Land use transformation, and related reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, will be necessary to achieve Scotland’s ambitions to reach net zero emissions by 2045, as well as biodiversity and climate change targets.

A variety of support systems for land use transformation, such as financial support and advice, are already in place.

This study aims to understand how and why land managers engage, or don’t engage, with these support systems, to inform how policy could be best deployed to accelerate the process of change.

Findings

There is substantial evidence for land manager behaviour and decision making that influences engagement with support systems. Their decisions are determined by a range of interacting internal and external factors, primarily related to financial, practical and cultural influences.

• Overall, the public sector grant-giving support network is logical and straightforward to use.
• The administrative burden associated with applying to schemes is a barrier to engagement.
• Land managers often decide whether to engage with support and advice based on confidence in its source. For example, farmers are more likely to trust advisers that have a practical farming background over those from a consulting or academic background.
• Land managers in Scotland primarily access public funding support. Some access private finance to supplement their income or achieve specific goals.
• The breadth of support sources is confusing for some land managers.
• Applicants would prefer administrative simplicity and greater flexibility.
• Improved accessibility and flexibility will not, by themselves, increase overall engagement with land use change. Other measures, such as attractive payment rates, sufficient technical advice and training and management flexibility, will also be needed.

If you require the report in an alternative format, such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

Research completed October 2023

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/5005

Executive summary

Introduction

Land use transformation (and related reductions in greenhouse gas emissions) will be necessary to achieve Scotland’s ambitions to reach net zero emissions by 2045 as well as biodiversity and climate change targets. A variety of support systems for land use transformation, such as financial support and advice, are already in place. This study aims to understand how and why land managers engage, or not, with these support systems. This helps inform how policy could be best deployed to accelerate the process of change.

Influences on land manager decision making

We found substantial evidence for land manager behaviour and decision making that influences engagement with support systems. Their decisions are determined by a range of interacting internal and external factors, primarily related to financial, practical and cultural influences, which can be enabling or restricting, such as:

• personal values and knowledge
• perceived loss of control
• social norms/pressures
• trust in sources of information and advice e.g. land agents
• administrative burdens/transaction costs
• financial incentives
• awareness and understanding
• clarity of the benefits of change.

Restrictive barriers are compounded by context specific factors that vary across individual businesses, such as tenure, business scale and biophysical constraints.

Findings

Overall, the public sector grant-giving support network is logical to use. Most schemes are accessed through the Rural Payments and Inspections Division (RPID) portal. Other schemes are straightforward with regard to procedures. The RPID portal only requires one set of login credentials to access a wide range of support systems. Support systems under this umbrella are easy to access and do not require additional login credentials.

The administrative burden associated with applying to schemes, i.e. form filling, is a barrier to engagement. Procedural support (i.e. form filling by an adviser) is widely available from both public and private advisory sources but requires additional resource to procure. This is distinct from practical support, such as site-specific implementation advice, which was frequently mentioned by stakeholders as key to facilitating the uptake of environmental management practices and yet less readily available.

Land managers often decide whether to engage with support and advice based on confidence in its source. For example, farmers are more likely to trust advisers or organisations that have a background in practical farming over those from a consulting or academic background.

Land managers in Scotland primarily access public funding support. Some access private finance to supplement their income or achieve specific goals. Those accessing private finance generally do it to avoid the conditionality of public funding support and retain operational control over the management of their land. Combining Agri-Environment Schemes and e.g. the Peatland Code is perceived as overly cumbersome, with interactions between schemes, different application dates and the need to demonstrate additionality proving complex.

The breadth of support sources is confusing for some land managers. Better alignment, or at least signposting between sources, would be helpful. Ideally this needs to be via people as well as (rather than just) an online portal. This will enable land managers to choose the correct support more readily, according to their own circumstances.

Applicants would prefer administrative simplicity and greater flexibility. Therefore, efforts to streamline application and monitoring processes, reduce information burdens, widen application windows and vary contract lengths, are justifiable.

Administrative touch points and contractual constraints are only one influence on land manager behaviour. Improved accessibility and flexibility will not, by themselves, increase overall engagement with land use change. Other measures will also be needed such as attractive payment rates, sufficient technical advice and training, and management flexibility. Further research from workshops with potential support recipients, ideally out of peak summer work season, would help understand how future engagement can be maximised.

Abbreviations table

Introduction

Rural land use in Scotland directly supports the national economy, rural communities, and local businesses. Sustainable land use holds a key role delivering Scotland’s biodiversity goals and response to climate change. Agriculture is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland, behind the transport sector, with emissions largely coming from livestock and soils.^[1] In order to achieve biodiversity recovery and climate mitigation and adaptation, agricultural transformation is required to reduce emissions, and capture carbon in vegetation and soils. A continued, long-term expansion and integration of regenerative agriculture, afforestation and peatland restoration will be necessary and is currently underway as part of the plan to achieve Scotland’s net zero targets.

This research was undertaken to gain a better understanding of the key influences that have a bearing on land manager decision making, including their motivations, what they want to achieve for their operation and their appetite for change.

The aims of the project were to map current support services across different land use sectors to inform our understanding of a land manager’s ability to make decisions and access funding and advice for different land uses. One of the key influences on land manager decision making is their awareness and engagement with support systems. “Support systems”, for the purpose of this report, refers to all sources of support that a land manager in Scotland could access to aid their management of their operation. This includes the following sources:

• Public funding support (e.g. Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS))
• Private funding support (e.g. Woodland Carbon Code (WCC))
• Procedural and practical support from advisors, both public and private (e.g. Farm Advisory Service (FAS))
• Informal networks (Family, friends, and peers)

We looked at availability and links between existing and relevant land use information systems, support services, and current incentives for land use transformation which are directly related to achieving Net Zero and/or nature restoration.

Through stakeholder interviews and other evidence, we established where, when and how different rural land managers interact with the systems and services; we then collated the evidence for issues and barriers to access them. The results are presented using SWOT and PESTLES analysis, conclusions, and visualisations.

When we defined “land manager” we focussed our research on managers of agricultural land, including moorland, peatland and forestry, whether that be farmers, crofters, large estates or organisations such as NGOs.

Understanding land manager behaviour in relation to their awareness of, and drivers of actions that support (or not) environmental outcomes is complex. Decisions and outcomes in this area are a result of multiple interactions between agronomic, cultural, social and psychological factors, all of which sit within the national, regional and specific site context (Mills et al, 2016). Therefore, understanding land manager engagement with current support systems will prove equally complex.

To further our understanding, we carried out an evidence review of the literature. This informed the design of typical land manger archetypes to facilitate the analysis of how specific sectors in Scotland are engaging and accessing support systems. Please see Table 6 in Appendix B for the longlist of archetypes. The long list was used to gather further data, through stakeholder interviews, from both support providers and receivers, across the spectrum of land manager sectors in Scotland. Twenty-five stakeholder interviews were conducted, with participants ranging from support recipients such as crofters and farmers, to support providers and academics. Views from the agriculture, forestry and peatland sectors were captured. Attitudes relating to land managers’ ability and willingness to engage with support systems as well as what determines the level of engagement with these systems were explored. This included the types of support available, their pros and cons, as well as whether they were felt to be accessible, credible and available.

Reflecting its relative prominence within public expenditure and land-based businesses in rural areas, agriculture dominates much of published literature on land-use support. This evidence was supplemented by feedback from stakeholder interviewees, including individuals representing other sectors. The final step was to map the experience of six chosen, prioritised, archetypes in more detail. These are presented in section 6.2.

Full details of our methodology can be found in Appendix A-D.

This study included:

• Carrying out a rapid literature review. (methodology in Appendix D)
• Identifying and mapping the most prominent existing and relevant land use information systems, support services and the current incentives for land use transformation directly related to achieving Net Zero and/or nature restoration. (Appendix A)
• Developing typologies for land managers who might engage with these systems. (Appendix B)
• Agreeing a discussion guide (see Appendix C) for semi-structured interviews.
• Identifying a list of target candidate interviewees who were chosen to represent recipients of support, providers of information and advice, and academic experts. (Appendix C)
• Analysis of where, when, and how land managers interact with the systems and services.
• Presentation of evidence for issues and barriers to access these systems and services from the stakeholder interviews.

Introduction to land manager decision making

The literature is consistent in reporting that land manager decision making, regarding the use and management of their land, and therefore support system engagement, is influenced by both internal and external factors which combine to create individual circumstances. (Buamgart-Getz et al. 2012; Mills et al. 2016; Barnes et al. 2021; Conti et al. 2021; Thompson et al. 2021a).

These factors affect a land manager’s willingness and ability to adopt environmental management practices. The importance of this is underlined by the fact that climate is the most important element of agricultural productivity in many instances (Scottish Government, 2012). Therefore, once bio-physical conditions (an external factor in itself) have determined what management measures are suitable for a land manager, the wider range of internal/external factors will influence engagement with specific support systems offering funding, information, advice, and training. Table 1 below displays the different internal and external factors that influence land manager decision making, as identified by Thompson et al. (2021a).

Table 1 – Internal and external factors influencing land manager decision making – (adapted from Thompson et al. (2021a)).

The way these factors affect and interplay with land manager willingness – and their ability to adopt environmental practices – are shown in Figure 1 (after Mills et al. (2016)). For example, a land manager with limited resources, reliant on informal networks of support, with a strong anti-change personal attitude is unlikely to engage with environmental practices and support systems. Another land manager with higher access to finance, human and social capital, more formalised support networks and a positive outlook on environmental practices would be more likely to engage.

Figure 1 – Factors influencing land manager engagement, willingness and ability to adopt (from Mills et al. 2016).

These examples are clearly extreme ends of the spectrum. Landowners will all have a unique set of factors that influence their decision making when it comes to adopting environmental practices and engaging with specific support systems. It is for this reason that understanding and predicting land manager environmental behaviour and engagement with support systems is complex.

It is important to note that most of the literature on the subject of land manager engagement/motivations with support systems focuses on farmers. For example, (Sutherland et al. 2011) who state “research into actor influences on land use change (attitudes, motivations and objectives held by individuals and groups) has traditionally focused on single sectors, particularly farming. Neither is the range of landholding entities addressed, as emphasis is typically on private owners.”

Some studies (Ambrose-Oji, 2019; Tyllianakis et al. 2023) have explored wider land manager engagement with support systems in detail, however the focus in the academic literature remains centred on farmers. The reasons behind this focus are not currently clear, but it may be due to the large engagement of the agricultural industry with support systems, particularly financial support.

We have attempted to fill this gap in the literature through targeted stakeholder interviews with individuals representing land managers outside, as well as within, the agricultural industry.

Our evidence review has suggested that engagement with current support systems is primarily influenced by certain personal values and knowledge, perceived loss of control, excessive administrative burdens/transaction costs, a lack of credible financial incentives, a lack of awareness, understanding and clarity of the benefits of certain support schemes and social norms/pressures. These barriers are then further compounded by context specific factors that vary across individual businesses, such as tenure, business scale and biophysical constraints.

Land manager engagement with support systems is discussed in more detail in Section 6

Review of support systems

The next stage of this study attempted to identify the current land use support systems that land managers are engaging with in Scotland. This allowed us to map current support services across sectors in Scotland. Once we established the variety of support systems, we could begin to understand how land managers are interacting and engaging with these systems, whilst identifying key barriers and opportunities that could be used to inform future policy support.

We achieved this by firstly identifying a range of typical land manager archetypes in Scotland, followed by a review of all visible support systems identified through academic and grey literature review.

More detail on the types of support available is given in Appendix A Support in terms of funding is available from Government and the Private sector. Advice and information can be sought from direct Government sources plus third-party sources funded by Government (e.g. the Farm Advisory Service) but also independent third-party provision. Third sector, charities and Non-Governmental Organisations also provide landowners with advice and funding to undertake measures that align with their objectives.

Initial land use support system mapping

The infographic on the following page (Figure 2) displays a high-level mapping overview of the current land use support systems in Scotland and the extent to which land managers are engaging with each. Most land managers engage with government agency support and funding, with agricultural land managers doing this to a greater extent. This is mostly limited to schemes such as BPS and LFASS as these offer large rewards for less administrative actions compared to other schemes, such as AECS. Other land managers are more likely to be engaging with corporate buyers and private sector sources of support, such as emerging natural capital opportunities.

Figure 2 demonstrates clearly that the land manager support network in Scotland is a complex entity, with different land managers drawing from a wide range of support sources. Whilst it has not been possible to quantify the exact support flows between support providers and support receivers, we have provided an indication of the overall network and flow of support in Scottish Agriculture, helping us map current land manager engagement with support systems.

Figure 2 – Land use support system providers in Scotland. Source: Adapted from Sutherland et al. (2023)

Stakeholder views on engagement with support systems

It was recognised from the outset that the results of the evidence review must be calibrated against the lived experience of key stakeholders. We were able to conduct 25 interviews, and had scheduled to supplement this with additional workshops, but it proved very difficult to gain substantive input from planned workshops due to the timing overlap with the peak summer workload alongside harvesting.

We have captured the results of the stakeholder feedback below. This should be read alongside the review of the literature which is presented in section 7. Whilst there are significant similarities between the evidence from the literature review and stakeholder perceptions from the interviews, we recognise that this evidence would be usefully supplemented by a more in-depth form of action research with a wider stakeholder group, in particular potential support recipients, which would help to deliver more substantive results.

Factors influencing land managers’ decisions.

Stakeholder interviewees identified many factors influencing the ability and willingness of land managers to change management practices and/or land use patterns. Although varying in terms of emphasis and specific examples offered, there was a high degree of agreement across stakeholders (and consistency with the literature) regarding the main categories of (interacting) influences, which can be summarized as follows:

Confidence and understanding

Land management involves a range of tasks requiring both practical skills (e.g. handling livestock and machinery) but also organizational (e.g. resource allocation) and strategic (e.g. business planning). Changing land management practices and/or land use patterns requires expanding this skill set. However, not all land managers currently have the necessary skills, leading to many having a low understanding of how to change and low confidence in abilities to change successfully. Conflicting messages about the definitions, relative merits and compatibility of different practices (e.g. afforestation, regenerative agriculture) cause significant confusion, reinforcing an underlying wariness of changing unnecessarily.

Indeed, stakeholders were concerned that basic awareness amongst many land managers of requirements for change under both future agricultural policy, but also private supply-chain pressures, is still very low. Clearer and more consistent messaging from government and industry leaders would help, particularly if it was accompanied by more detail on practical support measures, including funding levels, the provision of information, advice and training, and any implications for future eligibility for land-related tax breaks and other public funding sources.

