A new edition of The Scotsman’s Sustainable Scotland podcast, in partnership with RHASS (Royal Highland & Agricultural Society of Scotland), the charity which organises the Royal Highland Show, explores how technology and innovation in farming, including artificial intelligence (AI), is contributing to sustainable practices.
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00:00Hello, I'm Rosemary Gallagher, and welcome to our Sustainable Scotland podcast, brought
00:07to you by The Scotsman, Scotland's national newspaper since 1817, delivering you fresh
00:12and relevant content of the 21st century. Sustainable Scotland looks at how Scotland
00:17is doing its efforts to be cleaner and greener for the next generation. This edition is in
00:21partnership with the charity the Royal Highlands and Agricultural Society of Scotland, or RAS,
00:27which organises Scotland's largest outdoor event, the Royal Highlands Show in Ingliston
00:31on the outskirts of Edinburgh. And this edition is focusing on technology and innovation in
00:34farming, including how artificial intelligence, or AI, is contributing to sustainable practices.
00:39I'd ask you all to please introduce yourselves and tell us more about your roles and your
00:43backgrounds. Can we start with you, please, Alan?
00:47Good afternoon, my name is Alan Laidlaw, I am the Chief Executive of the Royal Highlands
00:51and Agricultural Society of Scotland, and we are the charity behind the Royal Highlands
00:56Hi, I'm Sarah Simpson. I'm a director of a dairy farm right down in the very southwest
01:01of Scotland, near Newton Stewart, and a farm with my husband, Peter. I also wear a number
01:06of other hats. So I sit on the Scottish Government's Agricultural Reform Group. I'm a board member
01:13of TAFALY, our Agricultural Supply Cooperative, and I'm also a trustee of the Hannah Dairy
01:20Research Institute.
01:21Hi, my name is George Lyne. I was a farmer for many years, former president of NFU. I
01:29was involved in politics, Scottish Parliament, European Parliament, I've worked for the last
01:34nine or 10 years, covering a lot of the sustainability issues in Europe for a large number of multinational
01:42companies. I also chair the NLC Pension Fund, and I'm a trustee on one of the other HGCA
01:51pension funds as well. And I used to write for the P&G and the Courier.
01:56Good afternoon, I'm Bill Gray. I'm a farm and estate manager at Preston Hall Farms,
02:02which is just south of Edinburgh, about half an hour south of Edinburgh. We're a 650 hectare
02:07arable unit, predominantly with a diversified business of creative workshops, events, wall
02:14garden, mansion house, etc. I'm also currently one of the loading directors for the Highland
02:24Society. I'm indeed a past chair of the Highland Society. I also sit on the Morden Foundation
02:29Board. And from a sustainability point of view, we were a monetary farm 2016 to 2019.
02:38And there was a very strong focus on sustainability and resilience in that project.
02:44Yeah, got a fair bit of information floating around in my head. And hopefully we'll get some
02:49of that out in this podcast today. Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everyone.
02:53And I just want to kick off just by asking, how sustainable is Scotland's agriculture and food
02:57production sector? And how effectively do you think it's using technology and innovation,
03:02including artificial intelligence? Alan, would you like to start with that one?
03:07I think as we start the Royal Highland Show, I think agriculture can often get a bit of a hard
03:13rap. People quite often blame cows and farms and agriculture as part of the problem and maybe not
03:20identifying it as much of the solution as it can be. Many of our own sustainability practices
03:27are discretionary. One of them that isn't tends to be eating. And we forget that food and farming
03:33food and farming and rural land management across Scotland are all interlinked.
03:38So from my perspective, I think it's quite easy to have a pop at agriculture,
03:42but not maybe reflect our own decisions around whether we're buying local produce,
03:47what good produce is, and what seasonality is. So I think a lot of the agricultural community
03:54have done a great deal to improve on this. And some of that's very well understood by the public
04:00and others isn't. I think part of the journey of these sort of podcasts, whether it be the Royal
04:05Highland Show or whether it be the Royal Highland Education Trust, is to make sure people understand
04:10what the sector is doing. But some of the other people on the call are far better placed to talk
04:16about that than I. I think we're very much part of this climate change agenda as well, which is
04:23part of the sustainability of the way we produce food. I think I would agree with Alan totally in
04:29the first thing is that while the eating habits of the population are discernible, food security
04:36has to be right at the top of that list and the ability for Scotland and the UK as a whole to be
04:41able to effectively feed itself. It's got to be right up at the top of the agenda. And I think
04:47that's something that I think we finally managed to get the message through to some of the agri
04:53policy team at ScotGov that it needs to be right at the top of that agenda. We've got a huge part
05:00to play in that. As Alan said, the myth that farming is part of the problem can, I think,
05:09in our eyes anyway, be very quickly switched to the agriculture as part of the solution rather
05:14than being part of the problem. And it's just a question of getting that message across
05:18on finer levels of detail, you know, through soil health and fertility and all the rest of it from a
05:23farming perspective. There's no doubt that we've got a lot of information at our fingertips that
05:28we can actually show what moves we're making and changes that we're making as we go forward.
