Scotland’s top civil servants would rather see 300,000 of the country’s cattle shot than support an industry-endorsed plan to cut food chain carbon emissions through efficiency.

Members of the farmer-led groups enlisted by rural economy cabinet secretary, Fergus Ewing, to help him formulate Scotland’s future agricultural policy have described the ‘bizarre’ scenario where, although their proposals have been welcomed and endorsed by both Mr Ewing, and his boss First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the unelected civil servants charged with putting them into practice have since flatly refused to do so.

Jim Walker, who co-chaired the farmer-led Suckler Beef Climate Group with Mr Ewing himself, has been characteristically vocal about the situation, laying the blame squarely at the door of Liz Ditchburn, the Director General for Economy in the Scottish Civil Service, who he bluntly claimed ‘didn’t like farmers’ and didn’t believe that the farmer-led policy would work.

Her preference to cut Scotland’s carbon emissions was, alleged Mr Walker, an across-the-board cut in livestock numbers, and for the beef herd, a rapid reduction from 1.2m animals to 900,000 head.

“A suckler climate scheme was a ScotGov commitment and after 15 months of work, that scheme was ready to go,” said Mr Walker. “It had Fergus Ewing’s backing and he told us it had Nicola Sturgeon’s backing. The aim was for it to be announced in March just there, ahead of the election shutdown.

“The substance of what was agreed was to use the existing vehicle of the beef calf scheme to get carbon auditing started, alongside animal health and welfare plans, on-farm soil sampling, forage and manure analysis, towards nutrient management plans, and biodiversity audits – get this all up and running and get farmers onboard,” he explained.

“We had the spare Bew money to underpin it, and it would have paid £150 a calf, for the first 20 calves and £60 or £70 a calf after that. To their credit, the RPID staff were happy with it, and ready to implement it. Then Ms Ditchburn said ‘no’ and blocked it,” claimed Mr Walker.

“There is a belief at the top of the civil service that phasing out of red meat is the fast road to carbon reduction for Scotland – but folk would just keep eating it, and we’d be exporting those emissions to Ireland and Brazil. I have never before seen a situation where civil servants have so openly defied ministerial instruction.

“The only way the suckler climate scheme as we envisaged it can go ahead is if, after the election, Fergus gets returned to that post and orders the civil service to execute it – or if the people responsible for blocking his orders are removed from post.”

As The SF went to press, a well-placed source at Holyrood said: “Everything that Jim Walker has to say on this is true.”

SCBG member, Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland chief executive, Neil Wilson, corroborated Mr Walker’s account of the civil service effectively ignoring a direct order from Fergus Ewing.

“From the outset, Mr Ewing was pretty clear with us that what he wanted out of the Farmer Led Group was the framework of a scheme that could be in place early this year, and that was the basis on which everyone really put in the work to make it happen,” said Mr Wilson.

“To see all that time and effort shoved on a shelf because a couple of civil servants really do not like agriculture seems totally and utterly bizarre to me. They are meant to be there to implement the policies of government in a manner that is sympathetic and understanding of the people those policies will affect – but that is not what we are seeing here.

“Instead, they turned round and said ‘we think this can only be done by getting rid of quite a lot of cows – it was like ‘pick a number, any number’, and this arbitrary figure of 300,000 head came up, without any notion of how that could actually be done, or what wider effects it would have on all the businesses and communities tied into the Scottish beef sector,” recalled Mr Wilson.

“Who is going to announce that the government wants to shoot 300,000 cows? I’m baffled. It is real ‘Yes Minister’ stuff – totally separate from reality.”

In an effort to look past this Spring’s bureaucratic roadblock, NFU Scotland president Martin Kennedy called on the post-election Scottish Government to ‘build on the momentum’ created by the Farmer Led Groups and work collaboratively with the industry to deliver the ‘absolutely achievable’ goals that had been laid out before them.

“Jim Walker’s point on there being many previous reports and documents effectively sitting on a shelf gathering stoor is absolutely correct,” said Mr Kennedy. “This must not happen to the FLG reports. What has been missing until now is ‘how’ to deliver change for the industry. The FLGs are showing the ‘how’ and the Suckler Beef implementation group in particular was well on the way to having a ready to go scheme before the Scottish Parliament shut down for the elections.

“It would be a disastrous decision, wholly unacceptable to our industry, were any option to be put forward by Scottish Government that involved cutting cow numbers by 300,000 as a solution to tackle climate change,” stressed the union president. “That lack of vision, ambition and understanding would be a complete disaster from a livestock point of view, and have a massive knock-on impact on our cereal sector given the volumes of grain grown for feed. The interdependency between agricultural sectors in Scotland should never be underestimated.

“Critical mass is something that is rarely understood by those who make proposals and decisions,” he added. “Markets, abattoirs, and processors need to run at almost capacity to remain viable. If you take a spoke out of the wheel, it will collapse and an iconic brand, like Scotch Beef will be lost. Any proposal to cut cow numbers would ignore the importance of producing high quality sustainable food on our doorstep, and simply see us import our food from other parts of the world where climate change and the environment isn’t even on the agenda.” The publication this week of the SNP's manifesto for re-election offered some hope for Messrs Walker, Wilson and Kennedy, as it explicitly promised that, if returned to power, its agri-policy would be 'guided by the recommendations of the farmer-led groups'.

However, an official ScotGov spokesperson rejected Mr Walker's specific claims about Ms Ditchburn as ‘without foundation’:

"The Scottish Government has been clear that it will work with the farming sector to achieve the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as set out in the Climate Change Plan Update including the required reduction from agriculture, which was agreed by the Scottish Cabinet and laid before the Scottish Parliament," said the spokesperson.

“As we have previously said, the Scottish Government is currently analysing the reports from the farmer led groups. Any decision on next steps is a matter for future Scottish Government Ministers. It is the duty of civil servants to provide honest, impartial and accurate advice to Ministers to assist them in their decision making. Civil servants have acted properly throughout this process, entirely in keeping with their obligation under the Civil Service Code.

"In addition, the Director General for Economy is directly accountable to the Scottish Parliament for the proper use of public funds. Contrary to the assertions made by Mr Walker the proposals under development by the Suckler Beef Climate Implementation Board, referred to by Mr Walker, were not yet at a stage where that assurance could be given. Ultimately decisions to proceed or otherwise with public policy always lie with Ministers.”