The Scottish Government

• The Scottish Government is most grateful to members of the Agriculture and Climate Change Stakeholder Group for their thorough and constructive report and fully agree that Scottish agriculture must play its part in taking action on climate change, as well as seizing the opportunities that this presents.
• The Scottish Government will be taking forward action based on the recommendations.
• The Scottish Government will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure that the important messages from this report are widely disseminated - beginning with presentations at the Royal Highland Show 2008.

A1. On-going developments in UK-level scenarios, and projections for climate change must be monitored. Existing research to interpret these within and across Scotland must be updated and extended to more sites.

A1 - A3 are important recommendations on research and development needs. We will take them forward, recognising that there is also an urgent need for action and that some decisions will need to be taken on the basis of incomplete information.

A2 is already underway; the Scottish Government is involved with work to improve methodology with DEFRA and other Devolved Administrations.

A2. The methodological basis for estimating and reporting agricultural emissions must be improved to more accurately reflect the baseline and on-going sectoral position.

A3. Further research must be conducted within the Scottish context to identify and cost both adaptation and mitigation options, to assess their individual practicalities and their relative cost-effectiveness rankings.

B1. Better integration between currently separate policy themes such as agriculture, forestry, deer management, flooding and biodiversity - all of which are linked to land use and require some degree of spatial co-ordination and co-operation across different parcels of land and therefore different farms - must be pursued.

We agree. As a first step, the Scottish Government intends to organise a Land Use Summit to debate the issue of how best Scotland's rural land can contribute to sustainable economic growth in the 21st century. An important aspect of this will be consideration of how we ensure that rural land contributes to tackling climate change.

B2. Recent experience of incentive schemes under Pillar II of the CAP and of regulatory controls under (especially) Nitrogen Vulnerable Zones or the Water Framework Directive must be used as a guide to how best to encourage Scottish land managers to respond to climate change.

Through the Scotland Rural Development Programme ( SRDP), there are a number of measures aimed at using Pillar II of the CAP to encourage land managers to respond climate change. These include: provision and upgrading of infrastructure; manure/slurry storage and treatment; renewable energy; micro-enterprises; diversification; woodland creation and management; short rotation coppice; management and restoration of lowland raised bogs; wetland management; arable reversion to grassland; and organic farming. Further details are available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Rural/SRDP/RuralPriorities

These measures will be kept under review in the light of early experience in handling applications and increased understanding of how best address climate change challenges. Any necessary modifications to the SRDP will be submitted to the European Commission.

At present climate change is being addressed largely through pillar II ( SRDP) measures rather than through regulation or market based instruments, but we will keep this under review. As part of the forthcoming consultation on the CAP Health Check, there will be an opportunity for stakeholders to comment on cross-compliance measures.

The characteristics of agriculture make emissions permit trading more challenging for this sector than for others; however the use of market mechanisms will be kept under review.

B3. The scope for modifying Scottish Rural Development Programme measures and funding and/or enhancing cross-compliance to better control net emissions must be explored. For the longer-term, attention needs to be paid to designing market mechanisms to promote mitigation.

C1. Farmers and other land managers need to be aware of the potential positive and negative influences of climate change and adjust their business practices accordingly.

These recommendations are welcomed.

As a first step the Scottish Government is publishing the Agriculture and Climate Change Stakeholder Group report on its web-site. In addition, the Royal Highland Show 2008 will be used as an opportunity to disseminate information about practical action that can be taken, and to hold seminars to promote engagement with a wider group of stakeholders and the industry. The Stakeholder Group included representative bodies, advisers and research institutions - and they also have a major role to play in helping to disseminate the messages from this report and promote action.

C2. Farmers and other land managers need to contribute to mitigation of the anthropogenic drivers of climate change and to helping wider society adapt to climate change.

C3. Representative industry bodies at all stages of the supply-chain need to acknowledge the challenges and opportunities of climate change - including sectoral responsibilities - and then to help shape and guide collective and proportionate responses in collaboration with government, research institutions and other stakeholders.

C4. Some of the most important measures that land managers can take to mitigate climate change or adapt to its impact on the environment are likely to be more effective if they are taken collaboratively, acting together at the landscape or catchment scale.

This is accepted. Evidence of a collaborative approach at landscape or catchment scale will be a selection criteria in assessing competitive applications under the SRDP Rural Priority measures.

D1. Consistent and key messages must be agreed and methods for communicating them to different target audiences identified. This should be informed by professional communication experts.

These are also important recommendations. Key messages will be presented at the Royal Highland Show 2008, and the seminars at the Show will be used to consider how best to take forward positive action on communications.

D2. Established communication channels - such as codes of practice, newsletters, trade-shows and seminars - should be exploited as communication mechanisms for general information.

D3. More focussed, bespoke, interactive, facilitated communication approaches require to be adopted. A number of the recommendations will require not only communication and advice using conventional approaches but also a more interactive approach. Such an approach needs to engage farmers in determining solutions that are relevant to their operations and for which they take responsibility and ownership.