05:35Yeah, I mean, agriculture's in the exact same position as many other industries in that we have
05:41global targets to meet. We have the net zero commitments by 2050 in Scotland that's even
05:47steeper, net zero by 2045. We have huge targets for reductions in carbon for the Scottish
05:55agricultural industry. Thankfully, there's been recognition of the Scottish Government that these
06:00targets were just ridiculously optimistic. And there's now a more measured approach as to what
06:09each sector has to deliver. I think there's tremendous opportunities here in Scotland. We
06:14have fantastic research work going on that's identifying some of the solutions and tools
06:19that our farmers are going to need to try and make the transition towards net zero and low carbon
06:25farming systems. We need some leadership around how we actually roll these ideas and these
06:32solutions, how we get them rolled out onto farm. We need a policy, an agricultural policy that
06:37incentivises that. And we need, dare I say it, a big capital grant scheme to actually help fund
06:43the transition across to these new technologies. And most importantly of all, we need the Scottish
06:48Government to start increasing the amount of R&D work that's been done in Scotland through the
06:53Hutton and through Roslin Institute, where, as I say, there's a lot of good work going on. We've
06:58an opportunity here in Scotland to seize that and take advantage of that, but we need policy drivers
07:03to make sure that it happens. Yeah, I think we've also, not only do we have our commitment as an
07:09industry to help reach the Paris Climate Agreement of 1.5 degrees, we're also at the
07:14coalface of the climate changes that are actually hard baked in, even if we achieve that target. So
07:19farmers are going to have to adapt very quickly to a very changing environment. And I think that
07:24technology and innovation is going to be essential to meeting that because it's going to move at a
07:28speed that the industry has never had to adapt to. Our production cycles are long. We need lots of
07:33notice and lots of investment to be able to get there. You've already touched on some points to
07:38this question in terms of what can be done to further boost sustainability, particularly using
07:42technology, innovation and AI. Would you like to add to that, George? You made some interesting
07:46points on that topic. Would you like to see what more can be done? Well, I think, I mean, the first
07:52big challenge, I think, is utilising some of the research work that's currently been done into
07:59breeding, using genetics to breed cattle that produce less methane. There are also new feed
08:06additives that have been looked at as well. And just recently, some of the methane
08:13inhibitors have actually got permission to be used here in the UK. Efficiency of how you actually
08:20produce is the other key driver in making sure that we meet the transition to low carbon farming.
08:28But I have a confidence the Scottish industry can do it. If you look at what agriculture achieved
08:32after the Second World War, where with 2 billion of population, hunger was the biggest challenge
08:38facing us. Agriculture adopted new techniques during that next 30, 40 years after that. We now
08:46feed 8 billion. Obesity is the biggest challenge in some ways that we face. I mean, agriculture is
08:52a huge success story in terms of being able to adapt to new techniques and new technologies.
08:57We're on the cusp of another great green revolution as to how we move towards a more
09:02low carbon food production system. We need the drivers there. We need government policy to be
09:07right. We need the R&D piece to be right. And we need money to actually incentivise and help the
09:13industry make the transition. I think there's a conversation that we have to have about valorisation
09:17of sustainability in the supply chain. I think there has to be a recognition that this has to
09:22come through. And if it's not going to be met through the food prices, then the government
09:27have to step in to value what farmers are doing. We often get criticism that farmers are
09:34resistant to change, but perhaps actually I'd rather say we're risk averse. And where the
09:39technology has demonstrable benefit, they're very quick to adopt techniques that will benefit their
09:45businesses. And we are ready placed to be able to take that forward if we get the right investment
09:52and the right signals. Farmers know what their core function is. They're custodians of land,
09:58they're custodians of food producing assets, of resources, whether that be water, carbon,
10:03food, etc. And actually given clear policy signals and direction, they know exactly where they need
10:10to be. And actually, at times, farmers have potentially been too good at taking previous
10:14signals and government is quite quick to forget some of the changes that they signalled. And,
10:19you know, that post-war period that George talks about was one, but certainly through the 90s and
10:24noughties, there were certain directions of travel that farmers were encouraged to go down that have
10:28done very, very successful policy shifts. But people now have changed the policy and the goal
10:34posts are moving and whether that be the Paris Agreement or whether that be something else.
10:39And I think Sarah touched on earlier, ultimately, there are very few sectors that know as much about
10:46what weather and weather patterns are changing as the farming community. There's a joke, why do
10:51farmers always start with talking about weather is because it has such an impact on their ability to
10:56sustain themselves and their crops and their businesses and their stock. And in this year,
11:01you know, we have the public, you know, a central belt public talking more about extreme weather
11:08than ever before. And that has an impact on your food too. You know, if you can't pull your potatoes
11:13out of the ground in September and you don't get them in the spring and you can plant them in the
11:17spring, that starts to have an impact on next September through to April's potato crops. And
11:23that's when people start getting twitchy. So I think, you know, farmers are very well placed to
11:28A, see what's happening at the moment, but also to respond to those levers that other people can pull
11:33to make change. I think the, we talked a bit there just about the uptake of innovation,
11:42technology and AI. There's no doubt that the pace at which that technical revolution, if you like,
11:51is moving is really pretty sharp by all accounts. For example, you know, we've been adopters of
11:59precision farming since 1996, all part of that technical innovation journey, if you like.
