Claire Simonetta: Government still playing catch-up with reality

The mastermind that was Isaac Newton gave us the law of gravity to help us understand why cows don’t float – which is just as well. More recently, in the last century, Albert Einstein gave us the great revelation that time is relative, meaning that time moves forward at different speeds for different observers depending on how and where they observe time.

Time slows down near objects of great mass and hence moves slower next to the sun than it does in the outskirts of our solar system. It even moves ever so slightly more slowly next to a big in-bye sheep than it does near a little hill ewe – which is probably why one never seems to have enough time to get in front of the buggers once they’ve kicked off the great escape to the hills.

Unfortunately, time also moves much slower in Scottish agricultural legislation than it does on the farm, global markets and for the environment.

Whilst the cogs of introducing new legislation to design and roll out a new agricultural support system move painfully slow, edging forward in small increments over many years, much can happen. Wars, drought, floods and pandemics threaten food security at scale.

A stagflation is compromising economies around the world, including the many businesses that farmers rely on to supply or purchase services and goods. Climate and biodiversity targets imposed on us by government move dangerously close, while the industry awaits the call to what it hopes will be well-funded, well designed, fully functioning arms.

New entrants and other business types and sectors not receiving the funding they deserve because of the many flaws in the current support structure may not survive until a fairer system is finally in place, despite what's supposed to be a ‘Just Transition’.

The promise of stability only works in favour of those who are fully established and fully supported. That is precisely why it was so incredibly disappointing during our last ARIOB meeting, in November, to be presented with (not consulted about) the sobering news that the legislation needed to introduce the new support system won’t be in place until 2026.

Apparently, this timescale is non-negotiable. This means that although some of the future scheme elements can be introduced earlier by weaving them into the current support structure, which may help the industry to gradually transition to the new scheme if done properly, or descend agriculture into total chaos and confusion if ill-devised, the actual new scheme as a whole is unlikely to be in place before 2027.

So, battening down the hatches for the next couple of years or so until we know more is not an option. The lack of investment and major business decisions as a result of this policy vacuum, which is being reported from so many corners of the industry, cannot continue for the next four-plus years.

We don’t have the luxury of sitting back and waiting. The only thing we can do is to future-proof our businesses, make them resilient and as self-sufficient as possible. Now that's easier said than done.

And hope that, in the meantime, perhaps policy makers and politicians realise that listening to those who work the land and study the relevant science might just actually know quite a bit about what is already being done by land managers and how the numbers actually stack up – regardless of what (inter)national targets claim.

I was recently reading about the way our planet is being warmed by incoming radiation in the form of sunlight. I’m by no means an expert on this, but found it quite fascinating how different types of surfaces interact with this solar radiation.

One of the issues with climate change is that it is self-accelerating. In simple terms, snow and ice, being a white surface, reflect the vast majority of the incoming sunlight back into outer space and therefore act as a natural coolant to somewhat slow global warming.

But as these snow and ice-covered areas melt and increasingly lose their white cover because of climate change, they also lose their ability to reflect as much solar radiation back into space, therefore further accelerating global warming.

This ability to reflect a proportion of the sunlight back into space is called the 'albedo effect', and every type of surface has its own value.

The earth, as a whole, currently has an albedo of 29, meaning that 29% of all incoming solar radiation is reflected back into space. Fresh snow has an albedo of around 90, while the oceans and coniferous woodlands, on the other hand, contribute quite significantly to the capture of heat with an albedo of around 3 and 9, respectively.

Interestingly, grasslands have an albedo of 25. So when you decide to change grasslands into conifers to ‘save the climate’, that patch of land suddenly loses approximately two-thirds of its ability to deflect solar heat away from earth. In other words, it is capturing a lot more heat which then contributes to the planet’s warming.

Some research suggests that depending on which latitude you are looking at, establishing such new coniferous forestry could actually have a net warming impact when you take all the factors, including albedo, into account and don’t just focus on the headline that is carbon sequestration.

Unfortunately, it seems as though albedo is not really considered properly when calculating national climate targets. Playing with numbers to suit government agendas, whilst disregarding the stark reality of what is now being called the triple crises of food security, climate change and biodiversity collapse by some, just does not add up.

Selectively including certain factors whilst dismissing others evidenced by equally robust scientific research, to me suggests an agenda driven by those who don’t know what it means to be hungry, threatened by rising sea levels, and witnessing ecosystem collapses around the world.

Perhaps policy making should be left to farmers, land managers and scientists?

As Einstein said: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."