Resource constraints

Although any given parcel of land can be used for a variety of purposes, its underlying natural capital and biophysical characteristics (e.g. climate, topography, soils) exert a significant influence over its inherent suitability for different uses. Consequently, land managers do not all face the same land use possibilities to deliver particular ecosystem services. The Less Favoured Area (LFA) designation recognizes this in agricultural production terms but variation in suitability to deliver other ecosystem services is also recognized through various environmental designations (and indeed spatial targeting of agri-environment measures).

Farm type provides a convenient, albeit crude, indicator of likely flexibility in agricultural land use, with many hill and upland livestock farms being particularly constrained. The JHI Agricultural Land Capability Map (and equally the forestry suitability map) offers a more refined indication, but greater use of maps to categorise potential to deliver wider, environmental services would be helpful. For example, High Nature Value (HNV) farming.

Beyond biophysical constraints, farm businesses are also constrained by the availability and quality of other resources – in particular, working capital, equipment and labour. Stakeholders stressed that many farm businesses operate on very slim margins and are risk averse, limiting the scope for experimentation and investment in new management practices or forms of land use. Financial support can help to overcome this, as can support scheme contracts’ length and flexibility. However, labour scarcity and the relentless nature of farming often leave little spare time to devote to engaging with the process of change.

Geographical remoteness and/or poor communications connectivity can add further challenges. So can small scale – smaller businesses with fewer resources (especially labour) typically lack both the economies of scale and flexibility available to larger businesses to accommodate/experiment with change. This limits their ability to be creative and do something different. Some larger businesses have recruited in-house expertise and/or they directly commission academic and other consultants, particularly in relation to emerging nature-based solutions and rewilding exercises.

Transaction costs

The transaction costs of seeking information, advice, training, and external funding to implement change can be significant. To make it easy for all applicants, sources of information, advice, training and funding should be easy to locate. Administrative processes for applications, monitoring and reporting should be simple and accessible, including in their choice of language and terminology.

Stakeholders acknowledged that accountability for public expenditure necessarily requires a degree of bureaucratic oversight. However, they expressed concern that the complexity of some funding schemes^[2] was a deterrent to some applicants, including those with little spare time and/or an unfamiliarity with administrative processes. This phenomenon was described as ‘form anxiety’. The difficulties of coordinating across multiple sources of information, advice and training were recognized, and it was suggested that clearer signposting and the use of one-stop-shops would be welcome.

Smaller businesses lacking the staff and/or finance to hire specialist advisors may be particularly affected by transaction costs, facing a proportionately greater burden than larger businesses. For example, there is often a fixed cost element to application processes regardless of the level of funding sought and having to seek information directly rather than being able to delegate to staff can have a high opportunity cost.

Tenure

Farm tenure exerts a direct influence over land managers’ ability to undertake change, particularly between different land uses. Specifically, whilst owner-occupiers have the freedom to choose how they manage their land, tenants are constrained by the terms of their lease. The degree of restriction varies across different types (e.g. length) of tenancy, with crofting tenure adding some further complexities, particularly in relation to common grazing.

In most cases, agricultural tenancies restrict the range of land use activities permitted. For example, afforestation and non-agricultural enterprises are typically precluded from leases by default (although may be agreed via negotiation). Moreover, non-agriculturally productive parcels of land (e.g. pre-existing woodland, riparian habitats) are often excluded from the area covered by a lease. Consequently, the ability of many tenants to implement and benefit from land use change is currently constrained.

However, some stakeholders believed that the issues around tenure constraints had become better understood in recent years and were hopeful that the forthcoming Agriculture Bill would address many of them.

Motivations and norms

Beyond the practical constraints suggested above that influence a land manager’s ability to change, willingness to change is also affected by various factors. In particular, by an individual land manager’s attitude towards and motivation for land management and by cultural norms held by family, friends and peer groups.

Land managers need to perceive how change fits with business viability and continuity. Some land managers (e.g. rewilding estates, NGOs) may be motivated to undertake change primarily by seeking environmental improvements. Others may be more motivated by the traditional farming values centred around food production, and they be more fundamentally opposed to activities perceived as incompatible with growing or rearing consumable produce. The latter is particularly relevant to debates around afforestation and (to a lesser extent) peatland restoration.

Many land managers are starting from a mainstream farming perspective, although not all are; other groups are perhaps more open to change such as community groups, foresters and horticultural producers. Stakeholders suggested that variation in willingness to change was likely to be significant across the full population of land managers and would complicate any targeting of encouragement to change.

Stakeholders also noted that willingness to change could ultimately be influenced by financial pressures, whether via public finding or market signals, but that sustainable change would require cultural shifts – winning hearts and minds. This implies a need for clear industry leadership backed-up by the provision of information, advice and training plus (probably) encouragement for generational renewal. Negative perceptions of bureaucracy and of support payments simply flowing to advisers (a ‘consultants charter’) are widespread.

Types and sources of support

Stakeholders identified different types of support for land managers, distinguishing funding from other forms of support.^[3]

Funding

Funding was further divided into public and private, although the emphasis was very much upon public funding. Public funding for land management is dominated by agricultural support, notably decoupled area payments plus limited voluntary coupled support. Significant funding is also available for forestry and peatland restoration, plus wider agri-environmental schemes, innovation funds and various capital grant schemes. Public funding is also available to land-based businesses from other sources, such as the Enterprise Networks (see Table 2 for listing).

Stakeholders regarded public funding as essential to achieving management and land use change; in particular to offer financial incentives (or at least reduce disincentives) to make change worthwhile and to encourage any necessary capital investments. However, it was noted that inflation continues to erode the real terms value of public funding, decreasing the leverage that it has over management decisions.

Private funding for changing land management is also available. For example, there are high-profile cases of new and large landowners essentially self-funding and/or harnessing emerging environmental funding mechanisms. The latter include the Woodland Carbon Code and the Peatland Code.

However, the accessibility of such mechanisms to all land managers (e.g. tenants, common grazing, smaller holdings, community owners) is imperfect. Moreover, considerable uncertainty exists over the future value of carbon credits, and the possibility of claims over them by downstream supply-chain partners. Consequently, notwithstanding Scottish Government aspirations to increase private funding, stakeholders expressed some scepticism about the potential of private funding to replace public funding.

Non-funding support

Stakeholders also sub-divided non-funding support, into procedural support to help land managers navigate bureaucratic processes (e.g. advice on how to complete application forms, enrol in training programmes) and support to help with actual activities on-the-ground (e.g. training in new management practices). Both were regarded as necessary, but the degree of procedural support required relates back to concerns about transaction costs.

Procedural support tends to either take the form of information and general advice provided by the source of any funding, or the form of professional assistance to comply with application and reporting processes. For example, public funding is accompanied by online (and sometimes print) public guidance material plus online, phone and (sometimes) face-to-face advice on (e.g.) eligibility criteria, payment rates and evidence requirements. Private sources (e.g. land agents, consultants) often mirror this, but also offer further hands-on assistance to gather necessary data and complete paperwork plus more bespoke advice for individual land managers.

Practical support is similarly available in different forms from a variety of sources. Indeed, stakeholders emphasized the huge variety of forms and sources (see Table 2 for listing). For example, information is available via print and social media from public (e.g. Scottish Government, NatureScot, SEPA, Universities), private (e.g., levy bodies, consultants, input suppliers) and third-sector (e.g. NGOs) providers and advice can be offered one-to-one or one-to-many^[4] either online or face-to-face. Moreover, face-to-face may involve a simple meeting or a site visit or demonstration. Vocational training (e.g. via Lantra or colleges) tends to involve face-to-face events, but online training can suit some strategic and planning type skills development. Stakeholders suggested that the breadth of support sources was confusing for some land managers and better alignment or at least signposting between sources would be helpful, although signposting ideally needs to be via people as well as (rather than just) an online portal, for land managers to define the correct source of support for their own individual circumstances.

Importantly, stakeholders also stressed the role of informal sources of information and advice. For example, family and friends plus unrelated business professionals (e.g. accountants, vets). Peer group networks (local but also international) of like-minded people can also be important – indeed some stakeholders identified these as particularly relevant for emerging practices such regenerative agriculture and agro-forestry which some stakeholders regarded as not well-served by more formal support mechanisms. Peer networking can be encouraged through trained facilitators and funding.

Availability, accessibility and relevance

Uptake of information, advice and training requires land managers to trust the source and to see the relevance of what is being offered. This poses a demand-side challenge in persuading land managers of the need for change and relates back to points made above regarding the need for clear, consistent messaging from government and industry leaders to set the tone – particularly in relation to strategic business skills and new technical skills.

However, it also poses supply-side challenges in terms of the availability and accessibility of information, advice and training. Government only has leverage of this through either direct provision itself, or funding of third parties to provide support. Stakeholders noted that availability was already patchy geographically and in terms of specialist topics. Moreover, they were not confident that public funding levels would be sufficient to cover all future requirements – implying a need to prioritise particular topics or groups of land managers, and/or to rely more upon online and one-to-many methods (despite experiential, hands-on learning being viewed as more effective).

Citing diminishing returns and the 80/20 rule^[5], some questioned the merits of trying to accommodate all ‘hard to reach’ groups (e.g. smaller producers, new entrants, women, the very young, those with poor mental health). However, the Women in Agriculture initiative was cited as a good example of targeting.

Furthermore, even if future funding was sufficient, stakeholders were not confident that sufficient appropriate advisors would be available in the short-term. Trust depends on perceived credibility and, rightly or wrongly, in many cases this requires advisors to have agricultural backgrounds – yet the types of management and land use changes required extend beyond agriculture. This implies a need to upskill existing advisors but also to recruit advisors from different backgrounds – either to work in teams or (hopefully) to be accepted as credible by land managers.

Stakeholders offered a variety of solutions to this problem, including allowing the Farm Advisory Service (FAS) to evolve in terms of its modes of operation and topic overage but also to sub-contract other independent and/or specialist advisers (including existing land managers) as appropriate. Deployment of RPID staff to offer advice as well as conducting inspections was also suggested, reminiscent of previous policy eras and also, to some extent, emulating more recent practice in forestry and catchment management.

The use of facilitators rather than advisors was supported by some stakeholders, reflecting (possibly) easier recruitment (technical expertise is less essential than people skills) and perceived advantages of facilitated experiential learning rather than expert instruction.

It was also suggested that advisors should be included more formally in policy design and monitoring processes since they are well placed to offer insights into how ideas will be received and implemented on-the-ground. It was noted that total formal advisory capacity includes those working for input (e.g. seed, feed, fertiliser) suppliers as well as those aligned with FAS or working independently.^[6]

Table 2 – Cited examples of support

Land manager experiences of support systems

As part of this research project, we attempted to identify and map all existing and relevant land use information systems, support services and the current incentives for land use transformation directly related to achieving Net Zero and/or nature restoration. An outline of all the support schemes identified can be found in Appendix A. We then collected additional information on a sub-set of current support systems administered by the Scottish Government, to explore specific touch points for land managers. To frame this exercise, we firstly mapped the main agencies within the Scottish government that are responsible for the relevant land manager support systems (Figure 3).

Figure 3 underlines that multiple agencies are responsible for providing and administrating support to land managers in Scotland. This has the effect of increasing administrative burdens for land managers if systems across agencies are not in sync in terms of data collection and system operation.

Figure 3 – Agencies responsible for land manager support in Scottish Government

Insights from the literature

We can gain significant insight from published grey literature about where, when, and how land managers interact with support systems and services. There are three highly relevant published pieces of work. The first is the RPID customer satisfaction survey (RPID, 2021), where RPID customers gave their views on the application process and how it could be improved. 2147 customers filled in this survey, providing a robust sample size to gather insights from. The second piece of work is the NatureScot Research Report 1254 (NatureScot, 2021), where biodiversity outcomes were evaluated. This included a quick survey of applicants’ views on the application process. The third piece of work is ‘Doing Better Initiative to Reduce Red Tape for Farmers & Rural Land Managers’ (SRUC, 2014) where regulations (or their implementation) that impinge on business decisions were identified and solutions were put forward to address these.

Administrative burdens

The general literature review (reported in Section 7) and Stakeholder views (reported in Section 5) revealed that the administrative burden and ‘form anxiety’ associated with support schemes can significantly affect land manager engagement with support systems.

We can relate this to the RPID survey responses, in particular the question ‘Applications made to other schemes in the last twelve months’. Interestingly, 77% of RPID customers stated that they did not make another application to another non-SAF (Outside BPS, LFASS, AECS, FGS) scheme in the last 12 months.

Groups who had not made another scheme application are compared below:

• More owners (80%) than tenants (74%) and business partners (70%);
• More other businesses (84%) and farms (79%) than crofts (73%);
• More older (84%) than younger (66%) customers; and
• More customers that completed their SAF with support (81%) than those that completed it on their own (74%).

This would suggest that for the majority of RPID customers, the main support systems they are engaging with fall within the bracket of the SAF administrative process. It appears that many land managers are only engaging with SAF and not applying for schemes outwith this (e.g. AECS, Peatland Action etc.). Although it is difficult to draw conclusions from this question alone, the supporting evidence from this report would suggest that the administrative burdens are a considerable factor in preventing land managers from engaging with other support systems outside their SAF application.

For instance, the RPID survey found that a substantial number of RPID customers felt that application processes were too complicated, or the application forms were too long or complicated. When asked what customers’ main reasons for dissatisfaction with information from RPID, the main two reasons given were:

• The application process is too complicated (53%)
• Application forms are too long/complicated (52%)

Furthermore, in the 2013 RPID customer satisfaction survey, the most common reason for dissatisfaction with information from RPID was ‘not enough information being available’ (29%). This suggests that the administrative burden involved with applying for rural funding schemes has become a more significant influence on farmer decisions in the period between 2013-2021.

The challenges of administrative burdens are further reinforced when customers were asked about the ‘aspects of RPID’s performance customers would like to see improved’ where the most popular answer was ‘application forms are easy to complete’ (42%). One respondent was quoted:

“Website and all forms etc. need to be rewritten and simplified. They need to be clear and concise and user friendly. Use words not acronyms. Use far fewer words.”

We find further evidence to support this in SRUC (2014) where a list of recommendations is provided to the Scottish Government on how to reduce red tape burdens placed on farmers and land managers. Recommendation 5 states that an IT system should be developed that reduces the form filling burden for farmers and land managers – reducing administration costs. This recommendation also suggests that a full review of data requests from farmers and land managers is undertaken to ensure that duplication is minimised.