12:08But things have ramped up at a great pace recently. And I think to the benefit of us as
12:14growers and in benefit to that whole story about improving farm efficiency is with
12:22monitoring systems and, you know, evaluation systems available to us now through all the
12:29algorithms that AI can produce. You know, GPS and precision farming was really pretty far
12:36ahead of itself when it appeared. It's now pretty much norm. And some of the other things that we're
12:41getting about pests and disease monitoring and how they can be individually targeted, which then,
12:47you know, has a cost benefit to the farm and the efficiency, but it also has a good environmental
12:52benefit going forward to the way we actually do things. So, yeah, I, you know, I'm an
12:58embracer of technology and innovation. That doesn't come easy to everybody. I fully understand that.
13:04But I think as confidence in it grows, then more and more people will be more
13:10comfortable to adopt it. There's two big themes there, Rosemary, as well, though.
13:17A couple of years ago, the Soil Essentials brought one of the first autonomous tractors onto the
13:22showground. So you can walk around the Royal Highland Show and it will look very similar to
13:26what it did in the 40s or 50s. The latest piece of equipment just changes. So when the wee grey
13:32Fergie came out to replace the horse, people probably in Scotland saw it first at the Royal
13:37Highland Show. The first autonomous tractor came onto the show field at Ingliston a couple of years
13:41ago, and people are now starting to talk about it in common parliaments. And that will shift
13:46the sustainability of food as well, and whether that's the sustainability of labour, because
13:51getting people trained and efficient to be able to drive that sort of equipment or to be able to
13:55look after livestock and that sort of thing. But the next thing is that amalgamation of data that
14:02Bill just touched on. Every farmer in Scotland has a mass of data available in different formats,
14:09and both George and Sarah touched on the different organisations that they've been
14:12involved in in the past or currently. It's about how you make that information penetrable to make
14:17good policy changes. And I think, you know, AI and mass data, I'm getting spammed full of data
14:24that can scalp the Royal Highland Society website and seem very relevant, but then tries to sell me
14:30a product that I don't need. We need to make sure that agriculture is applying the right AI to the
14:35right data to answer the right questions at the right time. And I think that's going to be the
14:41interpretation piece is going to be strongest, is where we can actually own the data. And potentially,
14:47you touched, Sarah, about how we get it valued or into the chain, is how do we make sure that
14:52stays with the primary producer and not the AI bot or owner of the AI bot, because that's where
14:58there could be real value for Scotland. Thanks, Alan. And autonomous tractors, are they widely
15:03used in Scottish farming? No, not yet. There's been a number of prototypes recently,
15:12the two particular ones. And one of them is, looks like a tractor. The other one looks like
15:19slightly more robotic type of instrument with its own solar panel to drive itself,
15:23et cetera, on a much smaller scale. But the one thing that they do have is the ability to
15:33target specific things in specific instances. And I think that's particularly the smaller
15:37robotic one, which is used in vegetables, et cetera. And it'll pretty much carry everything
15:44bar the harvesting. And it'll also, it has its own sensors on it and it can be driven without
15:52anybody being anywhere near it. That's the other thing about it. You know, Alan was saying,
15:56talking about training people up to drive these things, they don't need driven, they just need
15:59to be programmed. So the driver is a programmer rather than a driver. Whether you've got the
16:06confidence to let it loose completely in your field, I think would be debatable at the moment,
16:10but they are getting much more sort of robust and much more reliable, I think, in the way that they
16:18work. But there's certainly one doing, there is one doing the rounds at the minute, and it's the
16:21same one that was on one of the show stands a couple of years ago. And it's on a tour of
16:26Scotland at the moment. And it's creating a massive amount of interest, particularly when
16:31the sustainability of that labour supply is now under question as well.
16:35That does sound very interesting, and thanks for explaining that. And before we touch on some of
16:39the challenges, would anybody like to add, what are the main challenges to boosting sustainability
16:43and innovation? Is there any other key challenges that you see on the horizon?
16:48That's Sina, would you like to go first?
16:51Yeah, there's obviously the cost element, which I think we've touched on. And it's having a proven
16:55benefit. There's a lot of technology out there, but you've got to make sure that you're actually
16:59going to use it on farm. For us, sustainability is a licence to produce, we have to do it. Our
17:04milk contract requires us to do it. And the data that we can generate on farm justifies that we
17:10are and demonstrates that we're achieving that sustainability, whether it's GPS soil sampling
17:15our fields, matching the slurry and fertiliser spreading to make sure it meets the needs of those
17:20fields, whether it's we're using body scanners on each cow as they come into milking, so we're
17:26looking at how healthy they are, how well they're walking. It can all demonstrate how well we're
17:31managing the cows, it can add to it, it doesn't take away from the core farming skills, you've
17:35still got to have those, but it adds to it and it gives a justification. But, you know, we are,
17:41we have to acknowledge that farming is an ageing population and certainly young people do tend to
17:47adopt this easier. And so I think recruitment of young people and selling the technology that's
17:52now within agriculture is actually a selling point to recruiting young people into the industry. It's
17:56really exciting and there's huge change going on. And I think it's a selling point for our industry
18:01just to see how innovative it is. Yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity for young people. So
18:07most of us have spent most of our careers in the whole of Scotland. Scotland's a great place to
18:12live and work. The food sector is important, people need to understand where it comes from.
