Enabling Ultra-low Emissions Farming and Crofting

That the Parliament commends what it sees as the efforts being made across the farming sector to respond to the climate emergency, including by those involved in the Farming for 1.5 inquiry, the Soil Regenerative Agriculture Group, the National Test Programme and the Nature Friendly Farming Network; considers that part of the transition to a net zero nation will involve eating and producing more local fruit and vegetables and less, but local and high quality, meat and dairy; believes that the eligibility criteria for the current Basic Payment Scheme disincentivise farmers and crofters from growing food on land without livestock; notes reports that several land managers would like to focus wholly on horticulture and ecosystem restoration, but must keep some livestock in order to receive subsidies; highlights the case of crofter Gina Bates in Sutherland who, it understands, resorted to crowdfunding for the Highlands' first plant protein croft, and believes that the Basic Payment Scheme would better align with Scotland’s carbon and methane reduction targets if the requirements for Payment Regions Two and Three were brought into line with Payment Region One, in which food can be grown, produced or reared without the requirement to maintain livestock.