Despite this point being raised in 2014, the findings from the RPID survey suggest that from 2013 to 2021 administrative burdens on land managers applying for government support schemes have increased.

Support required to access funding

There is also substantial evidence that suggests that many land managers in Scotland require support to submit applications to financial support systems. Evidence for this is provided by the RPID survey, where the following three points were cited as the reasons why customers needed some support with their Single Application Form submission:

• Personal (e.g., first time completing form, learning disability) – 43%
• Mistakes (e.g., want to avoid mistakes) – 41%
• Forms (e.g., difficulty accessing forms, take too long to complete) – 34%

This would suggest that many land managers find the current administrative processes involved with submitting applications to support systems a significant barrier to engagement and require support to ensure that they can access these. The response to this question suggests that the current complexity is leading landowners to obtain procedural support to complete their applications.

Of those that are using procedural support to complete applications, SRUC agents are the most common support agents being used (48% of cases). Interestingly, other business (not farmers) used commercial agents to support applications 51% of the time.

Land manager support system mapping

This section presents three infographics (drawn from RPID survey data and our findings from the previous sections of this study) representing the typical land manager pathways to access agricultural support systems in Scotland. Each infographic is broken down into four main sections (from left to right). The first section, motivations, highlights the broad overarching motivations that a land manager is looking to achieve within their business objectives. This includes motivations such as ‘business support’ and ‘woodland establishment’. The following section highlights the agency touchpoints that a land manager will engage with if they decide to follow one or multiple of the previous motivations. This includes both the agency (such as RPID) and the specific scheme that relates to that motivation (such as the Forestry Grant Scheme for Woodland establishment). The third section shows the administrative actions that are associated with engaging with each different support scheme, including information such as what IT system is used (e.g. RPID portal) and if support is generally needed by a third party. The final section details what kind of login credentials are needed for each administrative action and if these are shared or unique for each scheme.

Figure 4 represents all the pathways open to land managers, providing an overview of the support system landscape. Figure 5 highlights the pathways that a typical farming land manager could take. Figure 6 highlights the pathway that a non-farming land manager, such as an estate, could take. The following sub-sections draw out some of the key findings and help understand where, when and how land managers interact with support systems and services.

Figure 4 – land manager support system map

This figure presents an overview of all the motivations, touchpoints and administrative actions that a land manager could undertake if they were to take certain pathways. Key points from this infographic include:

• It appears that land managers only need to have one login credential to access all support services via RPID (Rural Payments and Inspections Division) in Scotland. This is the RPID portal login, where land managers can access the SAF, AECS application, SSBSS & SUSSS form and FGS application. For those schemes not under the umbrella of the RPID portal (Peatland Action), online submissions are required that do not require login credentials (FAS applications still require RPID Business Reference Number however). This would suggest that login credentials do not pose a significant barrier to land manager engagement with support systems.
• Regarding touch points, RPID is the agency that land managers are most likely to be engaging with for funding. This is because the most popular support schemes (BPS, LFASS, AECS etc.) are administrated through this agency. Other support schemes that are not administrated by RPID, such as the Forestry Grant Scheme, are still accessed through the RPID portal. FAS and Peatland Action support schemes are accessed outwith the RPID portal, but require relatively simple administrative inputs to complete.
• Overall, the RPID public sector support system network is administratively logical from a high-level perspective. The majority of schemes are accessed through the RPID portal, and those that are not are procedurally straightforward in terms of required steps. However, the level of detailed information needed by certain schemes makes accessing a wide range of these extremely challenging for some land managers in Scotland (recalling from section 5 that land managers differ widely with respect to skills and confidence to tackle administrative processes and implement management changes). For example, AECS applications are considered very complex due to the level of information that needs to be provided along with the lengthy application form/process. Furthermore, Forestry Grant Scheme applications require a level of detail that is beyond most typical land managers’ (farmers etc.) knowledge, leading to a reliance on external specialists to complete applications.
• On the whole, this would suggest that the complexities in land manager support systems, including the level of detail needed for specific applications are reducing engagement with systems that could encourage improved environmental management practices. This does not take into account private schemes, such as the Woodland Carbon Code, which would only add to this complexity.
• All other things being equal, administrative simplicity is preferable to complexity and (for applicants) greater flexibility is preferred. Hence efforts to, for example, streamline application and monitoring processes, reduce information burdens, widen application windows and vary contract lengths, are justifiable. However, accountability for public expenditure requires a degree of bureaucracy to ensure that funds are disbursed and used as intended, and simplicity and flexibility for applicants may impose additional complexity for administrators. Consequently, there are trade-offs, and the scope for improvements in process design alone will typically be limited.
• This implies that other steps need to be taken to improve accessibility, including the provision of additional procedural information and advice – which necessarily incurs additional public administrative costs, raising familiar questions regarding the appropriate degree of such assistance and whether it should be universal or targeted at specific groups.
• Moreover, administrative touch-points and contractual constraints are only one influence on land manager behaviour, implying that improved accessibility and flexibility will not by itself increase overall engagement with land use change. Other measures will also be needed. For example, attractive payment rates, sufficient technical advice and training, and support for capital investments.

Figure 5 – farmer decision pathway map

This figure presents an indicative pathway through the support systems that would be taken by a land manager (farmer) who does not have any specific environmental goals (woodland establishment, peatland restoration) but would like to improve the efficiency of their operation and reduce their overall impact on the environment. It is important to stress that this pathway is indicative, and it is not intended to represent all farmers in all locations. In reality, as explained in the literature review in section 7 later, all land managers will have a unique set of motivations, barriers and opportunities regarding land management practices that will affect their engagement with support systems. The findings from this infographic are summarised below:

• The majority of farming land managers will be engaging with support systems that are accessed through the SAF process (BPS etc.) as these are familiar and provide a high level of financial support for a relatively small administrative and practical input.
• Land managers of this type could also be engaging with AECS. This provides the land manager with an opportunity to improve the economic performance of their operations, whilst also benefitting the environment. Land managers will often choose options that require the smallest practical/administrative inputs compared to financial returns. Many land managers will require support from a third party to complete their AECS application due to the complexity of information required.
• Many land managers of this type will rely on FAS and other agents, along with informal networks, to provide procedural support to their applications to support systems. This is because farming land managers are often time-poor due to their focus on practical activities on farm, relying on others to assist with the administrative processes of applying to support schemes.

Figure 6 – Non-farmer decision pathway map

This figure presents an indicative pathway through the support systems that would be taken by a land manager (non-farming) who is looking to diversify the use of their land, improving economic and environmental performance simultaneously. Again, it is important to stress that this pathway is indicative, and it is not intended to represent all non-farming land managers in all locations. In reality, as explained in the literature review, all land managers will have a unique set of motivations, barriers and opportunities regarding land management practices that will affect their engagement with support systems. The findings from this infographic are presented below:

• Non-farming land managers are much more likely to engage with a wider range of support systems outwith those administered by RPID. This may be due to a mixture of different beliefs, fewer/different constraints on time and resources and more desire to diversify income streams to ensure financial resilience.
• These land managers still often rely on external specialists to assist with certain elements of the application process, such as external forestry consults when applying for the Forest Grant Scheme.

Figure 4. Land manager support system map

Figure 5 – farmer decision pathway map (N.B. this is indicative and not intended to represent all farmers in all locations.)

Figure 6 – Non-farmer decision pathway map (N.B. this is indicative and not intended to represent all non-farming land managers in all locations.

Land manager attitudes – a review of the literature

Factors affecting engagement with support schemes

The literature review highlighted that internal factors such as attitudes, beliefs and personal values can have a significant impact on engagement with support systems.

Values and knowledge

It was recognised as far back as the 1970’s (Gasson 1973) that farmers do not always make financially rational decisions and that a range of social and intrinsic factors may also be prioritised; risk perception, values and knowledge are particularly influential in business decision making.

Land managers, in particular farmers, generally have a strong sense of self and are often influenced by their intrinsic values. This theme can be explored when looking at land manager attitudes towards planting trees on their land. Historic literature suggests that land managers have a resistance to creating woodland and forests, due to traditional values surrounding the belief that measurable productivity and growth are their traditional core purpose. Burton et al. (2008) explores the importance of the ‘good farmer’ identity, where social status and personal validation is derived by the evidence of delivering a skilled role on landscapes, i.e. livestock farming. Burton (2004) concludes that planting woodland and forest (afforestation), as well as engagement with other non-farming activities, represents both a loss in productive output and a symbolic loss of the opportunity to demonstrate farming skill and knowledge.

Farmers often resist afforestation on this basis, with agriculture and forestry historically being viewed as competitors for land rather than complementary land management practices that could be adopted as a sustainable approach to single proprietary unit diversification (Nicholls, 1969; Hopkins et al. 2017). Therefore, as many farmers perceive themselves to be farmers only, they are unwilling to change their practices due to inherent values that are tied to their current activity. This trend is likely to be seen across most landowners, not just restricted to afforestation, who will possess their own objectives, values and knowledge. For example, Moxey et al. (2021) note that the willingness to participate in peatland restoration schemes is highly variable, and that cultural ties shape attitudes towards restoration activities.

On the other hand, some land managers have intrinsic values that prioritise attempting to balance the need for a productive enterprise and protecting/enhancing the environment. Mills et al., (2017) found that it was common to hear that farmers were attempting to find a balance between production and environmental management, which were not always seen as conflicting needs.

This is reflected by the well documented finding that farmers (and land managers as a whole) are often willing to adopt environmental measures if they are perceived to increase the efficiency of on farm activities and therefore prove cost effective (Feliciano et al. 2014). For example, Farsted et al. (2022) noted that climate mitigation measures are mainly perceived as, treated as, and appreciated for offering farm-beneficial functions other than climate change mitigation by Norwegian farmers. This is also reflected in the Farm Practices Survey (2022) where 44% of farmers thought that reducing emissions would improve farm profitability and that the main motivation for farmers to take action to reduce GHGs on farm was that it was considered good business practice (84%).

Unsurprisingly, those land managers that are personally concerned/motivated to address climate change are more likely to be undertaking environmental management measures on their land. Those who are less engaged are likewise less likely to be undertaking environmental management practices.

Ease of transition, control and risk perception

An important aspect of land manager engagement with support systems is the perceived degree of control afforded by the available schemes and the ease of operational transition.

Academic literature in this area has focused on exploring the barriers that prevent uptake of Agri-Environment Schemes (AES), specifically focusing on schemes that restrict land manager’s ability to control and own the final product that is being delivered. For example, Lampkin et al. (2021) suggest that a top-down prescriptive approach of some AESs has failed to engage farmers in a way that would give them ownership of the delivery of environmental goods. This view is supported by Daxini et al. (2019) who found that the intention to follow a Nutrient Management Plan is primarily driven by perceived behavioural control.

Thompson et al. (2021) further suggest that farmers are more likely to participate in AESs if they retain some control over implementation, which requires flexible terms and regular monitoring. Therefore, it appears an important element of how land managers engage with current support systems involves analysing the degree to which each support system will affect operational control.

Another key internal factor that will influence land manager engagement with support systems is risk perception. Multiple sources suggest that the clarity and certainty of the final objective of any support scheme is important to its uptake and success. Analysis from the James Hutton Institute (Rajagopalan and Kuhfuss, 2017) suggested that the uptake of the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) was restricted by the lack of flexibility in options, along with the uncertainty on the environmental outcome due to the influence of external factors outside of the land managers’ control (climate, pests etc.)

Kuhfuss et al. (2018) also suggest the success of AES may vary depending on the clarity of the objectives and perceived challenges in achieving them. For example, afforestation is a relatively easy concept to understand and is generally low risk, however peatland restoration is much more difficult conceptually and is seen as a higher risk option. Indeed, peatland restoration may seem to be of high risk because UK peatlands are at the southern limit in the northern hemisphere and therefore at risk due to anticipated climatic changes.

The tolerance of land manager to the inherent risks that are involved with engaging with support schemes that require alterations in management practices is an important factor in determining uptake.

Socio-demographic, age and education

The traditional view within the literature is that older land managers are less willing to change land management practices and that younger and more educated farmers are more willing to adopt new practices and engage with environmental support schemes. Sutherland et al. 2016; Mills et al. 2016; Brown, 2019)

This is often supported by evidence that younger people have a higher degree of environmental concern, risk tolerance and openness to new practices (Dessart et al. 2019). Therefore, younger land managers may be more able to engage with support systems and understand the requirements and trade-offs involved. Benni et al. (2022) reported that the age and education of farmers was not found to affect time requirements to fill in administrative burdens. This suggests that the transaction costs associated with support systems does not interplay with age and education levels of applicants.

When analysing the factors behind farmers’ adoption of ecological practices, Thompson et al. (2023) found that socio-economic factors were insignificant more often than they were significant. Despite these findings, Tyllianakis and Martin-Ortega (2021) argue that the evidence base suggests that wealthier land managers stand to gain more than less wealthy land managers in enrolling in AESs. The impact of socio-economic and demographic factors on land manager engagement is therefore likely to vary considerably across different sectors and organisational structures.

Engagement and trust of official advice vs. informal networks

Due to the rise of information available (mainly through the expansion of digital services), answers can be found to many real-world and agricultural issues and questions online. Rust et al. (2021) suggest that farmers have previously often relied on in-person advice from traditional ‘experts’, such as agricultural advisors, to inform farm management practices. Sutherland et al. (2013) stress the importance of the perceived credibility of sources of advice. This view is supported by Daxini et al. (2019) who found that trust in technical sources of information (e.g. advisor and discussion group) is found to be a more influential determinant of farmers’ attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control than trust in social information sources (e.g. family and the media).

Nonetheless, Birner et al. (2006) and Sutherland et al. (2022, 2023) highlight the breadth of sources of information, advice and training utilised by land managers, encompassing family and friends, peer groups, accountants, vets, input suppliers, private consultants, NGOs and public sector bodies, accessed in different modes including via print and social media, online, one-to-one meetings, group meetings and events/demonstrations.

This is discussed further by Rust et al. (2021), who suggest that farmers are now changing their information sources due to the rise of online sources of knowledge and advice, foregoing traditional ‘expert’ advice in preference for peer-generated information. They found that farmers regularly use online sources to access soil information and often changed practices based on information from social media. Results from their survey suggested that farmers placed more trust in other farmers and peer networks rather than traditional ‘experts’, particularly those from academic and government institutions, who they believed were not empathetic with the farmers’ needs.

This could be further compounded by many farmers deciding not to engage with advisory services at all. Dunne et al. (2019) found that almost one-third of farmers in Ireland were not using extension services and a further third had contracts with private sector and public sector advisors.

