Seòmar agus comataidhean

The question is for Professor Fernandes. It is maybe a nerdy question, because I know absolutely nothing about fisheries. You said that there has been a large increase in hake and a huge decrease in cod. From the debates that I have been listening to, I know that that is disputed. Do the hake swim in the same waters as the cod? If they do, why are their numbers going up while cod numbers, according to the scientists, are going down?

As a former farmer, when I hear witnesses talking about what farmers have to do, I find some of these discussions pretty frustrating. First, I would like to know what you understand farmers already do. That is possibly the point that Rachael Hamilton picked up.

Dr Helaina Black, you talked about reducing the amount of fertiliser that is used. Recently, I visited a farm that is now doing precision drilling, so a computer tells them how much fertiliser to use. It used to be the case that you would splatter 3 hundredweight of NPK across the whole field. Now, it is all done by GPS, so you will use 4 hundredweight in one part, 1 hundredweight in another, nothing in another, 5 hundredweight in another, and so on. In that way, the field is fertilised to the exact extent needed, which gives you the maximum yield with the minimum amount of input. Fertiliser is very expensive—it costs more than £600 a tonne right now—so farmers do not want to waste it.

Then there is the use of glyphosate, which I know is controversial. The land gets eaten to the board, then you spray off the old grass and direct drill it with a crop after it has been fertilised by livestock over a number of years. We call that “regenerative farming”—I just call it “farming”, because it has been done for generations. I would like to understand where the dichotomy has come from: farmers are being demonised for producing good-quality food in a sustainable way and they are being demonised for doing what they have always done. I would like to get a better understanding of that.

I have more of a point than a question. You are talking about restricting the number of dogs to be brought over. I would just urge that, when you have conversations with the Dogs Trust this afternoon, you are cognisant of the fact that people who have dogs as working companions, such as shepherds, keepers and guys like that, will often have at least five dogs. Shepherds travel a lot between Ireland and Scotland for work. It is just to make sure that there is a provision in the regulations that enables them to do that.

On tail docking, it is absolutely essential that working dogs that are going to ground or under cover have a shorter tail, for their own welfare. You will have seen the evidence in the past of dogs that are working with big waggy tails going through undergrowth and coming out with them shredded. You might be aware of that, but I just wanted to point it out.

My very brief question is probably for Kevin Matheson. What would the potential threats be to our industry if we were importing eggs from another country?

I think that you have just answered my next question. Are the hake pushing out the cod?

First, I want to come back on one or two of the points that have been made. Growing mixed combinable crops has been done for years—for example, grass can be sown with barley. Various things are already happening in agriculture. I will re-emphasise the point that you are all making, as it needs to be clarified. The farmers are already ahead of the game—they are doing stuff because they want to, and because they want to hand their farms on to the next generation. There needs to be far more cognisance of that among both the public and the scientific community.

I will move on to the role of livestock in global sustainable food systems, considering both climate change and biodiversity and what the conversations around eating less meat and dairy mean for livestock farming. To come back to a point that came up when we talked about sustainability in the earlier session on the marine environment, how is Scotland’s system different from the global system? There is a misapprehension in that respect that we need to get past. Perhaps I can go to Marc Metzger on that first.

I will, first, give the healthcare sector my personal thanks. Members of my family are currently using various aspects of the service or working in it.

The witnesses have given us a huge amount to think about today. I know that we have only four minutes left, but any one of us on the committee could have used up the full 85 minutes trying to get through the massive number of questions that we have.

I will not ask any wee, pointed questions. The biggest issue for me is the compulsory vaccination requirement that the NHS in England is bringing in. Would that sort of move be accepted in Scotland? I know that Dr Macaskill has just answered that question, but I wonder what Dr Buist and Mr Morrison feel about it.

In the interests of time, I will leave it there, convener. There is no danger of our being able to get into anything substantive.

Once again, gentlemen, thank you for the service that we have received. I know that it has been a hellishly difficult time for all of you. That is not a platitude—I mean it quite sincerely.

On labelling, I want to make a point rather than ask a question. It takes six seconds for a consumer to see a product and decide to put it in their basket. At a meeting that I was at last night, there was talk of labelling for environmental, welfare, hygiene and nutritional standards. With the amount of labelling that we are looking at, people are going to need five hours a day to do their shopping. It is a real issue and we need to find a solution to it.

With regard to the relationship with the EU, following his appearance before the committee on 29 September, Simon Turner has told the committee that there might

“be merit in the creation of a Scottish Animal Welfare Reference Centre”,

given that, having come out of the EU, we have lost access to its notification system. Is there merit in establishing such a centre to support the commission’s work by bringing together the literature and

“identifying research gaps and research needs”?

What is your view on animal welfare regulation being made at the UK level? Are there any implications for the engagement of Scottish stakeholders in having UK-wide legislation on devolved areas?