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I want to go back to something that George Burgess said. We are continuing the scheme, which is to do with the fact that English producers could access the Scottish budget. That is not catastrophic, but it is concerning that they could tap into the budget. However, there is an exclusivity in the programme, because market gardeners or direct-to-sales people cannot get into the schemes.

George Burgess spoke about the requirements for a £1 million turnover and for a minimum of five producer organisations. I think that there is also a requirement to contribute 100 per cent, or at least 75 per cent, of your production to the producer organisation. If you have a direct-to-sales set up and already sell direct to your customers, that will not work for you.

People are trying to access the funding, because it provides the support around production planning, quality improvement, and so on that would help them to develop and grow. However, they cannot access that because the producer organisation requirement does not fit their business model. More and more people are selling direct to the market or are small-scale market gardeners who produce locally. I know that the minister is very fond of farmers’ markets in Scotland, as he was involved in setting up the first one.

We have the design of an SSI. The minister is saying that the scheme is working for the three POs that support a number of farmers, but it is excluding many other people who are doing the best that they can and are struggling with climate and nature challenges. They also feeding people in Scotland; they are involved in the good food nation resilience that we really need. For me, that is the issue.

I also want to flag up the implication that, if you are not in a PO, you do not want to collaborate; I do not think that that is true. Some small producers cannot be in producer organisations and are incredibly collaborative. Some are in parts of Scotland where the geography makes it difficult to collaborate in some of the ways that POs would ask of them. I hear the need to pass the SSI, but I am concerned about why we are hurrying to do so. If there are existing contracts and the existing POs are okay for another 18 months or so—

That was revelatory. It also added more confusion, in a way. There is possibly something else going on here as well. There are a couple of different needs for the agricultural budget. There are people who want to produce food that feeds people in Scotland—to produce it locally and direct to sale and all that—and there are producer organisations. My research shows that a small percentage of what those organisations grow feeds people in Scotland—the rest goes for export south of the border and, potentially, elsewhere.

I wonder whether we need to acknowledge that there are two different strands: there is a commodity side to agriculture and food production that is producing for export further afield, and there is the good food nation approach whereby we need to support those local producers, so that when climate change and nature breakdown hit, people in the islands or other rural communities can get food that is locally produced.

Can you give us a timescale? Saying that you are actively looking at it does not build confidence .

I concur with Tim Eagle’s points. I am going to vote no in this case and try to bottom out more information and more understanding. However, between now and the SSI coming to the chamber, I would like to get assurances from the minister on action that supports other people. We are talking about small producers, but, in this context, we are talking about vegetable and fruit producers. They are all professional and very capable of producing food.

I will pick up on the convener’s question about the three POs. How long do their existing contracts run for? When do they expire?

The pressure is not to do with those POs running out of funding at the end of their contracts. Rather, it is to do with the idea that growers outwith Scotland could access the scheme.

I feel as though I have been talking about the pilot fund for years, and small-scale producers tell me that they feel that the process has been dragging on, that the money has not come through and that it is not an appropriate fund.

I also want to understand the scale of the producers that are in producer organisations. Will you talk about that?

What do you mean by small scale? Sometimes, people talk about a small-scale farm and it turns out to be 70 hectares.

I have a question about timing and access. We have heard from stakeholders who are concerned that, if we pass the SSI, that could prevent new producer organisations from applying for funding until 2030, effectively freezing access during a period when we really need to expand domestic fruit and veg production. I would be interested to hear any assurances that you can give to small producers that the SSI will not entrench exclusion or delay meaningful support while a redesign is considered.

I want to pick up on a number of things. I remind us all that we are talking about the climate change plan and about what the committee can recommend that the Government needs to do—one question is what we can recommend on your behalf. If people pulled their answers back to what needs to change in the plan in general, that would be super.

On the car share piece that Clare Wharmby brought up, the Government’s just transition transport plan says that it wants more car shares, but I was involved in a car share scheme that had to wind up a year ago in October for insurance reasons. Craig Hatton talked about physical infrastructure, such as the grid, but we need to ensure that other kinds of infrastructure are in place so that we can carry out the climate change plan.

Another thing that has been sitting with me in the conversation, which Craig Hatton touched on, is the idea that social care is with us, whereas people are just starting to get climate change. However, climate change is with us. I am a member of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee and I know that, if you come into contact with farmers or people who work on the land, they are really seeing the flooding, drought and wildfires—they are at the front end of that. That is filtering through, and more people are understanding that we are in the midst of a climate emergency—it is here with us.

Clare Wharmby talked about the need to involve communities that are getting left behind, but a bit of a message seems to be entering this space that we do not need to deal with net zero, yet all of us who are in this room today and all the people you are representing today understand that we absolutely need to deal with it.

I will ask a general question before we move on to specific policy areas. In your responses to the next questions, will you give your thinking on how we can support the Scottish Government to run with this? I do not know whether this might involve the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service, but what do we need to do to bring more people on board with recognising that we are in the midst of climate change? It is not starting—we are in it and we should have been taking action 30 years ago. The situation is so difficult now because we are having to act all of a sudden. In my region, Highland Council is dealing with so many wind farm applications, and people are—understandably—distressed by the intensity of what needs to happen.