Research from the James Hutton Institute (Hopkins et al. 2020) also found that new entrants to farming are less likely to engage with subsidies and support systems than existing farmers in the sector. In particular, new entrants did not think that the ‘official’ Farm Advisory Service (FAS) and the Scottish Government were helpful when starting their enterprise. This finding is mirrored by Labarthe et al. (2022), who suggest that new entrants to agriculture are often disconnected from knowledge structures, as they often operate businesses that are not typically addressed by advisory services. Other ‘hard to reach’ or less engaged groups can include women farmers and those suffering from poor mental health (Hurley et al. 2022).

Understanding how land managers engage with knowledge networks and their trust of these networks is an important factor in determining their experience of support systems. By improving farmers’ awareness, it is expected that changes in behaviour would be reflected in the adoption of improved management practices. However, Okumah et al. (2021) argue that the limited research in this area so far has shown that the link between awareness and adoption exists. This link is indirect and is mediated and moderated by other factors. Nevertheless, on balance, it seems that hypothetically, with all factors being equal, more awareness is better than less awareness.

Summary

The willingness of land managers to engage with forms of support for changing management practices and land use patterns is influenced by a number of internal factors. These include the compatibility of change with land managers’ self-identify of what it means to be a land manager, particularly a farmer – something that is ingrained and often inter-generational, making it difficult to alter in the short-term. Similarly, inflexible management prescriptions are at odds with cherished decision-making autonomy and change can be perceived as incurring higher than acceptable levels of risk, although attitudes can be softened if prescriptions align with personal or business objectives.

Weak confidence and understanding regarding the purpose and practicalities of change reinforce business-as-usual, with a lack of trust in the credibility and relevance of available sources of information, advice and training further constraining engagement. Such internal factors vary across individual land managers, but there is some evidence that greater openness to change may be associated with (younger) age and (greater) education but also that some groups, including women, new entrants with no prior experience and people suffering from poor mental health, may be further disconnected from support systems.

External factors influencing land manager engagement with support schemes

Alongside the internal factors identified above, there are significant external factors that influence land manager behaviours, including the physical, environmental, business structure, financial, knowledge availability, social norms and time factors on land management.

Funding, costs and policy indicators

As with any business operation, the need to generate revenue to ensure the survival of the business is a high priority for any land manager. The majority of land managers, especially tenants, seek to make a profit from their land. Therefore, financial considerations are paramount to the landowners’ decision-making process, underlining the importance of support schemes and their potential to influence change.

Previous research has indicated that given the unpredictability of agricultural and land-based activities, only when economic conditions were stable could land managers focus on other activities – including environmental considerations (Scottish Government, 2012). Measures that do not guarantee financial benefits – e.g., that may have a negative impact on production or come at a cost to the farmer – are unlikely to be adopted in the absence of other tangible benefits.

In the latest Farm Practices Survey (2022), 32% of farmers who were already taking actions to reduce GHG emissions stated that environmental measures were too expensive to implement. This may explain why Ruto and Garrod (2009) found payment rates to be a key driver and Pineiro et al. (2021) conclude that interventions that lead to short term financial benefits have higher adoption rates than those that concentrate on delivering ecological service provision. This view is supported by Mills et al. (2016) who state that current financial incentives and regulatory approaches have had a degree of success in encouraging environmental practices, but these are ultimately transient drivers that have not led to long-term sustainability.

Within this, policy uncertainty may further hinder the uptake of environmental land management practices. Kuhfuss et al. (2018) describe these uncertainties as:

• differences in sources in funding (public vs private)
• eligibility rules
• financial uncertainty of prices in the carbon markets and
• potential emerging markets that may provide better results.

This is further compounded by whether a payment by results or an activity model is used. Moxey at al. (2021) reinforce this point by suggesting that peatland restoration work is hindered by the perceived ineligibility for agricultural support payments, tax breaks and concerns over future support arrangement and carbon market fluctuations.

Bio-physical constraints, tenure and structure

Environmental constraints often limit which environmental measures can be implemented on a spatial scale. Location, climate and environmental quality are key determinants of which support schemes are viable for a land manager’s piece of land as they affect what is implementable practically in local conditions in relation to opportunities. An example of this is the large amount of peatland and moorland that provides potential for peat bog restoration management practices: in these locations woodland planting should be discouraged (Lampkin et al. 2021). Paulus et al. (2022) provide further evidence to support this point by suggesting that environmental management practices are more likely to be implemented on sites with unfavourable agricultural conditions.

Two more important factors are the size of the enterprise and the tenure of the land. Regarding tenure, a meta-analysis of 46 studies (Baumgart-Getz et al. 2012) looking at the adoption of best-management practices found secure tenure to be a positive indicator of adoption, and the findings are likely to apply to climate friendly measures as well. This suggests that land managers who either own their land or are on secure tenancies with a good relationship with their landlord are more likely to adopt environmental measures due to the long-term security that their tenure status affords them.

Multiple sources within the literature also suggest that larger enterprises may be more willing and able to engage with support systems, particularly those with environmental outcomes (Mills et al. 2013; Paulus et al. 2022). Smaller enterprises are likely to have fewer opportunities to take elements out of production and fewer resources to apply without impacting their net income.

Ease of access to support

A key determinant of engagement with support systems is the perceived and actual accessibility of these schemes.

If a scheme is considered to be straightforward and easy to apply for, there is likely to be high engagement. The opposite is true of a scheme that is considered complex and time consuming. For example, for land managers the administrative load (transaction costs) and time commitment is often the determining factor on whether to participate or not. A common criticism of AESs is that they often carry high transaction costs, especially in comparison to more traditional support schemes (Kuhfuss et al. 2018).

Lampkin et al. (2021) suggest that schemes have become increasingly complex, partially in response to regulatory, audit and compliance issues. The administrative burden can also vary across enterprise type, with Benni et al. (2022) finding that dairy producers face substantially higher transaction costs than arable producers. Furthermore, once schemes are in place, the ongoing maintenance requirement for many AES (reporting etc.) can prove a further barrier to uptake (MacKay & Prager, 2021).

The Peatland Code can be used to understand some of the accessibility issues found in the Scottish agricultural sector. Moxey et al. (2021) suggest that the administrative burden associated with applying for joint funding via AESs and via the Peatland Code is perceived as overly complex, with interactions between them further increasing this. The study notes that the issue of interacting schemes occurs when having to demonstrate additionality, aligning funding cycles between different sources and coordinating across multiple land managers and investors.

Novo et al. (2021) also found that challenges in understanding the application process and funding mechanism were a barrier mentioned by interviewees in their study regarding the peatland carbon code.

Therefore, the perceived and actual transaction costs associated with support systems are a barrier to uptake. When looking to address this, Westway et al. (2023) caution that simplicity is important to encourage uptake, however oversimplification of schemes can lead to unintended consequences and needs to be balanced against public accountability for expenditure.

Knowledge availability, sharing and awareness

Engagement with support schemes and uptake of specific on farm measures is frequently linked with the knowledge and understanding of the individual land manager (Toma et al. 2018).

A lack of knowledge and understanding has been frequently cited as a key barrier to new management practices. This is further enhanced when new technological and informational processes are needed for alternative practices and if the costs/benefits are not clear or easy to judge. This finding is supported by results from the Farm Practitioner Survey (2022), where the most reported reason for not taking action was being unsure on what to do due to too many conflicting views (44%). These informational barriers are important as 30% responded that a lack of information was another key reason for not taking action.

This sentiment is echoed by two specific examples in Scotland. Firstly, Moxey et al. (2021) found that the awareness of the need for and benefits of peatland restoration is generally not well known amongst land managers, along with the voluntary market of the Peatland Code. Secondly, Lozada & Karley (2022) suggest that more evidence and greater awareness are needed amongst land managers about the financial and social outcomes of agroecological practices to facilitate uptake.

There is also evidence that land managers have a difference in ability to adopt new practices due to a variance in resources. Larger scale land management operations may have more resources and the ability to bring in consultants and agents for any new opportunities and land management practices. This is in comparison to smaller scale land managers who may not be able to approach new opportunities in the same manner due to (e.g.) a lack of time and cash plus higher overhead and transaction costs and less scope to cope with risk.

As an example, it has been suggested that small scale agroecological farmers might disproportionately suffer from a lack of access to incentives, despite delivering to environmental policy targets, or see incentive schemes as contrary to their farming ethos (Lozada & Karley 2022). This involves access to specialist advisors, where more profitable enterprises will be able to access specific advice on a more frequent basis compared to less profitable enterprises.

Social norms

As seen in section 4.2 above, farmers do not always make rational economic decisions and are influenced by societal goals and norms (Mills et al. 2017), the influence of a land manager’s peer group is likely to determine the extent to which they engage with specific support systems and management practices. This is observed in multiple studies (Kuhfuss et al. 2016: Cullen et al. 2020; Cusworth, 2020) where peer behaviour has been deemed to influence land manager uptake of environmental practices to a varying degree through framing of what it means to be a ‘good farmer’.

Howley et al. (2021) suggest that social norms can be harnessed to encourage pro-environmental behaviours in land managers. The researchers found that providing farmers with an opportunity to demonstrate their “green credentials” to their peer group can encourage conservation practices.

Summary

The ability of land managers to engage with changing management practices and land use patterns is influenced by a number of external factors. At a practical level, biophysical characteristics, and the area of land available will determine the suitability of alternative practices and land uses, but also the scope for experimentation and risk management. Equally, tenancy restrictions may impose legal constraints on freedom to change.

As businesses, the financial consequences of making changes matters. Funding needs to cover actual cash costs but also opportunity costs (time, income forgone) and transaction costs. The latter arise from application and reporting processes, both for funding and/or non-funding support, and can be disproportionately burdensome for smaller land managers. Separately, access to support can vary in terms of eligibility but also the availability of information, advice and training. Importantly, internal factors such as social norms and peer group pressure strongly influence land managers’ self-identity. This affects their perception of whether different management practices and land use patterns are compatible with their own values.

Discussion guide

The findings from the literature review suggested that we should focus on three main themes when we were drilling into the details with key stakeholders:

• identify the main determinants of ability and willingness to change land use and land management practices, to give us a clearer understanding of the key factors that influence land manager decision making, including their motivations, what they want to achieve for their business or organisation, and their appetite to change.
• focus on the existing support systems that land managers are engaging with and their experiences of doing so. This allowed us to identify and map all existing and relevant land use information systems, support services and the current incentives for land use transformation directly related to achieving Net Zero and/or nature restoration and understand some of the key barriers/opportunities regarding land manager engagement with these systems.
• explore how land managers are accessing these support systems, which allowed us to explore where, when and how the land managers interact with the systems and services.

The interview methodology and more detail on the interview questions can be found in Appendix C, and the findings are summarised above in section 5.

SWOT & PESTLE analysis

This section provides the details of a SWOT and PESTLE analysis on the current land manager support systems in Scotland and were informed by the literature review and stakeholder engagement exercises.

8.1 SWOT analysis

8.2 PESTLE analysis

Conclusions

Our research has reinforced existing findings in the literature surrounding land manager behaviour and decision making. Reflecting its relative prominence within public expenditure and land-based businesses in rural areas, agriculture dominates much of published literature on land use support and this was supplemented by stakeholder interviews, including with individuals representing other sectors.

The key message is that land manager engagement with support systems is determined by a range of interacting internal and external factors. These relate to financial, practical and cultural influences on both willingness and ability to engage. This is supported by the following conclusions:

• The administrative systems associated with land use support in Scotland are perceived as logical from a high-level perspective. Most interactions with the system are through the RPID portal, which only requires one set of login credentials to access a wide range of support systems. Those support systems not under this umbrella are easy to access.
• However, the administrative burden associated with applying to these schemes, i.e. form filling, is the main barrier to engagement. Some land managers have more resources available to absorb this administrative burden, such as large estates, investment owners and rewilding estates. If several schemes are appropriate this burden will increase.
• Procedural support (i.e. form filling by an advisor on behalf of a land manager) is widely available from both public (FAS, SAC) and private advisory sources. However, this is distinct from practical support, such as site-specific implementation advice, which was frequently mentioned by stakeholders as key to facilitating the uptake of environmental management practices, and yet less readily available, and can depend on location.
• We found that land managers often decide whether to engage with support and advice based on the credence of its source. For example, farmers are more likely to trust advisers/organisations that have a background in practical farming over those from a consulting/academic background.
• Another key determinant of engagement with support systems was the level of control associated with outcomes/management practices. Stakeholders mentioned that the perceived prescriptive nature of AECS and forestry related grants would prevent land managers from choosing to access these support services.
• Land managers in Scotland primarily access public funding support, with some accessing private finance to supplement their income or achieve specific goals. For those accessing private finance, this is generally done to avoid the conditionality of public funding support and retain operational control over the management of their land.
• A lack of knowledge and understanding has been frequently cited as a key barrier to new management practices. This is further enhanced when new technological and informational processes are needed for alternative practices and if the costs/benefits are not clear or easy to judge.

Going forwards, administrative simplicity is preferable to complexity and (for applicants) greater flexibility is preferred. Therefore, efforts to streamline application and monitoring processes, reduce information burdens, widen application windows and vary contract lengths, are justifiable. However, accountability for public expenditure requires a degree of bureaucracy to ensure that funds are disbursed and used as intended, and simplicity and flexibility for applicants may impose additional complexity for administrators. Consequently, there are trade-offs, and the scope for improvements in process design alone will typically be limited.

As our literature findings highlight, administrative touch points and contractual constraints are only one influence on land manager behaviour. This implies that improved accessibility and flexibility will not by itself increase overall engagement with land use change. Other measures will also be needed such as attractive payment rates, sufficient technical advice, training and management flexibility.

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Appendices

Appendix A – Support system overview

As part of the desk-based research element of this report, we attempted to discover as many of the existing official support systems available to land managers in Scotland as possible. This included visiting Scottish Government resources, such as the Rural Payments and Services website^[7], along with an internet trawl through other resources – such as NatureScot’s summary of the Agri-Environment and Climate Scheme^[8]. We used this information to compile Table 5 below, giving a summary of all the available sources of support and an indication, where possible, of how land managers are engaging with this support system.

To help understand how land managers are engaging with support systems, we identified and defined the key support system providers. These are outlined below:

Government – publicly funded support systems. These can come in the form of general funding support schemes (such as BPS) or more targeted schemes with environmental objectives (AECS). Government funding also underpins other forms of support, such as the Farm Advisory Service. Generic, rather than agricultural-specific business funding is also available from local and central government, but is generally regarded as less relevant to land managers.

