the land reform bill will be laid okay well that's been a mammoth session but it's been fun filled and we've we've got a lot of information to digest ahead of our stage one report so thank you all very much for your time come out with this morning it's very much appreciated now formally close this meeting