Growth Ambitions
1. How we will… reduce our carbon emissions by 75% and manage our land to benefit nature
“Quality assurance is the bridge between consumer and producer and gives integrity to the products we sell”
We will achieve this through the following Key Focus Areas
(click each focus area to find out more)
Scotland is the natural home of beef production. We boast an ideal climate, with native grassland pastures, plus cattle breeds such as the Aberdeen Angus, whose genetics underpin the entire global beef industry.
Progress towards achieving net zero has been stagnant. Emissions levels have not moved much in the past 10 years and although the performance of the leading 10% of producers has continually improved, the gap has widened between them and the bottom 50% of producers. Production cycles of around three years from conception to consumption within the beef industry mean that most farmers will have only eight livestock production cycles between now and the net zero target in 2045. We must also remember that climate change itself will impact where and how we can produce protein globally. Scotland, with its natural resource base of grasslands, is fuelled by a climate that contains a natural abundance of rainfall which means that we can be resilient to that changing climate, and that future protein production is ideally suited to the resource base that Scotland has.
Through an industry-wide consultation that ran during the spring of 2021, those in the beef sector voiced their opinions on where they see the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) relating to net zero.
These are summarised in the table below:
Strengths
- Scotland’s primary production base is centred around grassland and forage-based systems that utilise local resources in an effective circular economy.
- Scotland is home to world-leading land-based and livestock production research institutes that are working to help practitioners globally better understand how mitigation strategies can be applied to reduce the greenhouse gasses associated with livestock production.
- The Scottish Agricultural Industry has united behind the Farmer-led Groups’ approach to delivering changes that can meet the ambitions set out in the Scottish Government's Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2018.
- Scotland has been a world pioneer in whole of supply chain, whole of life Quality Assurance Standards and has a high uptake and coverage within the Scottish industry.
Opportunities
- Through the uptake of proven technologies, there is scope to reduce the carbon footprint of the Scottish beef industry by around 30%.
- Increasing the collaboration between different sectors within Scottish agriculture, including arable and dairy, provides an opportunity to increase the amount of beef produced, processed and sold from Scotland.
- Through the application of the recommendations in the Suckler Beef Climate Report and the Dairy Sector Climate Group, there is an opportunity to undertake a just transition of the Scottish suckler beef supply chain and the dairy beef supply chain over the next 10 years.
- Targeted changes in land use, including increasing uptake of agroforestry and peatland restoration within actively managed agricultural businesses.
Weaknesses
- Low levels of profitability throughout the supply chain leading to a lack of investment and a reduction in the sector’s capacity to change.
- Fragmented supply chain and range of production systems based on a range of breeds of cattle.
- Consolidated processing sector that is mainly aligned to key retailers.
- No clear pathway to net zero for the Scottish red meat industry as a singular supply chain.
- ‘Knowledge Exchange’ initiatives have tended to reach a relatively small proportion of people who could benefit and often never reach those who need them most.
- The market does not sufficiently reward for increased costs of production associated in some cases with changing production practices.
- The Scotch brand does not offer any clear link via the Assurance Standards to carbon neutrality and sustainability.
Threats
- Continued low uptake by primary producers of proven technologies to reduce emissions.
- Loss of natural resource base from large-scale land use change, reducing the capacity of the Scottish livestock sector to provide a critical mass of livestock to maintain the processing infrastructure.
- Consumers switching to plant-based alternatives is decreasing the demand for Scottish beef.
The next eight years need to involve transformative change both on the farm and within the wider Scottish beef supply chain if we are to meet both our legislative targets and consumers’ expectations about how they want their red meat produced.
The Scottish Government’s commitment to net zero by 2045 requires a cut in on-farm greenhouse gas emissions from a baseline of 7MtCO2e in 2020 to 5.3 MtCO2e by 203210.
We must also prime the research and innovation that needs to take place to make the jump to net zero by 2045.
Additionally, the Scottish Government’s Statement of Intent for Biodiversity, published in December 2020, underlines the Government’s intention to take action to benefit nature – a separate issue from climate change11.
We know this is a big challenge, but we see this as an opportunity to demonstrate the role that the Scottish cattle sector can play in the climate solution and as an integral element of the circular economy. By taking a supply chain approach, we can link up the commercial advantage this gives us, using it to ensure greater value is added to the Scottish beef industry.
We need to approach net zero as a united industry and embark on a journey together. To do that, we need to start with credible, available and accepted industry baselines.