Associate feature: Looking outward – the status quo is not an option in agriculture

'Rural Highland Champion' at the Royal Highland Show in 2017 - Image credit: Royal Highland Show

“I’m not a big fan of ‘educating’ people,” says Alan Laidlaw, chief executive of the Royal Highland & Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS). However, he is a big fan of discovery.

“If we let people discover things that they want to discover, ask questions with or in an open safe conversation, then that’s great for people to understand where their food comes from, and how that has an impact on our landscape.”

Provenance of food has a high profile currently, featuring in the advertising campaigns of several supermarkets, and it is easier than ever to find out about where food comes from, whether that’s through social media or asking questions in restaurants, and RHASS plays a key role in raising awareness.

This can be through initiatives such as science-led research, innovation in agriculture or the work of the Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET), which soon to celebrate its 20th birthday.

RHET works with the consumers and agriculturists of the future through school education, teacher training and engagement.

And one of the focuses this year is on promoting rural careers, which Laidlaw suggests could particularly appeal to millennials, as well as making the most of living in Scotland for people of any age.

He explains: “There’s quite a lot of chat about what a millennial wants from their career. They don’t just want to be a mouse pedalling a corporate wheel.

“And actually, production of food or protection of the environment or our rural economy is a much more worthwhile position to be in than many.

“And I see a lot of people excited. They want a balance, too. They love living in Scotland, but they often feel they’re isolated from what’s great about living in Scotland.

“So having a lot of careers available in agriculture means you can enjoy Scotland while working hard and producing something at the same time.”

He highlights that there are a wide variety of careers in the rural economy, from being a vet to journalism – it’s “not just driving a tractor” – and agriculture can be at the forefront of technology.

This could be monitoring cows from 200 miles away or using microsensors in fields to tell you whether crops need chemicals or water.

“If you look at technology developments for driverless cars, they tend to start in agriculture, go to F1 and then go into production, because it’s safer to try something in a field in rural areas than it is on a motorway,” he says.

Laidlaw also mentions an experiment by the Harper Adams University in Newport in Shropshire, called the ‘hands-free hectare’, which has electronically controlled equipment farming a hectare of land for a whole year.

Of course, the industry also faces challenges, including Brexit, and the Royal Highland Show provides a “safe place” to discuss these things, says Laidlaw.

“I often formulate my thoughts after I’ve spoken to other people with differing views.

“And that coming together at the show brings thought leadership in terms of engagement in different subjects, promoting innovation and encouraging young people to think about different ideas to tackle some of the difficult issues is vital.”

RHASS has been working in a number of different ways to support young farmers: through leadership development courses, supporting Nuffield scholars to look at the best science across the globe and helping young people to travel to different parts of the world, including sending two delegates to the Royal Agriculture Society of the Commonwealth conference in Canada this year.

“And that’s all about learning from others, because ultimately if we’re not in Europe, we’ll be trading with other people, we’ll have an interest in what other people are doing and I don’t want our members to feel like they’re isolated.

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“I want them to feel like they’re part of a network that can connect them to other things.”

And although the methods may have changed, this is a continuity of what RHASS has always done, as an “organisation founded by enlightened people who wanted to make sure that learning could travel across and around the industry”, proving innovation remains key.

“While Brexit is a challenge, Laidlaw says it must not be used as an excuse for inertia, and agricultural businesses need to be ready for change.

“With CAP or without CAP, with Brexit as an issue or not, it was going to change, the status quo wasn’t going to continue.

“And there’s quite a few voices out there saying the status quo shouldn’t continue, that farmers have to become more progressive and entrepreneurial.”

That is something the RHASS board is working on at the moment, how to support change and a mindset of being open to change.

At a conference in February on what’s needed for the future, “the audience was made up of largely the average age of a Scottish farmer, 58 or something like that, and the panel was sub-30,” Laidlaw says.

“And if you look at the Oxford Farming Conference – they’re having a debate at the Royal Highland Show this year – and again, in the Year of Young People, they’ve got, I think, an entirely sub-30 panel, which is great.

“And there’s room for both. We’ve got the enthusiasm of youth and the knowledge and wisdom of experience.”

Key priorities for the near future include the “application of sound science” to allay people’s concerns about their food.

Laidlaw explains: “You need to be able to say, ‘This is where your food comes from. This is what we’re doing. And this is why it’s robust.’

“And I think that’s really important. So you know when you part with your hard-earned cash that this is good food, that this is safe food, that the way Scotland produces food is good.

“And if you buy as local as you can, and you ask the right questions about your suppliers, you’re buying a quality product.”

The Royal Highland Show plays a key part in that, allowing people to come face-to-face with producers and ask questions.

“Where better a place will you get if you’re interested in that to come and speak to people?” says Laidlaw.

“You can touch your food. You can speak to the people that produce it. You can ask those questions. You can engage. You can explore new foods.

“I think again, it’s back to that discovery piece. People can wander round the show and absorb as much or as little of Scottish agriculture as they want.

“They can drift past a Highland cow and go, ‘Wasn’t that cute,’ or they can engage with it and say, ‘Isn’t that cute and by the way, it’s produced on a sustainable basis and actually, the carbon footprint of that high-quality beef being produced from low-quality fodder that we can’t eat is really good news’.

“It’s a huge event. It’s a celebration of agriculture but also, it’s an opportunity for the industry to come together. The value to the economy is huge – £55-£60 million worth of value created in four days.

“We have a 1,000 organisations that are doing ‘business’ at the show in their different ways.

“That might be selling combines, showing cattle or sheep, selling fish or whisky or gin, and many of them talk about relationships that are informally struck up and they don’t know where they’re going and then 18 months later someone phones up and says, ‘I saw your product at the Royal Highland Show and I’d love you to supply this supermarket or this big contract’.

“It’s about making those links, and at the end of the day, you don’t know what will come out of being at the Royal Highland Show.

“The turnover of our society is only £8 million, but in that one event we create £55 million worth of value for the Scottish economy.

“And then through the rest of the year, the Royal Highland Centre creates £250 million-plus and growing.

“So I think we punch above our weight. We’ve probably in the past been reticent to say that. We’ve hidden our light at times.

“When I was asked about the organisation when I joined 18 months ago, I was hugely excited, and I still am. There’s so much opportunity in the sector.”