Seòmar agus comataidhean

Can I ask another very quick question?

Yes. How widely have you distributed your paper, and how well has it been received? Specifically, if it is accepted, is it usable as a public health measure?

Will your paper lead to those tests being a more usable public health measure?

Yes, I accept that.

I have a very quick question. I assume that we are talking about eggs in the shell rather than liquid or powdered eggs.

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?