18:17But I still think there is a gap between those people who think that they want to be working
18:22in food and agriculture and those people who see it as a really attractive place.
18:26You know, at the end of the day, lots of people are now talking about their well-being economy
18:30and the work-life balance, and I think that's a huge opportunity for young people.
18:34Well-being economy and the work-life balance. So working in rural Scotland has its downsides,
18:41but it also has its upsides. And actually, we can sell the careers that Sarah's talking about
18:46to interpret that data as, you know, you're going to work hard, you're going to have something to
18:50show for your results, i.e. a pile of grain, a pile of potatoes or a tanker full of milk at the
18:55end of the day or week. And you can celebrate being part of that solution that we touched on
19:00at the opening part of the podcast. And I think treating farming as an old traditional
19:08sector is a shame. I love being involved in the farming sector. And that sort of information and
19:13data that's available should be exciting to young people who want to come and, you know,
19:18be part of something that's truly adding value. Thanks, Alan. Can you give me some examples of
19:24what RAS is doing to encourage sustainability, some initiatives you've got ongoing, including
19:29technology? Yeah, so the Royal Hound Show has been running for over 200 years, and one of our
19:35longest running awards is the Technical Innovation Awards. And 200 years ago, that would be, you know,
19:41the latest mangled processor, which would be manual or whatever. And now we're talking about
19:48wheat genetic breeding programs, we're talking about autonomous tractors, we're talking about
19:53software. More and more, it's not coming down to something with wheels and bearings, it's coming
19:58down to processors and algorithms. And that's something that society has celebrated and
20:05encouraged for the last 180 years. And that happens every year around the time of the Royal
20:11Hound Show. And every year, you hear of new innovations coming forward that are sector-led.
20:18And one of the challenges, or sorry, one of the criteria for our innovation awards is that it has
20:23to be applying to farms. Sarah talked about it earlier, is, you know, how do we make this technology
20:29better at a farm level? And that's where the RAS involvement, you know, is very much about how
20:35do you apply that to what you're doing on a farm scale? I was involved in some judging a few months
20:41ago, and it was all about that technology that Sarah touched on for dairy cows. How do you get
20:46that information into the hands of somebody who understands what a healthy cow is? You're giving
20:51them the management data faster and more timely basis so they can pre-empt illness or hard
20:57conditions for the animal, which gets a better result and more production. So I think RAS has
21:03always been around that discussion. And, you know, competitions and shows are still doing what they
21:10did 200 years ago. They're getting people to say, look at this, this is where the trend of farming
21:16is going to. So for a long time, it was bigger cows because they wanted more capacity for a bigger
21:21carcass. Now, it's more sustainable animals that can live off less feed supplements or can spend
21:28more time at winter, which Scotland sits in a sort of sweet spot in that we have a lot of rough ground,
21:34but we also have a lot of poor weather by comparison. So we have to have the right animal
21:37in the right place doing the right job. And I think that's what the society and shows can do
21:43is to help that knowledge transfer. And that's what happens in the Royal Highland Show. People come with
21:47an idea, they come with a hypothesis and they test it out at the show. They see to somebody like George
21:52or Bill or Tessera say, what do you think about my crazy idea? Absolutely. There's somebody down
21:56on Avenue Q doing exactly that. Go and speak to them. And that's where the society is well placed.
22:03And what has RAS got coming up? Is there anything at this year's show that's brand new for this year?
22:08The Royal Highland Show is a funny beast in that there's something new on every corner,
22:13but it probably looks very similar. So you could walk up to the John Deere stand that's been in
22:17a similar place for 40 years, but you'll find out about the latest technology of how they're applying
22:23that data powered by Starlink or whatever their GPS system is onto the ground.
22:31There's some interesting developments around machinery. There's a lot of discussion about
22:38what an efficient cow or sheep looks like. And I think there's going to be a lot of discussion on
22:43the back of the agricultural bill. And George mentioned the changes to sustainability targets
22:49around what do land managers at a 500 acre, 200 acre, 5,000 acre scale do to be different from
22:58a sustainability perspective. And I think people are probably looking for a bit of clarity around
23:02there. I don't think they'll be looking to Westminster elections for that. I think they'll
23:07be looking to Scottish government and policy formers in Edinburgh to say, give us a really
23:12clear steer of what good looks like. You're listening to the Scotsman Sustainable Scotland
23:16podcast. This episode is brought to you in partnership with RAS, a charity organised
23:20by the Royal Highland Show. If you'd like to discuss partnering with the Scotsman for an
23:24episode of Sustainable Scotland, please email podcastscotsman.com. Now back to this episode,
23:29focusing on how technology and innovation is supporting sustainability and farming.
23:33Turning to you George, obviously you've got a very long and varied experience from politics to farming
23:38and journalism. So drawing on all that experience, what do you see as the key sustainability challenges
23:43and opportunities? You've touched on some already, but there might be more you'd like to talk about.