Private sector – Land managers routinely access private sector funding in the form of overdrafts and loans offered by banks, plus calling upon personal networks (friends and family). Other sources of short-term credit include auction markets and input suppliers. More novel funding sources such as crowdfunding and impact bonds have emerged in recent years, as have voluntary carbon markets e.g. the Woodland Carbon Code and the Peatland Code.

Knowledge networks and advisory services – Land managers draw on a range of informational support when making decisions. This includes direct government sources plus third-party sources funded by government (e.g. the Farm Advisory Service) but also independent third-party provision. The latter includes advisory services tied to input suppliers as well as independent consultants but also, importantly, less formal reliance upon friends and family plus peer-to-peer networks.

Third sector, charities and NGOS – Certain groups with defined goals, such as nature protection and restoration, also provide landowners with advice and funding to undertake measures that align with their objectives. These groups are often landowners themselves.

Table 5: Support scheme overview

Appendix B – Archetype methodology

Archetype identification

The first priority was to define a baseline list of Scottish land manager archetypes^[16] in discussion with the project steering group.

Archetypes are a useful tool when trying to simplify the heterogeneity of land managers in Scotland and provide context to the following sections of analysis. The simplified archetypes were then used to underpin the mapping elements of this study. Firstly, archetypes were used to provide a high-level overview of how different land managers are engaging with support systems in Scotland. Secondly, the archetypes were used to identify potential climate change mitigation project providers in Table 6 below. Thirdly, archetypes were discussed with participants at the stakeholder workshop to explore the extent to which each archetype is interacting with support systems in the manner to which is expected based on stakeholder interviews and our literature review.

The following archetypes have been informed by Mills et al. (2017) (see Figure 1) where three main factors are defined that influence a land manager’s willingness and ability to undertake environmental management.

These are listed below:

• Willingness to adopt – willingness of land managers to undertake environmental land management practices and the intrinsic factors (e.g., motivations, beliefs, social norms) affecting land managers environmental behaviours.
• Farmer Engagement – where land managers enter into dialogue, discussion and collective problem framing with those who hold environmental knowledge and expertise.
• Ability to adopt – farm characteristics (e.g., tenancy, scale, skills and capital constraints), that influence land manager’s decision making in relation to environmental management and their ability to adopt new practices.

Mills et al. (2017) found that land managers tend to exhibit different sub-optimal positions within this conceptual framework. These positions are found below:

• Willing and engaged only – willingness to undertake environmental management activities on their land, but this has not translated into behaviour because the manager does not have the ability to do so.
• Able and engaged only – undertaking environmental management and has engaged with advice, but lacks sustained motivation to maximise environmental benefits.
• Willing and able only – actively undertaking environmental management, but has not engaged with any advice which means that land is not delivering its full environmental potential.
• Disengaged – not engaged with any environmental management, either because they were not willing, they do not have capacity, or they dislike outside interference or are concerned with loss of control or management flexibility.

Some characteristics are more readily observable than others. For example, farm type, size and tenure status are recorded routinely, levels of financial, human and social capital or personal attitudes less so. Nevertheless, it is possible to construct example archetypes that can be used to explore how different configurations may affect land use decisions.^[17] The Table on the following page is an attempt to illustrate a broad range of potential land manager archetypes in Scotland. This has been arranged primarily based on activity, as this is the most observable difference between land manager types. We have provided a hypothesis of the likely size, tenure and engagement along with a brief description of key characteristics and indication of location. Words in bold indicate that this characteristic applies to the archetype.

In further developing these archetypes, we hypothesized additional influences on ability and willingness to change land management/use:

• Tenure restrictions (particularly short-term leases and crofting tenure, notably common grazing) constrain automatic freedom to change (and reap rewards);
• Small scale incurs proportionally higher transaction (e.g., application) costs, although transaction costs also deter larger land managers. Small scale also constrains availability of labour/capital/land to make changes.
• Availability of advisers (particularly for non-traditional topics) perceived as credible and relevant is limited, especially/ in remoter areas.
• General lack of policy certainty also deters change.
• Biophysical conditions constrain land use options.
• Financial circumstances constrain ability to change – but also affect relative importance (leverage) of public funds e.g., market revenues and/or non-land income may matter more, making some land managers less responsive to policy (i.e., opportunity cost vary) even if public funding is generous.
• All of the previous influences are mediated through cultural identities, social norms and personal motivations – willingness to change will vary within any given category of activity, size, tenure, region, biophysical circumstances and financial circumstances.

Archetype table

Table 6 – Archetypes

*Priority – this column indicates that this archetype was identified as a priority for this research project by the steering group.

Appendix C – Interview methodology

Interview methodology for land use support

A Discussion Guide (see below) for semi-structured interviews was developed and a list of target candidate interviewees was also drawn-up and agreed. Candidate interviewees were chosen to represent recipients of support, providers of information and advice, and academic experts.

Semi-structured interviews were arranged in advance by email and conducted mostly by video conferencing with some conducted by mobile phone. Interviews lasted 25 to 85 minutes and occurred between 17^th June and 3^rd August 2023. Overall, 25 interviews were conducted with 28 interviewees (plus one by email only). The list of interviewees is shown in the table below.

Written notes were taken during interviews, and subsequently converted into reflective summaries immediately afterwards to capture key insights. The use of formal thematic coding and software analysis was not deployed and, to protect commercial confidentialities, no quotes have been attributed to individual interviewees.

Table 7 – Interviewee’s organisation

As with all efforts to canvass opinion from industry stakeholders, the approach taken was limited by the resources and time available to conduct interviews – further interviews might have produced additional insights. Moreover, it is possible that the profile of interviewees or selective answering of questions by them could bias reported findings. However, there was a high degree of consistency across interviews (and with the literature) in terms of the issues identified, implying that participation was in good faith.

Discussion guide

• What factors influence land managers’ ability to adopt new management practices and/or land uses?
• What factors influence land managers’ willingness to adopt new management practices and/or land uses?
• What types of support are required? What determines engagement with them?
• What sources of support are available? Any pros and cons for different sources?
• What mode of (non-funding) support are available? Any pros and cons for different modes?
• What affects the availability, accessibility and credibility of (non-funding) support?

Appendix D – Literature review methodology

We undertook a focused literature review to identify existing policy and research relating to existing support systems in the agricultural industry in Scotland. In order to conduct a robust, rapid evidence review, key search terms were agreed with the steering group. Search terms were applied to both academic search functions and generic search providers. This ensured a wide range of academic and grey literature was captured. Search terms can be found below in Table 8.

Table 8 – Search terms

Key  

Words in bold are the truncated search term, with the phrases following added onto the stem to broaden the use of the stem word.  Where (Scotland, UK) is indicated, these terms will be added to the end of each search term in that group. 

© The University of Edinburgh, 2024
Prepared by LUC on behalf of ClimateXChange, The University of Edinburgh. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure the information in this report is accurate, no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements. The views expressed represent those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent those of the host institutions or funders.

1. 
   

   Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics 2021. Accessed 15/02/2024 ↑

   
   
2. 
   

   The level of detail offered by stakeholders regarding specific public funding schemes varied, but most suggested that agri-environmental type schemes were more complex to enrol in. ↑

   
   
3. 
   

   Although in practice there may be some overlap since funding may be made available to facilitate interaction with other forms of support. For example, grants to attend training sessions. ↑

   
   
4. 
   

   i.e. one advisor to one land manager or one advisor to many land managers ↑

   
   
5. 
   

   The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) states that roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of input effort. ↑

   
   
6. 
   

   For example, the AIC estimates that its members deploy c.125 staff in Scotland under Feed Adviser Register (FAR) system, which compares with c.140 FBBASS accredited advisers. ↑

   
   
7. 
   

   https://www.ruralpayments.org/ ↑

   
   
8. 
   

   https://www.nature.scot/doc/scotlands-agri-environment-and-climate-scheme-summary ↑

   
   
9. 
   

   Financial support is normally accompanied by at least the provision of information but sometimes also more interactive advice. ↑

   
   
10. 
    

    https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20220804182342/https://www.gov.scot/publications/dairy-sector-climate-change-group-report-2/documents/ ↑

    
    
11. 
    

    https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/independent-report/2021/06/blueprint-sustainable-integrated-farming-crofting-activity-hills-uplands-scotland/documents/hill-upland-crofting-group/hill-upland-crofting-group/govscot%3Adocument/hill-upland-crofting-group.pdf ↑

    
    
12. 
    

    https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/WCC%20Poster%20Website.pdf ↑

    
    
13. 
    

    https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/corporate-report/2016/12/mackinnon-report/documents/analysis-current-arrangements-consideration-approval-forestry-planting-proposals-pdf/analysis-current-arrangements-consideration-approval-forestry-planting-proposals-pdf/govscot%3Adocument/Analysis%2Bof%2Bcurrent%2Barrangements%2Bfor%2Bthe%2Bconsideration%2Band%2Bapproval%2Bof%2Bforestry%2Bplanting%2Bproposals.pdf ↑

    
    
14. 
    

    https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2021/03/scottish-land-fund-evaluation/documents/scottish-land-fund-evaluation/scottish-land-fund-evaluation/govscot%3Adocument/scottish-land-fund-evaluation.pdf ↑

    
    
15. 
    

    https://www.fas.scot/publication-type/ktif-reports/ ↑

    
    
16. 
    

    a very typical example of a certain person or thing. ↑

    
    
17. 
    

    e.g.: Mustin, K., Newey, S. and Slee, B., 2017. Towards the construction of a typology of management models of shooting opportunities in Scotland. Scottish Geographical Journal, 133(3-4), pp.214-232.; Sutherland, L-A., Barlagne, C. and Barnes, A.P. 2019 Beyond ‘hobby farming’: towards a typology of non-commercial farming; Barnes, AP; Thompson, B; Toma, L. 2022 Finding the ecological farmer: a farmer typology to understand ecological practices within Europe. ↑

    
    

Completed in September 2024

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/5006

Executive summary

Purpose

Collaborative landscape management is the enhancement of ecosystems via combined efforts of multiple farmers and land managers across a landscape. It has potential to help meet Scottish Government targets associated with addressing biodiversity loss and climate change.

This research, commissioned by Scottish Government, investigated a variety of models and experiences of collaboration to explore how support for collaborative landscape management in Scotland could be provided. This can help inform how such support may be incorporated in the Agricultural Reform Programme and other relevant policy areas.

Key findings

Overall, stakeholders were keen to see that we build on what exists already, rather than reinventing the wheel.

Relevant examples of collaboration in Scotland:

• Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS)
• Deer Management Groups
• Tweed Forum
• Working for Waders (led by the RSPB)
• Findhorn Watershed Initiative

The English farmer cluster model is also considered successful in bringing farmers together and initiating and planning for collaborative activities. This is beginning to be replicated in Scotland, for instance in Strathmore, Moray, Lunan Burn and West Loch Ness, mainly supported by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.

International examples:

• Landscape Enterprise Networks (efforts are underway to develop LENs in Leven and elsewhere in Scotland).
• The FASB initiative in Brazil
• The Cevennes National Park in France
• The EU Interreg Partridge project

Success factors, required support and opportunities

Informed by the main success factors in these examples, as well as their own knowledge and experience, stakeholders identified the following support needs:

• Facilitation to bring groups together and enable planning, preparation for and implementation of collaborative landscape management approaches. This includes long-term funding and training for facilitators. This could be provided through a mechanism akin to the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund delivered in England by DEFRA, or expanding the Farm Advisory Service.
• Long-term funding dedicated to incentivising and supporting implementation of collaborative activities. This could include investing in existing collaborative structures, such as farmer clusters, Regional Land Use Partnerships, Landscape Enterprise Networks and Deer Management Groups. Greater accessibility and flexibility of funding are needed to encourage engagement in collaborative landscape management.
• Encouraging private sector investment to incentivise engagement in collaborative landscape management and enable greater flexibility for context-specific, bespoke projects. This could be encouraged by increasing the scale of FIRNS and completing development of NatureScot’s Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool. The Scottish Government could also actively broker direct connections between farmers and private-sector organisations.
• Training, conferences and knowledge sharing to foster a culture of collaboration.
• Monitoring, evaluation and communication about the benefits of collaborative landscape management approaches. For example, through building on data such as NatureScot’s Ecological Surveys and Natural Capital Tool, as well as community science approaches.
• Coordinated support for collaboration, both across government policies and between government and other stakeholders. Collaboration may be incentivised by increasing support points in the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme and Nature Restoration Fund.

Gaps and opportunities for future research and innovation

We have found tensions between stakeholders’ preferences for greater incentives and the importance of regulation, as well as between simplicity and flexibility of support mechanisms. Private sector involvement may incentivise flexible collaboration. However, approaches that ensure private-sector-led nature restoration initiatives remain responsible and accountable, whilst making favourable returns on investment, need to be explored.

Glossary / Abbreviations table

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the stakeholders who participated in this study, Antonia Boyce for review and project management support, and Alhassan Ibrahim for review.

Introduction

Context

It is widely acknowledged that transformative change is needed to address biodiversity loss and climate change at pace and at scale. The Scottish Government has therefore set ambitious targets to meet ‘Net Zero’ by 2045 and proposed nature restoration targets for the same period, for inclusion in a Natural Environment Bill. Meeting these targets will require collaboration across the boundaries of individual farms and land holdings, to match land management to the scale of habitats, catchments, and landscapes.

Defining collaborative landscape management

Various definitions of collaborative landscape management exist. For the purpose of this report, we use the definition: enhancement of ecosystems via the combined efforts of multiple farmers and land managers across a landscape (Westerink et al., 2017). Academic literature indicates such approaches can enable positive outcomes for nature and climate change (Kuhfuss et al., 2019), increasing information flows and learning (Prager and Creaney, 2017), as well as reducing the likelihood of conflicting or duplicate efforts by neighbours (Westerink et al., 2017). In so doing, they may offer better value for public money.

However, it cannot be assumed that farmers and land managers are able and willing to collaborate across a landscape. Collaboration requires time and effort. Support mechanisms such as agri-environment schemes have historically been directed at the level of individual farms, rather than at the landscape scale. Scottish Government are therefore keen to understand more about how to create a supportive policy environment for collaborative land management practices.

