Last November, I was honoured to be asked to lead the 2025 RHASS Presidency team as it was Strathclyde areas turn to hold the Presidency.

Although I have been a member of RHASS for many years, I was not clear how the rotating Presidency worked or what role it played.

The first Highland Show in 1822 was held in the grounds of Queensberry House where the Scottish Parliament buildings now stand.

In 1826 it moved to Glasgow for the first time and was held there on a further eleven occasions.

After Glasgow, the show began its annual trek around the eight areas of Scotland until 1960.

The last Highland show in the Strathclyde area was held in 1958 on Ayr Racecourse next door to where I now live.

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With the costs soaring the society decided to move to a permanent home at Ingilston Estate in Edinburgh in 1960.

In return, it was agreed that the Presidency of the show would rotate annually between the eight areas of Scotland.

This year it is Strathclyde’s turn to hold the Presidency, and I believe the RHASS Directors have picked a strong team for the year.

Our four vice presidents are Margo McGill Scott, Senior Partner Lockarts Ayr, Andrew Malcolm, CEO Malcolm Group, Lord George Robertson former defence Minister and Secretary General of NATO and Rob Wainwright former Scotland rugby captain who farms on the Isle of Coll.

Our chaplain is Isabell Montgomery from Ochiltree, and the local Strathclyde RHASS Directors are also a key part of our team.

At our first meeting we decided to focus on the single greatest threat to the future of Scottish Agriculture.

Meeting Scotland’s legally binding target of net zero by 2045.

Over the last few years, the industry has faced a barrage of incendiary media headlines accusing farmers of destroying the planet.

Climate activists claims that livestock are killing the planet has gone unchallenged in the media.

The activists offer up easy simplistic solutions.

Kill the cows, plant more trees, rewild the land and push consumers to eat plant-based diets.

They are driven by green ideology that believes the only way to save the planet is to go back to the good old days before fertilisers and pesticides.

They seem to conveniently forget that these so called good old days were also accompanied by hunger, food rationing and extremely expensive food.

Politicians at the highest levels bought into this agenda as an easy way to secure a quick win.

In Brussels, the European Commission’s Farm to Fork strategy was based on that green ideological approach.

The Scottish Governments Bute House agreement was also underpinned by that same thinking.

However, the climate activists have not had it all their own way.

Demand for plant-based products has crumbled in the face of the cost-of-living crisis and consumer scepticism about the dubious environmental claims for them.

Consumers still want to eat red meat and dairy products.

The massive tractor demonstrations in Europe forced the European Commission to kill off the Farm to Fork strategy and look at alternative plans.

The Bute House agreement collapsed when the Greens were kicked out of Government.

Speaking to many farmers they hope if they ignore it the climate challenge will just go away.

I am afraid that is just wishful thinking.

Ambitious climate targets for agriculture are still enshrined in law.

Consumers are still concerned about the climate, and they want to eat low carbon products in future.

Tough green financial regulations mean future borrowing will become scarcer and more expensive for farmers wanting to invest if the industry fails to develop an emissions reduction plan.

Our competitors around the world are investing heavily to find innovative solutions to the net zero challenge as a way of gaining a competitive advantage.

However, amongst all the negativity and even outright denial that the industry has a problem there are good reasons for Scottish agriculture to be optimistic about the future.

Our research institutes and leading agricultural companies are starting to develop some of the answers to the Net Zero challenge.

Many of our farmers are now trying out innovative practical solutions to reduce on farm emissions.

That is why our Presidency team will use our RHASS year as a platform to promote these innovative solutions.

We will showcase the new ideas our famers, research institutions and companies are developing to cut farm emissions at two high profile events in the lead up to the show and at the show itself.

As Wayne Powell the Principal of SRUC said at the launch of their Green Shed event last week “Farmers should be optimistic about the future as agriculture will play a leading role in tackling climate change.”

Industry leaders claim agriculture is part of the solution not part of the problem.

Our events will provide a platform to demonstrate there is real substance to that claim.

Longer-term the goal must be to counter the climate activists negative scare stories about our industry and replace it with a positive story about how Scottish agriculture can pull its weight in the fight to reach net zero.

We hope our initiative will play a small part in changing the narrative.

A second strand of our work this year is to support our leading agriculture charities.

On March 21st, 2025, we will hold a charity dinner similar to last year’s hugely successful Stirling RHASS Presidency event which raised over £120,000.

Our dinner will be held in the stunning and unique Donald Malcolm Heritage Centre at Linwood.

The centre holds twenty-seven trucks that the Malcolm family have operated over the last 50 years.

Guests will be seated between the gleaming trucks lined up on each side of the guest tables.

Our main charities will be the Young Farmers Big Build, RHET, RSABI and Farmstrong.

To kick start the Strathclyde Presidency our first event will be a Harvest Thanksgiving Service in Glasgow Cathedral on Sunday 27 October 2024.

After the service, the Lord Provost of Glasgow will host invited guests to a civic reception to celebrate the RHASS presidency coming home to Strathclyde area.

Our Presidency has an ambitious year ahead and we look forward to welcoming our RHASS Strathclyde members to our events.