23:48I think the biggest change I've noticed in the whole debate over the last four or five years
23:54has been that this simplistic notion about livestock killing the planet has now been
23:59knocked down as just not a credible criticism of the industry. And also the simplistic
24:09solutions put forward by some in the climate movements that get rid of the cows, just plant
24:15it all with trees and that's the solution, that's you there and people have to eat plant-based
24:21diets. Thankfully all of that is now I think in retreat, people don't want to be forced down that
24:27road. There's a growing realism that it's innovation and technology that's going to
24:32deliver the solutions that can lead to a low carbon and more sustainable production systems.
24:39And it's also a realism that you're not going to achieve this quickly. I mean the idea that we
24:45could take a 30% reduction in carbon or 33% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, which
24:51was originally in the climate change legislation of 2019, is complete nonsense. It's for the birds.
24:58It's impossible to achieve that and even the UK's climate change committee heavily criticised
25:04these unrealistic targets because the industry I think because of that just switched off a little
25:10bit from the debate because it is so impossible to try and meet that kind of target. I think now
25:16there's a realisation we have to reset the targets here in Scotland properly, take into account
25:21what's achievable, what the technologies are out there that's going to help deliver that.
25:25But in the longer term I have no doubt that it's innovation, research and development and most
25:30importantly uptake from the farming community, having the finances to invest in that new
25:35technology that's going to deliver a real sustainable long-term future for the industry.
25:41And consumers are going to be pushing hard of course for products that meet that test.
25:45And the other driver in all of this of course is the finance sector, which I mean I chair a pension
25:51fund. We have ESG and climate considerations to take into account when we're making investment
25:58decisions. So if your industry doesn't make progress down this road then finance is going to
26:03become scarcer, more expensive and eventually probably you won't have easy access to finance.
26:09So there's a big big drivers in there to help make the change, drive the change. But we need
26:15government to give us some clarity, A, about what the target and how quickly we'll get down this road
26:19and B, about how the new agricultural bill can incentivise and help the transformation.
26:27Because the transition is not going to be easy, it's going to be quite a difficult transition.
26:31But agricultural industry has always shown in the past that if you give it the right incentives,
26:36the right direction of travel, we'd certainly know how to deliver. You just give us the right
26:41the right leadership and I think that's what's missing at the moment.
26:44Yeah I think George is right. I think we all acknowledge this is a just transition period
26:50but if we use up that just transition just developing government policy then the farmers
26:55aren't getting a just transition. So we need urgent clarification in leadership so that the
27:00farmers have time to adjust their businesses. And we're all doing stuff already but it's making
27:05sure we're doing it in a collective direction to achieve the government's objective. So there is a
27:09responsibility personally but there's a collective responsibility and we just want to get that
27:14clarity ASAP as opposed to one breadcrumb at a time but we don't know where the breadcrumb trail's
27:20leading. And I think there's a general frustration with the industry that we really want that
27:25and deserve it because you know we are expected to have a just transition for our businesses.
27:30Thank you, thanks Sarah. And back to you George. In your role as an incoming RAS president for
27:36Strathclyde, what do you plan to focus on especially around sustainability and technology and innovation?
27:42Well we think that highlighting the new technologies and new solutions that are around
27:49to help farmers make the transition is something that the Royal Highland Society has been involved
27:53in for a long time. We want to highlight it this year. We're reaching out to organisations,
27:58research institutes and manufacturers to say to them we want to see the new technology
28:04you're developing, bring them onto the stand at the show and let's try and showcase and
28:10give farmers some idea what these solutions look like. And especially to make sure that they're
28:15actually able to take it, they actually economically work as well because it's all very well
28:21having solutions but if they're unaffordable in the current state the industry's in then
28:25you don't make any progress whatsoever. So next year will be a big focus under the Strathclyde
28:31presidency on innovation and on solutions to the sustainability challenge that Scottish
28:36agriculture faces. You've got a busy year ahead then George? I think it might be, yes.
28:43Come back to you Sarah. We've already touched a bit on this but can you tell me a bit more about
28:46your role as an agri policy consultant especially around the whole sustainability and technology
28:51side of things? I suppose yeah it's agri policy because I'm not necessarily a farm consultant,
28:56obviously I'm heavily involved in our own farm but basically it's on a policy front. I used to
28:59work for NFU Scotland and have now sit on various guises of government groups which Alan and I have
29:05been on various different manifestations. So working with government trying to give a practical
29:11and first-hand experience to policy formation and representing farmers to make sure that on
29:19the ground it is actually effective and I think the discussions we've had here is highlighting
29:24the need for technology but it's the supply chain that also form a big part of that whether that's
29:31for example we're currently in a project with our parlour supplier to provide a digital twin
29:38of all our milking data for them to try and develop software to allow each milking cow to
29:44be milked in a way that suits them with the right speed and pressure to develop it to that cow and
29:50it's that level of intelligence and learning from the data because we've got screeds of data but
29:55it's actually applying it in an intelligent way that will make a massive difference to our
30:00businesses but also to the sustainability of our businesses and I think that's where it comes
30:04through that this is a real opportunity to deliver and prove that we're delivering. I think also
30:11Scotland's a very privileged position. We are well placed for government and policymakers to hear from
30:16the industry. We have good communication links through membership organisations like RAS, NFUS etc.