Existing research on collaboration between farmers indicates that it often depends on long-term relationships and knowledge-sharing, supported by facilitators (Kuhfuss et al., 2019). Where farmer groups already exist, their facilitators are known to be a key influence on farmers’ learning (Prager and Creaney, 2017). The importance of facilitators is also true for other types of landscape-scale collaborations (Waylen et al., 2023). This is especially relevant as other types of landscape-scale partnerships also exist in Scotland, such as Rural Land Use Partnerships (RLUPs), Deer Management Groups (DMGs), and voluntary catchment management partnerships. Ongoing research on collaborative management interventions (JHI-D4-1^[1]), in the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme also emphasises the importance of peer-to-peer learning and building on social capital.

There are therefore a variety of models and experiences of collaboration, from which lessons may be drawn. To enable collaborative landscape management for conservation and climate change outcomes, it is therefore important to identify what existing networks and institutions can be built on and how. This will help to establish what approach(es) for supporting collaborative landscape management will be most worthwhile, and feasible, to include in the future agricultural support framework and other policy developments. To assist in understanding how collaborative landscape management can best be supported, the Scottish Government commissioned this CXC study, in which we built on key concepts and insights from the academic literature and explored this issue with key expert stakeholders in Scotland.

Aim

This study engaged with agricultural and conservation stakeholders (including farmers, land managers, conservationists, and academic experts), in Scotland. We explored their expert opinions regarding how collaborative landscape management can be supported to deliver positive outcomes for climate and nature in Scotland. Specifically, we addressed the following research questions:

1. What examples of effective support for collaborative landscape scale activities may be identified and what lessons may be learned from them?
2. What should support measures look like, to enable farmers and land-managers to engage in collaborative landscape management? What are their relative advantages and disadvantages? How might they enrich and elaborate on existing approaches?
3. What are the barriers and opportunities for uptake of collaborative landscape management?
4. What benefits can collaborative approaches achieve, and how may they be monitored and evaluated?

The research involved stakeholder engagement through an online survey and in-person workshop, both conducted in June 2024. The methodology is explained in Appendix A.

Stakeholders’ experiences of collaborative landscape management

Stakeholders were keen to emphasise the importance of building on what exists already, rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’. This section therefore identifies existing examples of collaborative landscape management and draws lessons from them in terms of what is working well and what is challenging.

Examples of success

Stakeholders identified a range of examples of collaborative landscape approaches that they perceived as successful, within Scotland, across the UK, and internationally. Existing examples in Scotland included the following:

• The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS), delivered by NatureScot in collaboration with the Scottish Government. FIRNS is currently supporting 29 projects to improve their readiness to attract private sector investment. FIRNS is also stimulating flows of information and relationship-building via its ‘Community of Practice’ forum.
• The Deer Management Groups are helping to pool information about landscape-scale biodiversity and are encouraging collaboration by bringing people together to work on a common issue (deer management). Groups are entirely different in composition but all work at landscape scale. Initially, this was primarily to manage a single resource (deer), but over the last ten years there has been a shift towards landscape planning in the public interest, including peatland restoration, woodlands and communities. These collaborative mechanisms have been well established but are currently facing a lack of funding for continuation of this work.
• The Tweed Forum are carrying out a great amount of work around river management through building trust among different stakeholders, to engage them in landscape-scale nature restoration. They have successfully improved water quality at the catchment scale, via a collaborative approach.
• The Working for Waders initiative in Strathspey is an example of an environmental NGO funded landscape scale project. It involves a range of different stakeholders, including farmers and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), to protect and restore habitat for waders in Scotland.
• The ‘Findhorn Watershed Initiative’ have achieved success in winning Just Transition funding to support building partnerships among different stakeholders for collaborative landscape management approaches. This funding allows for not just the restoration work but also building social capital and socio-economic aspects.
• The Dee Invasive Non-Native Species Project (DINNs) has a lot of farmers working collaboratively and has good examples of large-scale projects that have achieved funding with relative ease. They were described as ‘doing what they say on the tin’ within their work, one example being bringing people together to collaborate on the removal of Himalayan Balsam (an invasive plant species) in their landscape.
• The Cairngorms Nature Index (CNI), built on an example from The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), collects data around health of habitats, species and ecosystems and attempts to put it into a standardised format that people can draw on. This has potential to inform clusters in the areas, however this link is not currently there.

The main example from England, which stakeholders spoke highly of, was farmer clusters:

• Farmer clusters are showing success in bringing farmers together and initiating and planning for collaborative activities. This is especially the case where they receive support from the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund (CSFF) delivered by DEFRA. The CSFF supports the time and resources needed for facilitators to arrange meetings, create opportunities for information sharing and conduct administrative tasks. Specific examples that participants mentioned, included the North East Cotswold Farmer Cluster and the Selborne Landscape Partnership.

A wide range of international examples of collaborative landscape management were cited. The full list is included in Appendix B. Some key examples included:

• Landscape Enterprise Networks are helping to build networks of farmers and land managers in multiple countries.
• The FASB initiative in Brazil is supporting local-level nature restoration initiatives by creating collaborative working groups, facilitating peer-to-peer learning, and supporting existing local-level initiatives.
• The Cevennes National Park in France is achieving strong engagement from landowners, by working hand-in-hand with them.
• The EU Interreg Partridge project was considered successful in ensuring consistency for managing species across landscapes.
• The Netherlands is generally considered to have a strong culture of collaboration among farmers. Indeed, collaboration is compulsory for some types of agricultural support.

What is working well?

We draw the following lessons from the above examples of success, regarding what is working well in supporting collaborative landscape management.

Facilitation

The examples of success emphasise the importance of providing a forum for groups of farmers, land managers and other stakeholders to come together in the first place, share ideas, plan and build trusting relationships. One survey respondent emphasised the importance of leadership and building trust: “…a note about how important it is to have trusted people in the area you’re working in, well respected. Leadership and trust is important.” Farmer clusters have been particularly successful in England for encouraging local collaboration between landowners. The perceived success of these English farmer clusters was largely attributed to the fact they can benefit from the CSFF, which supports the time and resources needed for facilitators to arrange meetings, create opportunities for information sharing and conduct administrative tasks. This can help bring farmers and land managers together, in the first place, to agree objectives and plan for long-term and evolving goals/projects to maintain engagement within the group.

Bespoke projects

Bringing groups of farmers and land managers together around a specific, common issue can be particularly effective, as this helps provide a clear reason and motivation for why collaborative landscape management is needed. If different farmers and land managers are able to relate with each other around challenges that they are facing, this can encourage strong relationships between them. The Tweed Forum was raised, by both conservation organisations and farmers, as an example of positive work being carried out around river management. It has focused on bringing local land managers and farmers together to tackle issues such as water quality and run-off. Their approach centres on strong leadership and trust building. Similarly, the Riverwoods project was mentioned as a successful network working towards creation of riverbank woodlands and healthy river systems across Scotland. The Deer Management Groups described themselves as a particular example of a bespoke arrangement, in that they bring people together to work on the specific issue of deer management. “… we represent 50 deer management groups which cover something like 3 million hectares of the uplands, the groups are entirely different in composition but all of them working at landscape scale, initially to manage a resource, which was deer”. Other examples that focused on management of a particular issue included management of beavers, management of habitats for partridge in the EU Interreg project, and removal of Himalayan Balsam in the Dee catchment. A farmer representative used these examples to argue that one-size-fits-all approaches are not always appropriate. He thus emphasised the importance of tailoring collaborative landscape management to specific contexts.

Forums for sharing and learning

Forums for sharing knowledge and experience were considered factors for success in several of the examples above. Such forums can help communicate the benefits of collaborative landscape management, as well as enable learning that could help others to achieve these benefits elsewhere. The FIRNS ‘Community of Practice’ was considered a useful forum by many stakeholders. This focuses on ensuring farmers, land managers and other stakeholders are informed and able to engage in, and see benefits from, environmental markets and private investment in natural capital. For instance, a representative from Bioregioning Tayside suggested that the “community of practice model has been very effective across Scotland and a smaller ‘sister’ fund to FIRNS would be helpful”. A Leven LENS representative stressed that whilst the term ‘communities of practice’ has become a slight buzzword, communities of practice are really important for building channels of communication. Examples of other successful forums included ‘study tours’ (in which farmers visit others in another location to share knowledge and learning), the CSFF conference in England, and the Farm Advisory Service (FAS), which helps farmers to stay informed of new initiatives as they come onstream.

Integrated support

Involving various stakeholder groups in supporting collaborative landscape management was also a factor in the success of the examples above. This includes involving stakeholders beyond just government and the agriculture sector. For instance, LENS are bringing private and public-sector organisations together to broker negotiations, and eventually transactions for organising the buying and selling of nature-based solutions. The Working with Waders project is achieving success in Strathspey, through funding from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and collaboration between NGOs and farmers. Projects like this show that NGOs are willing to collaborate on and fund projects, and that involving a wide range of stakeholders can generally increase capacity for collaborative landscape management in Scotland.

What is challenging?

The catalogue of successful examples of collaborative landscape management signifies that there is a breadth of positive collaboration taking place, which may be learned from and built upon. However, stakeholders also highlighted significant challenges faced for promoting collaborative landscape management approaches, which are explained as follows.

Inadequate facilitation and limited culture of collaboration

Stakeholders perceived poor facilitation and poor communication as preventative to collaboration. For long-term collaboration to work, stakeholders considered the choice of facilitator and engagement methods as key, suggesting consultations cannot be the only engagement method moving forwards. Collaborative projects benefit from a trustworthy, engaging, non-biased and pragmatic facilitator, who regularly stays in touch with participants and is willing to adapt their facilitation method based on the group’s needs. In the workshop, stakeholders perceived that support for facilitation is currently limited, which limits the availability of skilled facilitators to effectively support collaborations.

Stakeholders acknowledged that there is not generally a culture of collaboration between different farmers and land managers, or between the different government and non-governmental sectors involved in supporting collaborative landscape management, due to a historical culture of competition. The current competitive culture results in situations where new approaches, data and technologies are being copyrighted for individual financial gain, rather than shared and used collaboratively with other farmers and landowners for common benefit. Stakeholders in the survey, suggested this can result in hesitancy to engage and trust in new processes, as well as lose out on the benefits of collaboration between different sectors and organisations. For example, the projects listed in Section 5.1 show that NGOs are willing to work with farmers to fund and support collaborative projects. However, they do not currently benefit from agricultural support, which could widen their impact.

Unsuitable funding mechanisms

Our findings revealed a perception, among stakeholders, that current agricultural support is not suitable for supporting collaborative landscape management. Stakeholders consider existing agricultural support, particularly Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) and Nature Restoration Fund payments, as complicated, restrictive and competitive. This was considered a challenge for engaging in any kind of positive management for biodiversity and the climate, including collaborative approaches. According to stakeholders, the process of acquiring funding has a tendency to be extremely complex and time consuming, with ineffective mechanisms for distributing or releasing funds in a timely manner. Stakeholders also indicated that there is a lack of legal and legislative knowledge amongst farmers and landowners, and this is limiting their ability to apply for funding. Applications for funding, therefore, require a huge amount of effort and monetary investment. Indeed, the costs of initiating collaborations and preparing applications for grants and incentives, were considered significant challenges for engaging in collaborative landscape management. For example, a representative from the Deer Management Groups cited the financial burden of simply preparing an application as a major disincentive for farmers to engage in collaborative landscape management.

Stakeholders considered the competitive nature of funding to exacerbate this, as there are significant costs involved in starting-up and applying for funding, but limited chance of success. Farmer representatives, in particular, agreed that when funding is competitive many farmers simply will not bother applying, as the high cost of applications, combined with the high risk of failure, simply makes it not worthwhile. Multiple stakeholders agreed this structure puts smaller farmers and land managers at a disadvantage and favours large landowners, who have sufficient time and resources for making applications and absorbing fines that could occur through mistakes.

Stakeholders also perceived that, with the exception of getting extra points for collaborative projects in AECS, there is currently a lack of funding designed specifically to support collaboration. Stakeholders expressed concerns that existing grant funding is short term in nature (e.g. for AECS is only a 5-year agreement), which does not lend itself to building collaborations or implementing long term changes at a landscape scale. Additionally, AECS funding is points-based, meaning farmers are in competition with each other to meet the points threshold. This was considered a disincentive to engaging in collaboration.

Existing mechanisms for supporting collaboration were also considered too restrictive, in terms of the types of landscape management options that could be funded. Stakeholders emphasised that a one-size-fits-all approach will never work, and policy support for collaborative landscape management must take this into account. A farmer representative highlighted the geographic differences across landscapes and catchments. He emphasised that even the top of a hill and the bottom of the hill can be very different, and different landowners will have different needs. This is true not just of the physical landscape but also in farming techniques, revenue, or funding streams. As one survey response stated: “Single outcome objectives can limit participation and success”.

Siloed and top-down governance

Stakeholders raised further challenges, related to the approach taken by government, that they thought were hindering support for collaborative landscape management. In the workshop, although farmer representatives stated that the Government has been very imaginative, and that successes should not be forgotten, they also highlighted shortcomings in the Government’s approach. Stakeholders expressed a sentiment that the Government have not listened to them enough, despite continually providing feedback. They perceived this top-down approach from government as perpetuating power imbalances that favour some views about land use and management, over others, and do not offer any real help for farmers.

There was also a feeling that current policy exists in a siloed system in which agriculture, forestry and biodiversity policy do not interact. This can result in complexity and contested interests between different siloes and thus reduce political will and ability to act in support of collaborative landscape management. Some stakeholders, such as a representative from Scottish Environment LINK in the workshop, thought that existing initiatives were “very messy at the government level”. He argued that there are too many different targets and proposed initiatives, which, at the level of implementation at the landscape scale: “no one knows how it is supposed to fit together”. Some agricultural stakeholders also suggested that policies such as the Wildlife Bill and the Land Reform Agenda actually discourage collaboration, because they encourage fragmentation of land ownership.

Limited evidence for the benefits of collaborative landscape management

Stakeholders highlighted that there is limited awareness of successful examples of collaborative landscape management projects and their impacts. They considered this a barrier to promoting favourable attitudes and motivations for collaborative landscape management approaches. It is not always possible to imagine something you have never seen, and positive examples are needed for farmers and land managers to understand the potential benefits of collaborative landscape management. For example, a representative from Bioregioning Tayside felt that a lack of awareness around existing solutions has led to a lack of comprehension around how land could be managed to help deal with extreme weather events. Some stakeholders also highlighted successful landscape collaboration projects along the River Spey and the River Dee, but stressed that their impacts are limited by a lack of communication and knowledge-sharing amongst one another.

Stakeholders’ needs and aspirations for collaborative landscape management

Stakeholders were forthcoming in suggesting the types of support that they thought would enable and enhance collaborative landscape management. This section discusses the types of support that were suggested, as well as potential opportunities that could be taken.

