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You also said earlier, however, that we cannot face a cliff edge, so we need to do this gradually and fit it in—you and I know that farmers are not the quickest to respond to the things that we are trying to get done. Is there a balance between making sure that we are not facing that cliff edge but, at the same time, allowing farmers to adopt the practices?

I have one very quick supplementary on that.

I would like to ask about the opportunities in the future rural policy to improve farm incomes and competitiveness. I am bearing in mind one of the things that you said earlier about consumers being squeezed at one end and farmers being squeezed at the other, with a big chunk in the middle. Can the policy affect that? Is the policy a vehicle to do that, or do we need to get the supermarkets in this room to ask them how they are going to pay more to farmers and charge less to consumers?

You touched on two things earlier: one was the cost of producing broccoli in Fife and the other was about berries. In my area, in Perthshire, a long-established berry farm has simply pulled the berries out of the ground—we are talking about blueberries here; a high-quality food, a super food. At the moment, it seems that we are undermining the ability of these unsupported sections of the industry to be able to produce the kinds of food that we want our population to eat, while, at the same time, producers are being squeezed, either through labour shortages as a result of Brexit or through the power of supermarkets to bring produce in more cheaply from Peru, for example, which means that the price that our producers will get is so low that it is no longer sustainable.

That comes back to a point that I made earlier. Although we are trying to do many things with this bill, we are missing some areas. We are focusing on this bill but we are missing areas where we should be doing a lot more for the country and for our producers because of stuff that is effectively outside our control.

Welcome to the committee, Jonnie.

Before I turn to the opportunities for the farming community from policy reform, I want to ask about your survey. You said that the highest level of anxiety was about future support. The Scottish Government has said:

“no matter what Westminster does the Government in Scotland will maintain direct payments and support our nation’s producers.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2023; c 25.]

I would like to reflect on that. Do you have concerns about what future funding will look like? Ultimately, if, whatever policy we deliver, there is security of funding for future payments, where is the anxiety coming from? Is it the lack of certainty about future payments, is it the lack of direction from the Scottish Government, or is it both?

I said earlier that I think that the policy is going in exactly the right direction at the moment. I think that the consultations will iron out all those points. Other people are saying that we are going in the wrong direction, for this, that and the other reason. Do you feel that we are in a relatively good place to steer the bill to where it needs to be?

I just plucked that figure off the top of my head. As somebody who used to receive calf payments, I would say that, if we are to reduce the number of cows as we are being told, that would be the only way to do it.

My apologies. I have taken up too much time already.

I want to follow up the point that you made about tier 1 and tier 2 support. I think that we would recognise that there are opportunities to tackle the issues with climate change, biodiversity loss and all the rest of it, but we have to be able to farm viably. I have a concern—you might or might not be able to allay it—that in the proposals that we are considering, we are trying to do too much with a single pot of money, which will have to stretch much further than it needs to. Is that a genuine concern or can we manage that?

I want to pursue that a little bit further, Ross. As someone who used to graze hill cattle, I am absolutely in favour of ensuring that we have coos on the hill. I used to get LFASS support, and I just want to put it on record that I would much rather have seen much bigger payments. If LFASS support is to be increased to encourage low-intensity cattle farming, is any consideration also being given to maintaining critical mass so that we have the numbers of calves needed to keep the industry working? I keep on asking that question, but it keeps getting skipped over. One cannot survive without the other.