30:22There are lots of opportunities for policymakers to very quickly hear the type of comments that
30:27Sarah is able to make about what makes a difference on the ground and even at a UK government level
30:32that is much harder even in somewhere like Yorkshire. So we often talk about Scottish
30:39business, Scottish policy community, Scottish agriculture being a relatively small community.
30:45At times we don't use that enough to make sure that we can have the real speed of change and
30:49impact that we could have if we had real clear leadership and direction of travel and that for
30:55me is how we have those conversations Sarah alluded to about what does good look like,
30:59where's the consensus and how can we go and just recently there was coverage in the news talking
31:05about how peatland re-wetting was not being fully adapted to the level where it could to outstrip the
31:11carbon opportunities for tree planting. That's a really good land management conversation. There are
31:17lots of upland farmers that can talk about how we can make that difference but one of the problems
31:22at the moment is labour and machinery because there's no clarity of the supply chain. People
31:28are doing it on a piecemeal basis so you train somebody up who's brilliant at re-wetting peat,
31:33the project stops, they disappear and go and build new roads or something else whereas actually
31:38if there's a real two, three, four year programme of peatland re-wetting they could become even
31:43better and better and better and we could be the specialists in there and at the same time our
31:47research organisations can be at the forefront of monitoring the changes and being able to make sure
31:52that we feedback real results and part of my worry sometimes is we can become a bit too piecemeal
31:58because everyone knows it's a big problem but they don't necessarily know how to fix it.
32:02One of the few upsides of Brexit and there's precious few of them if you try and list them
32:06is that we have a unique opportunity in Scotland to design a policy that works for Scotland
32:12and that is a huge advantage. I mean I follow the development of the European Common
32:18Agricultural Policy and the Farm to Forage Strategy that they set out about four years ago
32:25and it is completely imploded. Farmers started to rebel about the whole idea of a whole lot of
32:30conditionality or conditions being put in before you could receive your basic income payment.
32:35The tractors were out in the streets campaigning against it and that whole farm to fork which was
32:41based on heavy regulation and conditionality being associated with any payments that farmers got
32:46fell apart. It just doesn't work and the farmers weren't willing to accept it and now they've
32:51all the pieces of legislation that were going through the European Parliament actually collapsed
32:54at the end. None of it is actually coming into being. So we've got a unique opportunity here in
32:59Scotland to do something a little bit different, a little bit innovative, a little bit of design
33:04for our own particular circumstances and an opportunity maybe to showcase and lead the way
33:10further because the rest of the world's all looking at how you actually make this transition.
33:14What is the right policy to do it? So Scotland has an opportunity to actually lead the way here
33:19if we get it right. One of the things we've been talking about is the use of technology on farms.
33:23One of the hindrances of bringing in effective agricultural policy in Scotland is actually the
33:27technology within the Scottish Government that's going to hold us back in terms of what we can
33:31deliver and that's one of the most frustrating things that we're ready to do on farm but
33:35essentially they haven't got the resources to be able to deliver bespoke policies that we need.
33:40It's hindering so we're not actually going to be able to have that
33:44innovative policy because they just can't deliver it.
33:46George, you've been a politician before. If you, Sarah and Bill were in charge for a week after
33:52the Highland Show next week, what would you put in place to make a difference to the pace of change?
33:58I actually always believe that incentivising people to do something is the right way
34:04to approach policy. I always believe that if you use heavy regulation and conditionality
34:11then by and large people grit their teeth and do it because they're being forced to,
34:15not because they think it's really good for their business and I think that's where the
34:20opportunity lies. There's been a lot of criticism of the English model and you can argue whatever
34:27way you want but I do think, I know for a fact there's quite a lot of the
34:32commission officials have been over having a good look at what's been happening in England.
34:36It's not an easy transition to make but I think where you're using incentives to drive the change
34:41of behaviour and to assist the industry in making that transition, it's a far better model than heavy
34:46regulation and heavy conditionality on the current payments we receive.
34:50I think people, we're talking about technology but actually at the end of the day it's people
34:54to use that technology and get the proper functionality out of it and if I could change
35:00anything in a week it would be encouraging more young people, better training and develop in
35:05agriculture to attract people to want to come and work in our industry and technology is part of
35:10that to make them aware of exactly what's going on in our industry and it's really exciting.
35:14We coined the phrase during our Monitor Farm programme of work smarter not harder
35:20and there's a myth there that generationally farmers in Scotland have felt that
35:27if they worked another hour they would deliver more and we all know they, particularly post
35:33Covid, the whole mental health issue which is another part of that whole sustainability thing
35:39is showing that actually you cannot drive yourself into oblivion. You do need to think
35:48about how you're doing things and that use of technology allows you to work smarter.
35:53There's no doubt about that. I think from my point of view, George has already touched on this,
35:59over-regulation of our industry. We've had multiple promises of reduction in red tape
36:07and all we've done is increased it seemingly which is totally counterproductive, albeit that
36:15it drives incentiveness but it is a stick which we get beaten with on a regular basis and I can
36:22remember commenting to somebody a while back and they said the form filling must be quite difficult
36:28and I said well the form filling is actually the easy bit. We've got five pages of forms to fill
36:33and 40 pages to read about the penalties that we might get if we get it wrong. That just doesn't
36:38actually drive productivity at all. It's a necessary evil, I understand that. We are
36:45recipients of public money and we need to show that we are doing what's required. However,
36:50on a more general basis than that, we need to be showing how we can improve and one of the
36:55worries that I've got and one of the challenges I think we have is where the baseline sits.