What types of support are needed?

Stakeholders suggested a range of support mechanisms that they thought would help to deliver positive outcomes for climate and nature in Scotland

Support for facilitation of collaboration

Stakeholders considered facilitation as essential for organising collaborative landscape management approaches. This was considered important by stakeholders from across the range of perspectives represented in both the workshop and the survey. When asked how important facilitation of collaboration was for collaborative landscape management, 17 of 20 survey respondents agreed it was essential, with the remaining 3 suggesting it was somewhat important, as shown in Figure 1.

Facilitators can help, practically, to bring farmers and land managers together, from across a landscape, and help them to form groups that engage in collaborative activities together. In the survey responses, farmers, in particular, emphasised the importance of facilitators engaging with individuals, not just in a group setting, providing opportunities for social interaction, and establishing the conditions under which groups of farmers would be willing to collaborate. Others emphasised the importance of facilitators for building trust and long-term relationships, and who listen to and understand local needs and aspirations. For instance, a representative of a conservation NGO, stated: “To enable the group to come together and get underway, there needs to be a person who is good at bringing the group together and keeping them together.”

Facilitators were considered useful for helping groups of farmers and land managers set clear goals and expectations, incorporating different individual goals and expectations. This was emphasised by another representative of a conservation NGO in the survey: “There needs to be clear objectives and purpose established from the start, so everyone is clear as to why they are collaborating and what outcomes are expected. There should be a clear project plan with clear timelines”. In the workshop, it was suggested that encouraging facilitators to develop formally constituted agreements with groups they work with, can help encourage those groups to take risks associated with collaboration.

Stakeholders also thought that facilitators can help build the capacity of groups to ‘get things done’. This includes helping farmers and land managers to collect data for assessing biodiversity on their land, and then preparing maps and models of collaborative projects and their intended effects. It also includes supporting applications for funding to support collaborative landscape management projects, by conveying information and guidance about funding schemes, and then ensuring applications are prepared correctly, and in a professional format (which one existing farmer cluster facilitator stressed as highly important when groups are first starting up).

Stakeholders recognised that effective facilitation requires skilled individuals and appropriate investment in their training, time and resources. Facilitators need a wide-ranging set of skills, including: project management, mapping, monitoring and evaluation, diplomacy to manage competing interests, awareness of funding schemes, experience of funding applications, a combined understanding of both agricultural economics and biodiversity, and an ability to draw information from across relevant sectors. Stakeholders therefore stressed that facilitators themselves need to be supported, through training, and funding to pay for their time, skills and training.

In the survey, we asked stakeholders how long they thought support for facilitation of collaborative landscape management projects should last. As shown in Figure 2, the highest proportion of respondents thought support for facilitation should last 2-5 years (n=7), and the second highest proportion thought support should last 5-10 years (n=5). This emphasises the value of long-term support for facilitation.

Funding to incentivise and implement collaborative activities

Perhaps unsurprisingly stakeholders, across the board, considered financial incentives and funding for implementation as imperative for supporting farmers and land managers to engage in collaborative landscape management activities. As noted in Section 5.3, stakeholders considered existing agricultural support schemes, such as Agri-Environment Climate Schemes (AECS) and Nature Restoration Fund (NRF) as currently unsuited for supporting collaboration. There was therefore a strong push for ‘holistic’ funding for landscape-scale collaboration that would cover support for the full range of different aspects involved in collaborative landscape management. This included:

• Start-up funding to help form groups in the first place.
• Capital funding to help groups acquire resources, such as machinery, and other materials needed to implement a collaborative project.
• Revenue funding for ongoing land management.
• Funding for tasks such as mapping and surveying biodiversity.
• Funding for administrative tasks such as writing and formatting applications.
• Funding for monitoring, evaluation and knowledge sharing.
• Funding for communications and publicity.

Farmers, especially, stressed financial incentives as the single most important support measure for encouraging collaborative landscape management. However, they suggested that it is essential for funding to align with farmers’ interests, rather than simply being lucrative. In the workshop, one cluster farmer stated, strongly: “the motivation to do the best for the environment is there, but the support is not coming. The government need to up their game and provide incentives. Farmers will go along, as long as they are paid, but we need help to do that”.

All stakeholders did recognise, however, that such holistic funding for collaborative landscape management would be expensive, and thus thought it would be challenging for public sector funding alone to provide this. In both the survey and the workshop, stakeholders showed interest in private sector investment as an alternative, or additional, source of funding for supporting collaborative landscape management. One advantage of this, that stakeholders identified, is that many businesses already have environmental targets and are ready and willing to invest in efforts to improve biodiversity and climate change outcomes. This may be for financial benefits (through nature finance), or to improve their reputation. Representatives from the Deer Management Groups and LENS explained that they are already working successfully with investment from private businesses, whilst several stakeholders cited FIRNS as an initiative that could help to build opportunities for private sector investment. One stakeholder, from Bioregioning Tayside, suggested that the government could encourage access to private sector funding by facilitating direct connections between groups of farmers and corporations with an interest in investing in them (such as large supermarkets). Another stakeholder, from a land agency cautioned about over-reliance on the private sector, noting that private sector investment is profit-driven and can make nature a marketable commodity.

The survey asked respondents to rank the importance of support for implementation of a collaborative landscape management project, shown in Figure 3. The highest proportion thought support should last 5-10 years (n=7) and the second highest proportion thought it should last for 2-5 years (n=6). This indicates the importance of medium-to-long-term support for collaborative landscape management projects to be successful.

Education and advocacy

Whilst there was universal agreement on the importance of financial incentives, in the workshop, several stakeholders noted the importance of creating longer-term changes in attitudes and behaviour. Some stakeholders suggested that farmers, land managers, and others whose businesses depend on land and agriculture, need to understand the potential benefits of collaborative approaches to nature restoration for their business models. For example, crop production benefits from the presence of pollinating insects, so there is an inherent benefit to crop farmers managing land to protect those insects at the landscape scale. One stakeholder even questioned whether farmers and land managers should receive payment in instances where biodiversity is good for their businesses. However, there was some disagreement with this, especially from farmers, who argued that they already have the knowledge and motivation for nature restoration, they just need the funding.

Increasing flows of knowledge, information and learning about the benefits of biodiversity emerged as an important incentive, in addition to funding. This was considered a potential opportunity to encourage longer-term changes in attitudes and motivations that would promote management of land for positive nature restoration and climate change outcomes. Such changes could reduce dependence on financial incentives for collaborative landscape management. This emphasises the importance of increasing the visibility of successful collaborative projects, including through communication between projects and increasing opportunities for advocacy and information sharing.

Collaborative culture

In the workshop, several stakeholders suggested ways in which a collaborative culture may be encouraged in Scotland. A farmer representative pointed to the French agricultural support system as a positive example of a collaboration being encouraged. There was also some discussion around the idea that collaboration could be made compulsory to ensure it happens. A farmer representative asserted that this could be necessary, because in cases where voluntary schemes for collaboration have ended, collaborative action has stopped, or even been reversed. Such a compulsory approach is taken in the Netherlands, where there is a long history of group/cluster development, apparently with some success. However, for a compulsory approach to be successful in Scotland, stakeholders thought there would be a need for major group development across farmers and land managers. The idea of a compulsory approach was also criticised by a land agent, who thought it would be politically undesirable to implement and enforce. A representative from Scottish Land and Estates suggested a culture of collaboration could be created through a compromise of points-based awards for collaboration within Tier 2 agricultural support payments and then making collaboration compulsory in Tier 3 support. This was contested by a conservation NGO, as points for collaboration already exist in AECS and the NRF. Nonetheless, these points systems could be increased in scale, to incentivise collaborative activities.

Simplicity and flexibility.

As explained in Section 5.3, there was a strong sentiment, across all of the participating stakeholders, that current support measures, such as AECS, are too complicated to effectively support collaborative landscape management. There is therefore huge demand for simplified application processes. As shown in Figure 4, 17 survey respondents considered the accessibility of application processes to be essential, whilst the remaining 3 considered it somewhat important.

Stakeholders also wanted to see greater flexibility, in terms of the types of landscape management options for biodiversity restoration that farmers can access support for. Stakeholders highlighted a need for different types of collaboration in different landscapes for different purposes, and a need for bespoke funding, information and facilitation to be tailored to different contexts. For example, one representative from Bioregioning Tayside called for measures that “allow for agency and different interpretations, depending on context.” Similarly, one member of a farmer cluster suggested a need for different measures, and different governance structures, for collaboration in different regions, citing an example from France, in which different regions are supported in different ways. Another cluster farmer contended that flexibility is needed within specific landscapes, not just across different regions, and suggested that support measures could be tailored to specific habitats. Specific options that stakeholders wanted to see funding for included: planting trees, using grasslands to sequester carbon, mixed livestock and forest farming, reducing fertiliser use, and adoption of hydrogen as a fuel.

There were also calls for flexibility in terms of allowing for the fact that mistakes might be made during the implementation of collaborative landscape management approaches. Farmers were keen not to be punished too harshly for this and thought greater lenience would help reduce the risk of them engaging in collaborative landscape management. This was considered especially important for encouraging smaller farmers and land managers to engage in nature restoration. Stakeholders from Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS) and Bioregioning Tayside thought the government needed to ‘let go’ of its risk aversion and accept that not all projects will work.

These calls for simplicity and flexibility must, obviously, be measured against a need for regulation and accountability, to ensure that collaborative landscape management is done effectively and makes best use of public funds. This was acknowledged by stakeholders, to some extent, though there was a strong push to favour flexibility and incentives over regulation. There is also a potential tension between demands for flexibility and demands for simplicity. The greater the variety of options that are offered, the greater the complexity of support required.

Integrated approach

Stakeholders indicated a need for clear and joined-up support and advice from Scottish Government. In the survey, 16 out of 20 survey respondents felt that navigating complex and contested interests and priorities was essential, the remaining 4 felt it was somewhat important, as shown in Figure 5, below.

Taking an integrated approach to designing and implementing support, as well as governance of collaborative landscape management was considered a solution that could help navigate this complexity and contestation, as well as balance flexibility with accountability and simplicity. Stakeholders strongly suggested that for policies to successfully support collaborative landscape management, they must be joined-up and ensure they complement each other. To aid this, stakeholders wanted to see greater integration of different sectors, policies and government departments, as well as regular and meaningful engagement with stakeholders, to listen to their needs. For example, non-governmental organisations, such as the RPSB, LENs, Bioregioning Tayside and the Deer Management Groups, who are already doing collaborative work with farmers and land managers at a landscape scale, stated they would benefit from increased collaboration with the government and agricultural sector. Such a collaborative approach was perceived, by stakeholders, as advantageous, because working across sectors could help to improve simplicity and efficiency of support for collaborative land management, as well as build on existing efforts to increase the scale of collaborative landscape management. However, there could be a danger that involvement of other sectors could diminish support for agriculture. Some stakeholders were therefore careful to ensure that agricultural funding stays ringfenced.

Monitoring, evaluation and knowledge-sharing

Stakeholders also emphasised the importance of support for monitoring and evaluation of collaborative landscape management approaches. In particular, they thought this should involve support for understanding and mapping the biodiversity that exists in a landscape, and then assessing the impacts of collaborative projects on this biodiversity, over time. Stakeholders suggested a range of approaches for understanding the success or efficacy of collaborative landscape management projects. This included more informal opportunities for learning and sharing knowledge, as well as more structured approaches to formal monitoring and evaluation. In terms of learning and sharing knowledge, ‘study tours’ (where groups of farmers visit farmers in another location to learn from each other), and forums such as conferences and the FIRNS ‘community of practice’, were considered important for encouraging reflection and learning about collaborative landscape management. Stakeholders suggested several potential benefits of such opportunities for learning and sharing knowledge. In the workshop, one land agent thought they could help farmers and land managers understand what work is needed to manage landscapes for nature restoration in their local areas, and understanding how collaborations may be set up. A cluster farmer thought they could be used for sharing how business and funding decisions and agreements are made.

In terms of more formal, or structured, monitoring and evaluation, the importance of setting ‘baselines’ and maps of the biodiversity that exists in a landscape, at the start of a project, were considered essential by a range of stakeholders in both the survey and the workshop. For instance, a survey respondent from a conservation NGO stated that monitoring and evaluation should be conducted: “on a project scale by establishing the baseline and then how the project has moved beyond this”. In other words, farmers and land managers should establish what biodiversity exists in a landscape at the outset of a project, and then assess the success of the project according to whether and by how much biodiversity improves during the implementation of the project. This was reflected by similar suggestions across the survey and the workshop, with stakeholders indicating a need for farmers to be assisted in producing such baselines and associated maps. However, a GWCT representative in the workshop contended that such baselines of biodiversity need to be conducted at the level of individual farms, before they can be done at the landscape scale.

As is often the case when discussing approaches for monitoring and evaluation, there was tension between assessing standardised indicators of biodiversity and exploring more contextual, qualitative experiences. In the survey, several respondents, across different perspectives, called for monitoring and evaluation in relation to general standards of biodiversity, such as standardised ‘measurement, recording and verification’ frameworks. In contrast, other survey respondents emphasised the importance of context-specific monitoring and evaluation that takes specific, landscape-scale objectives into account and includes qualitative data regarding people’s relationships with the landscape and the biodiversity within it. One farmer specifically objected to ‘simplified biodiversity metrics.’ A respondent from a conservation NGO suggested that monitoring and evaluation should include recreational and cultural elements, as well as those related to biodiversity and climate outcomes. This was reflected by the strong sentiment in the workshop around the importance of flexibility and context-specific approaches. Striking a balance between standardised and context-specific approaches to monitoring and evaluation therefore remains a challenge.

Opportunities for supporting collaboration

Further to the needs for support, outlined above, stakeholders suggested several opportunities for improving support for collaborative landscape management. Again, stakeholders were keen to emphasise the importance of building on existing efforts, rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’.

Existing structures for enabling collaboration

Stakeholders suggested several existing initiatives that could be invested in to help consolidate and encourage uptake of collaborative landscape management approaches. Farmer clusters, which were considered a successful example of collaborative landscape management approaches, are beginning to be developed in Scotland. Thus far, these have largely been supported by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, and exist in Strathmore, Moray, Lunan Burn, and West Loch Ness. Efforts are also underway to develop LENs in Leven and elsewhere. Stakeholders also suggested that the Regional Land Use Partnerships and Deer Management Groups already have structures in place for encouraging collaboration, and these could be built upon. Several stakeholders suggested that investment in these existing structures for networking and collaboration should be increased, particularly the Regional Land Use Partnerships (RLUPs) and FIRNS Community of Practice. Funds such as the Just Transition Fund may also be used to support building partnerships, as in the given example of the Findhorn Watershed Initiative.

