Alasdair Macnab shares his worries for the industry

So it is in our lives as land managers. Who minds the gap there? What has brought this tangent to my thinking?

A significant role of NFU Scotland is responding to government consultations including recently a consultation on proposals to amend the rules on river basin management plans. This includes water quality management, controlling diffuse pollution, issues with water supply and waste water and ensuring resilient rural land use and management. Have you spotted the gap yet?

All things in life go through a process. Getting off the train is a process which we can all work out and draw a diagram to work out what we do and where the risks are. So it should be with all that we as land managers and members of our communities are involved in.

For example, protecting water from diffuse pollution, for example, involves a process of containing the risk of chemical spillage, systems of mixing and the processes of cleaning out sprayers and containers to avoid pollution.

I have recently been involved with flooding issues in the river basin which terminates at my farm. At the head is a loch with a dam. This used to be the water supply for the local area and was superceded by another supply in the 1940s. The dam on the loch is now looked after by Scottish Water as reservoir manager. However they are not responsible for determining and controlling the level of the loch. Hmm, here we have a gap.

We have had a number of flash floods over the last 20 years culminating in extensive damage to my raised river embankments and several properties in the village. Farms further up the catchment had roads washed away and other flood damage done. We are looking at how this happened, what can be done to mitigate the impact of future flash floods which we are told will become more common and who should take the lead role.

Guess what? We had a meeting which involved the statutory bodies responsible for dealing with water and flooding. Guess what? Yes you have it in one. None of them have a responsibility for identifying the sources of and promoting action to reduce the impact of flooding.

Each of them had a ‘get out of jail’ card. To be fair climate change, flash flooding and mitigation is a new territory for discussion for statutory bodies. Indeed that something could and should be done was on their radar, the how becomes a problem when it is not in their remit.

An estimate for a survey of the river basin to identify the sources and routes for rapid run off, whether measures could be put in place to reduce the rate of run-off and how they could be funded was costed at about £10,000. Not one statutory body had room for that in their budget or offered to contribute something towards a study.

Identifying where rapid run-off comes from and implementing methods of reducing or delaying it is a huge gap in Scotland’s climate change mitigation planning. So is not having an official body to take the lead on such an important issue.

NFUS Highland branch met with local MSPs recently. I asked that given predicted sea level rises will wipe out most of Scotland’s highly productive low lying farmland in the next 50 years, what plans do Scottish Government have to protect the affected land and property. There was a sea (pardon the pun) of blank faces.

Jamie Halcrow Johnston MSP enlightened us. This issue is not even on the Scottish Government’s radar. Another gap with potentially serious consequences for feeding this country come a time when a significant area of higher ground may well be planted in trees. Is there any future planning going on? Who should be taking the lead on it?

When I worked in government there was, and probably still is, a culture of gaining ‘quick wins’. This is the process of doing a few things to send a message that something is being done but leaves the hard decisions to another day and hopefully someone else’s responsibility.

It is difficult at times, in fact more often than not, to understand what the government’s intentions really are in relation to climate change. There are so many gaps and nothing seems to be joined up or thought through.

Take tree planting, a great idea with alleged potential massive benefits in carbon capture. Trees grow and mop up the excess carbon in the atmosphere, improve diversity etc. Yet, I heard last week that the Drax power station burns the equivalent of 130% of the annual UK tree production each year. Much of this is wood imported from the USA.

I also hear that a distillery in Scotland burns an artic load of logs every hour round the clock for most of the year. Is there a gap in the thinking here?

The news tells me Tesco is pushing the government to consider introducing insects as a source of protein for animal feed. What will be the unintended consequence of that? Why is this being considered when there already alternatives out there? What could fill this gap?

Is there anything producing greenhouse gas emissions that could feed animals? Yes, and it is very cheap. Its waste food which worldwide produces 1.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions particularly methane, the reason civil servants suggested culling Scottish cattle.

Given that 1½% of greenhouse gas emissions come from waste food should we not be looking at reducing food waste and making better use of waste food such as for feeding pigs?

Prior to foot-and-mouth 2001, we practised swill feeding in the pig industry. It was stopped because an operator was not complying with the rules to prevent disease and failures in the inspection system missed malpractice. The thinking at the time was the gap had to be closed rather than sorted.

Times and situations have changed dramatically in 20 years. There is still a risk from foot-and-mouth disease and from swine fever. There always has been and always will be.

Consider that almost all waste food originates in built up areas; local authority managed swill plants could be set up thus ensuring all waste food was properly cooked under official control. This could then be taken in tankers to pig units and fed.

This approach would produce income for Local Authorities, use vast amounts of waste food currently going to landfill, go a long way to meeting methane reduction targets and produce a very cheap, proven and efficient feedstuff. No quick wins, but big wins. I suggest swill feeding needs to be revisited and reviewed in light of climate change and the drive to net zero. It will meet with resistance but remember it ran with few problems up to 2001.

NFUS has worked hard over the last few years to develop policy ideas which help government develop suitable policies. We need folk to come forward with ideas, concepts and thinking to fill the gap. Government, and civil servants as we have seen with the proposal to cut Scotland’s cattle herd by a quarter are after quick wins What do quick wins get? Votes and careers, but not a future.

Long term thinking will need to come from us in the industry with sound ideas and science being promoted by sectors and groups. We need to find the gaps and fill them, our way, to safeguard what generations have built up. We cannot allow our industry to be sacrificed to short term thinking. As an industry we need to continue to show leadership, critical thinking, that we are prepared to change and develop as we always have.

The land managers’ voice was not being heard until Jeremy Clarkson got involved. Why did it take that? What lessons can we learn from this? The public want to be informed. Who better to inform than us? Good question!

As land managers we need to start getting more closely involved with our local communities and councils, becoming elected to and working with them to make sure our voice in the future of Scotland is heard. What better role for our new generation farmers to get involved with and influence other communities and fill this gap in our armoury and secure a farming future in Scotland?