37:00There's a number of people who have already been doing quite a lot of work on improving their
37:03carbon footprint, improving their efficiency etc. There is not yet, as far as I can see,
37:09a reliable robust measure that the Scottish Government or anybody else could use to
37:14actually baseline where you actually sit at the minute and if we're now talking about results
37:19based incensiveness, that baseline and where that baseline sits is absolutely critical
37:26to each and every individual farm and that's where some of that lack of collectiveness comes in
37:32because we're all treated as individual farms rather than a sort of an industry.
37:38We've done some work on carbon footprinting here and carbon measurements and it's not as
37:45straightforward as everybody seems to make out. There are three or four different carbon tools
37:49out there and the one that we think anyway that the Scottish Government may well use
37:57doesn't appear to be particularly robust according to some of the trials that were
38:00carried out on our farm. I'll not mention them for fear of reprisal but I think Bill is a really
38:07good case study there. You know this is a conversation that started pre-Covid. We're
38:11now planning the 2025 Royal Highland Show and you can make quite substantial difference in five
38:17years and you want to do the direction of travel, what we want to do, but if the benchmark is going
38:23to be based on 2025 and you've already done a lot of the improvement, those who haven't improved
38:29will be more incentivised than those who've already done that and that's a perverse behaviour
38:35that you don't want from a policy landscape and I think uncertainty over change means that people
38:42tend to pause and they tend to tread water and that's a bad place for a sector to be when the
38:49rest of the world is changing at a real pace. We don't want to lose any momentum from that
38:54perspective and that's why I think clarity is key. Okay thank you Alan. Turning back to you Bill,
39:00you've mentioned some examples. Can you tell me a bit more about what you're doing at Preston Hall
39:04in terms of sustainability, any initiatives you've got underway you'd like to share?
39:08Yeah well we, as part of the, as part of, again hard back to the monitor farm thing and
39:14only as an example because that was, I suppose, the point at which we stuck our head above the
39:19parapet and let everybody know who we were and where we were, but you know a lot of the work
39:25that we've been doing culminated during that sort of monitor farm programme was stuff that we've
39:31been looking at anyway and I've always, we've always focused on soil health and fertility
39:35here on being an arable farm, that's our ultimate primary resource, excuse me, and
39:43so for example just bullet pointing a few things of reduced cultivation, use of cover crops now
39:51quite extensively across when we can, so avoiding bare soil when possible is one of the things that
39:59we try and do, we're not doing 100% and we've got very variable soil types here,
40:05Sarah touched on precision soil sampling, you know, we know, well we knew anyway because
40:13everybody knows their own fields, but we knew there was a lot of variability in soil texture
40:17within the fields and of course that then relates to quite often to the way that the
40:21soil nutrients are sort of spread across the field, so reduction ideally in reliance on
40:31artificial either fertiliser or indeed control systems for pests and disease etc are pretty
40:38high on our agenda, achieving them is quite difficult, I'll be honest, the use of the cover
40:44crops is one thing, we are investigating using digestate and other sort of byproducts of other
40:52industries, the renewables industry obviously is part of that and I guess the main thing we
41:00looked at probably was trying to reintroduce livestock into an arable rotation, so bringing
41:06the fertility to the field in the form of cows or sheep or whatever, potentially successful,
41:14ultimately challenging because of logistics, because of, dare I say it, arable farms tend to
41:22not have suitable fencing and water supplies compared to when they were mixed farms, which
41:28most of them probably were at some point or other, ours certainly was, so yeah we've been looking at
41:33that, we've been running a couple of pilot projects on that and there's no doubt that
41:36introducing some grass into the rotation has a massive benefit on soil structure
41:42and soil fertility and that's something that we feel is pretty important going forward.
41:47And then I think, you know, that use of technology and that use of innovative stuff,
41:54you know, I will always try something, I've never been one to shy away from
42:01the fact that it might not look great, if we can make it work then that's great, so
42:06the public perception of what a good field looks like, particularly post-sowing,
42:12I think it's changed as more people have adopted reduced cultivations.
42:18And then from a farm, overall farm point of view, an element of diversification, which is the
42:22business sustainability side if you like, and the use of renewables, both solar and we now,
42:29all of the properties on the farm with biomass, some of it sourced from the estate but all of
42:34it sourced within 50 miles of where we are currently, and that includes the grain drying,
42:41and so we're trying to build a package of resources, if you like, that we can use and draw on
42:49to ultimately, I guess, help us towards that net zero point. Whether we'll ever get there,
42:58I remain to be convinced, but we'll definitely go as far as we possibly can to get there.
43:04I think it was one thing Bill brought out of that, is sustainability is a matrix of indicators,
43:09it's not just one, so we can't look at it through a climate lens, it's, as Bill alluded,
43:13financial sustainability, you won't have a business if it's not financially viable,
43:16biodiversity, air, water, etc, it's a whole host of things, and I think in Scotland we're in danger
43:23of underestimating what we have, and one thing, if we go back to Alan's wish list, that I would
43:29really like is for the Scottish Government to LiDAR map the whole of Scotland, and that's a
43:34light imaging resonance image from radar of the whole of Scotland, which will measure above ground
43:39biomass and carbon storage that we have, and I think Wales have done it, and they were 20%
43:44underestimating, and I have no doubt that Scotland will be vastly underestimating what we have,
43:49so there's huge opportunities technology can have to actually better understand our assets,
43:54because we have massive assets as far as sustainability. When you go over to Europe,
43:58George will know this, but you know other European countries are envious of everything
44:02that we have on a sustainability front that we can offer, we've just got to be
44:07better at quantifying it, and then better at selling ourselves for what we do.
44:11Thanks Sarah, thanks everyone, some really interesting points made there around sustainability,
44:16technology, innovation, and the great work that's happening, and what you'd like to see in the
44:19future, especially from government and policy makers. Is there anything I would like to add,
44:23I've already said it's covered today? One of the challenges that we have, going back to the
44:29enviability of where we are, is our geographical location, and that's probably more from an
44:37arable perspective I guess, than it is from the grass growing that comes with plenty of rainfall
44:43and elevated temperatures etc, but you know a lot of the soil health stuff that we're trying to do
44:50on a specific level is quite challenged because of the timing, a relatively short window between
44:55harvest and recultivating in the autumn, and by the time the winter closes it on us.
44:59So you know I think, but I absolutely agree, I think we've got a huge resource here of,
45:05we've got a huge resource of asset, we've got a huge resource of asset and knowledge
45:10within individuals and collectively within the people that farm and look after the land in
45:15Scotland, and we've got to use it and people have to listen to it, because it's informed,
45:21it has heritage behind it, which is also a hugely important thing, that would certainly be a case for
45:26from the society's point of view, that whole heritage element of innovation driving the
45:31society's charitable remit over all these years, vitally important. But yeah you know that would
45:38be the one ultimate challenge from an arable perspective, is our geographic location,
45:44but even as an Irishman I wouldn't want to live anywhere else but in Scotland.
45:48Yeah I think we should always remember that land is one of the few assets that can actually
45:54soak up carbon, one of the few assets that can actually draw carbon out of the atmosphere,
46:01and we need to actually understand how that happens, quantify it and understand how we can
46:06actually store more. So it's a huge storage area for carbon and that's something that people need
46:14to understand, land is an absolute, one of the few assets that can actually do that. So every
46:20other industry, what they use is a carbon emitter, whereas we actually take in and store carbon in
46:26the soil. We need to understand better how to do that, we need to understand better how to make
46:31sure we hold it once it's there, and what the capacity is, is the other great question which
46:36no one's 100% sure because we're right at the very beginning of this journey, we're only just
46:41starting to measure, never mind start to work out how you actually improve and speed that up. So
46:47I think the land-based industries have a tremendous opportunity to help solve
46:52the net zero problem, and we just have to work out and make sure we put the proper drivers in place
46:57and the proper incentives for farmers and land managers to go down the road that's open to us.
47:03Yeah, I suppose for me it's the challenge of the planet. We have country targets,
47:10we have Scotland targets, we have company supply chain targets, but actually it's a global challenge
47:15and we have a growing global population heading towards 10 billion. The Food and Agriculture
47:20Organization of the UN said we have to double food production by 2050, we're going to have protein
47:25shortages. Our climate change forecasts, even if you stick to the 1.5, are much more benign than
47:31they are elsewhere in the world. So Scotland is actually going to have to pull huge amounts to be
47:36able to deliver for the globe in terms of our production. But if we're hampered by our domestic
47:41net zero targets, that's going to be an issue. We have to look at this globally as a solution
47:47and Scotland will be well placed to be able to export food to deliver that food and protein
47:52for that global population, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It's about people interpreting
47:57all of those challenges and one of the things that the Royal Highlands Record Society of Scotland,
48:01where the Royal Highlands Show and the Education Trust, we've been at that for a long time, is
48:06bringing people together, having conversations like this and looking for solutions. George
48:10touched earlier about how many of our research bodies are well respected internationally and
48:16really value that science. We have great windows of opportunity to say these are our science
48:22credentials, these are the facts, these are our honest broker, back to Sarah's point there, of being
48:28globally important and becoming more so, not becoming an archipelago in the western side of
48:34Europe. And I think we need to be thinking as global Scots and how the agricultural community
48:39can make a difference to much greater challenges but also opportunities around the world,
48:45which to me sounds like agriculture is an exciting place to be rather than a historic
48:49backwater. So I'm really lifted by that opportunity but also by what the Royal Highlands
48:55Show brings for us to come together and have these discussions and then what we can debate next year.
49:01Thank you to our podcast guests and thank you for listening to Sustainable Scotland, produced by the
49:06Scotsman. This edition was delivered in partnership with the Royal Highlands and Agricultural Society
49:10of Scotland or RAS. Please listen out for and enjoy more episodes of Sustainable Scotland
49:15on all your main podcast platforms. This edition was presented by me,
49:18Rosemary Gallagher and produced by Andrew Mulligan.