Funding and training for facilitators

For supporting facilitation, specifically, stakeholders advocated for the English Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund’ (CSFF) to be adopted in Scotland. Some also highlighted that some support for facilitation was included in the Environmental Cooperation Action Fund (ECAF), although this closed in 2017, without having issued any funding. Some stakeholders suggested something similar could be incorporated into Scottish Government’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 agricultural support mechanisms. In terms of providing training to create a cadre of skilled facilitators, the Farm Advisory Service (FAS) were considered well-placed to contribute to this. Their services already include communicating and explaining new support schemes as they come online. It was suggested this could be expanded to provide opportunities for learning and training for facilitators, as well as delivering proactive facilitation of collaborative projects.

Incentives and funding for implementation

Stakeholders were keen for funding and financial incentives to support collaborative landscape management approaches. In terms of financial incentives for farmers to engage in collaborative activities, stakeholders considered the current incorporation of points for collaborative projects within Agri-environment Climate Scheme (AECS) payments as a positive, and suggested that the availability of points for collaboration should be expanded. Similarly, several stakeholders suggested including a collaborative element in the Nature Restoration Fund. Incentivising collaborative landscape management within the Basic Payment Scheme was also considered an opportunity.

Private sector investment

Many stakeholders, particularly those representing agri-environment NGOs, acknowledged that providing holistic financial support for collaborative landscape management would be expensive. It may not be possible for such support to be entirely provided by the public sector. Stakeholders were therefore keen to see greater private sector investment to support incentivisation and implementation of collaborative landscape management activities. Conservation NGOs highlighted that current ‘rewilding’ initiatives are already funded mostly through private business, including foreign investors. Exploring similar opportunities to support collaborative landscape management could therefore offer a solution to increasing financial incentives for this.

Various stakeholders highlighted opportunities to incentivise private companies to support collaborative landscape management. Some thought food companies could partner with or invest in collaborative groups of farmers, particularly local businesses operating within the same landscape. This was also thought to result in shorter supply chains, which could further complement biodiversity and climate goals. Others thought larger businesses (such as large supermarkets or chain restaurants) could be encouraged to build reputational capital in Scotland at a large scale, by investing in biodiversity and climate outcomes. Stakeholders highlighted that most businesses now have environmental targets and have an interest in contributing to positive outcomes for nature and climate. However, they still need a push from Government to take the initiative. Some stakeholders thought the role of Scottish Government could be to facilitate direct connections between farmer groups and private sector funders, whilst others suggested mandating companies to conduct ‘nature impact disclosures’ could push them to invest in nature restoration.

Existing initiatives that encourage private sector investment in natural capital were also considered useful for stimulating private sector investment. In particular, stakeholders spoke positively about the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS), and saw increasing the investment and scale of this as an opportunity for supporting collaborative landscape management. A ‘Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool’, is also being developed by NatureScot, to assess and value natural capital assets across a landscape. There was a strong appetite, particularly among those representing farmer clusters, for further development of this, in partnership with private companies who have nature restoration goals. Some agricultural stakeholders also highlighted the opportunity for new forms of land tenancy, in which natural capital gets integrated into the value of a farm. They thought this could incentivise groups of farmers to collaborate, to increase the value of natural capital across a landscape.

Advocacy and education

Increasing advocacy, education and information flows was considered a useful approach for highlighting the benefits of collaborative landscape management for nature and climate, as well as businesses that depend on the land for productivity. Several stakeholders suggested that building on the existing approach taken by the FAS could be an opportunity to promote this. The FAS already help to communicate and explain information about new initiatives, as they come onstream. Stakeholders therefore considered them well-placed to facilitate communication and sharing of information about successful examples of collaborative landscape management projects, as well as improving understanding of the benefits of managing landscapes for positive nature and climate outcomes. Other suggested opportunities to increase knowledge and information flows about collaborative landscape management included: advocacy campaigns and training, conferences, ‘study tours’, and ‘place-based apprenticeships’ to increase awareness of environmental challenges for young farmers.

Some agricultural representatives also proposed that the farming media, and events, such as the Royal Highland Show, could do more to communicate the benefits of collaborative landscape management and provide recognition of successful collaborations. Printed, online or, podcast media, particularly those that farmers are actively listening to, represent an opportunity to highlight the need for collaborative landscape management. The wider group was in agreement and a representative from Scottish Land and Estates suggested their ‘Helping it Happen’ awards could incorporate a collaboration category to reward and promote collaborative approaches.

Creating a culture of collaboration

The opportunities presented above emphasise the importance and potential benefits of building on existing initiatives. Stakeholders were keen for a culture of collaboration to be created, in which all stakeholders are involved. Several stakeholders commended this engagement, as a useful step in taking stock of existing collaborations and involving stakeholders in planning support for collaborative landscape management. They were therefore keen for further such engagements. Some stakeholders, such as LENs and the Strathmore Farmer Cluster thought that accreditation of collaborative groups as ‘trusted operators’ would help consolidate their positions and encourage further collaboration. Stakeholders thought that greater integration across policies, as well as across sectors would help encourage collaboration. However, stakeholders acknowledged this is complex and agreed that agricultural support must remain ringfenced.

Monitoring and evaluation

Stakeholders also suggested several existing initiatives that could be built on to assist monitoring and evaluation of collaborative landscape management approaches. Farmer cluster groups were again highlighted as examples of best practice, in this case for developing standards and creating opportunities for data collection. For example, the Strathmore Cluster are currently using hand-held mapping systems for mapping key species. Deer Management Groups were also raised as an existing structure that could help to lead, pool and disseminate data. Similarly, Bioregioning Tayside are using ‘community science’, to involve local communities in monitoring biodiversity in their local area. Stakeholders thought such approaches could be useful for monitoring the effects of collaborative landscape management on biodiversity.

Increasing ‘open access’ to data, mapping and modelling also has the potential to help land managers and communities understand why change is needed. The Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool, being developed by NatureScot was considered a useful initiative to support access to data. This is taking a holistic approach to recording different elements of a landscape, and their condition, such as soil types, or water quality. This tool could prove useful for understanding and mapping what is needed for positive outcomes for nature and climate, and could be used by collaborative groups to plan and set goals. Open access to such data could also allow groups to feel some ownership over it. However, stakeholders did raise the question of how and by whom data collection and mapping should be paid for. Some emphasised the fact that this too needs to be funded and facilitated.

Other useful data sources that stakeholders suggested, included ecological surveys and apps being rolled out by NatureScot, as part of the Agricultural Reform Programme, and the Linking Environment And Farming (LEAF) Sustainable Farming Review or data platforms like Omnia (a digital information tool for supporting farm management). One participant indicated that mobile apps for recording biodiversity, are being developed for biodiversity credit schemes. Several stakeholders also indicated that bringing in independent reviewers, such as universities and expert ecologists, could help to support monitoring and evaluation.

Conclusions

In this section, we draw conclusions in relation to what is currently working well, what is needed and what opportunities may be built upon for supporting collaborative landscape management. We also highlight some gaps and opportunities for further research and innovation. The conclusions are based on the input from stakeholders in this study. They are particularly relevant to the Scottish Government’s Agricultural Reform Programme but may also be relevant to other groups with resources and capacity to support collaborative landscape management.

What is working well?

It is important to build on existing initiatives and avoid reinventing the wheel. Successful collaborations in Scotland provide examples for how to bring people together and build relationships across landscapes and could thus be supported to build on their existing work. Stakeholders also consider that the English farmer cluster model works well. This is beginning to be replicated in Scotland. The main factors supporting these examples’ success were support for facilitation, bespoke projects that bring people together to work on an issue of common interest, forums for sharing knowledge and experience, and an integrated approach to supporting collaboration.

What support is needed?

Although the examples of success are encouraging, stakeholders thought that collaborative landscape management is currently hindered by limited support for facilitation, scarcity of suitable incentives and funding for implementation, poorly integrated approaches to support, and limited evidence of successful collaborations. Overall, Scotland was considered to lack a collaborative culture among farmers and land managers.

Facilitators are required to bring groups together and enable planning, preparing for and implementation of collaborative landscape management approaches. Support for facilitators is therefore required in the form of training, to develop their skillsets, as well as funding to pay for their time and skills.

Stakeholders also require incentives and long-term funding for development and implementation of collaborative landscape management activities. Encouraging private sector investment could act as an incentive, as well as supplementing public sector funding for implementation of collaborative activities. Balancing accessibility and flexibility of funding, with quality control and regulation, is a challenge, but stakeholders strongly thought that greater accessibility and flexibility are needed to encourage engagement in collaborative landscape management. Support for bespoke projects, perhaps utilising private sector funding, or tailored support for different landscapes and regions could help resolve this.

Education and advocacy are considered necessary to change attitudes and highlight the benefits of collaborative landscape management. This would be aided by support for monitoring and evaluation that demonstrates the effects of collaborative approaches. A culture of collaboration may also be fostered through an integrated approach to supporting collaborative landscape management. Stakeholders are keen for integrated policies within government, as well as involvement of actors beyond those directly involved in government and the agriculture sector.

What opportunities exist?

Existing examples of collaborative structures, such as farmer clusters, Regional Land Use Partnerships, Landscape Enterprise Networks and Deer Management Groups may be used as foundations for future collaborative landscape management approaches. Investing in them could thus help to consolidate and enhance uptake of collaborative landscape management approaches.

Funding for facilitation may be supported by adapting the English Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund for Scotland. The approach of the Farm Advisory Service could be elaborated to include training a cadre of skilled facilitators for collaboration.

Incentives for collaboration may be built into the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme and the Nature Restoration Fund, through increasing the points available for collaborative approaches in these schemes. Opportunities exist to increase private sector investment in collaborative landscape management, including increasing the scale of the Facility for Investment Ready Natural Capital in Scotland (FIRNS), and completing development of NatureScot’s Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool. The Scottish Government could also play a useful role by actively facilitating connections between farmers and private-sector organisations, such as local businesses and larger scale supermarkets and chain restaurants.

Building on existing initiatives and networks could also help foster a culture of collaboration. This could include increasing opportunities for training, conferences and knowledge sharing, as well as communicating the benefits of collaborative landscape management approaches. There is growing access to data, including NatureScot’s Ecological Surveys and their developing Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool, as well as other sources and types of knowledge, including participatory approaches like Bioregioning Tayside’s community science. These could help improve understanding of the effects of collaborative approaches, whilst promotion of collaborative landscape management approaches via the Farm Advisory Service, farming media and agricultural events could help raise awareness.

Gaps and opportunities for future research and innovation

The results of this project identified several tensions. Stakeholders appeared to prefer encouragement for collaboration via increasing incentives, but there was acknowledgement of the importance of regulation. They also requested both simplicity and flexibility to support context-specific, bespoke projects, but simplicity and flexibility are not always easily enabled together.

Private sector investment may help to increase incentives and provide some of this flexibility, but it will require caution to ensure standards continue to be met. Exploring and testing mechanisms for involving the private sector in a way that ensures responsible and accountable nature restoration, whilst making favourable returns on investment is an important opportunity for research and innovation.

Stakeholders also highlighted the importance of integration across government policies and between government and other stakeholders. However, questions about how such forms of integration may be achieved and who should be responsible for coordinating them, remain unresolved. Further research and innovation on the topic of integration is therefore important.

Although this study identified and engaged with a range of stakeholders and initiatives, the timescale for this project required tight targeting. Further engagement and a more in-depth appraisal would be beneficial. In particular, the 2024 UK General Election hindered engagement with UK Government stakeholders involved in collaborative landscape management approaches. Further engagement with the Farm Advisory Service could also be useful. It may also be enlightening to conduct a more in-depth appraisal of international examples of support for collaborative landscape management.

References

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Appendices

Appendix A. Methodology

We began by identifying a conceptual framework of factors likely to enable collaborative landscape management. We then invited people with knowledge and interest in agriculture, land management and conservation in Scotland to share their perspectives in a stakeholder engagement in June 2024. This involved two activities: 1) a consultation, via an online survey; and 2) a stakeholder workshop, held in person, in Perth on 25^th June 2024. Each of these invited a range of stakeholders to respond to discussion questions, structured around a conceptual framework based on existing research about factors that support collaborative landscape management. Each engagement approach engaged 20 stakeholders. The survey was anonymous, so it is difficult to say precisely how many stakeholders contributed overall, but based on the organisations represented in each activity, we estimate around 30 stakeholders contributed overall. This yielded expert insights regarding lessons learned from experience of existing support for collaboration, as well as aspirations, needs, and interests of those involved in promoting and delivering collaborative landscape management. Below we first describe the conceptual framework, and then summarise the two stakeholder engagement activities, and how the resulting data were analysed.

Conceptual framework

A growing number of studies exist that identify and suggest factors that can contribute to supporting collaborative landscape management. These elements are brought together by Westerink et al. (2017), into a framework which suggests that to support collaborative landscape management, it is important to consider the following characteristics:

• Coordinating the collective effort of landholders across a landscape, and ensuring their efforts complement each other.
• Promoting the involvement of both governmental and non-governmental actors in processes of decision making around landscape management
• Enabling monitoring and learning from the effects of landscape management approaches

A range of specific factors have been suggested by various authors to help in enabling these characteristics (Hodge, 2024, Prager, 2015, Prager, 2022, Riley et al., 2018, Runhaar and Polman, 2018) These include:

• Building on existing relationships and collaborative activities.
• Skilled facilitation.
• Ensuring sufficient time, funding and resources are available, especially for facilitation.
• Setting clear and realistic expectations.
• Balancing top-down governance and bottom-up initiative.
• Navigating complex and contested interests and priorities.
• Learning, monitoring and knowledge exchange.
• User-friendly procedures for accessing incentives.

In this research, we used the above characteristics and specific factors to structure the questions for response in the consultation and discussion in the workshop, whilst remaining open-minded to responses emerging from beyond this framework.

Online consultation survey

The survey, administered online via Qualtrics, consisted of a mixture of open-ended and multiple-choice questions, which were structured around the factors that the conceptual framework identifies as important to consider for supporting collaborative landscape management. The open-ended questions asked stakeholders for their views on: supportive factors for collaborative landscape management; barriers to collaboration; the ideal roles of government and non-government actors; and understanding the impacts of collaborative activities. The multiple-choice questions asked stakeholders to rate how important they thought various factors would be in supporting collaborative landscape management, as well as how long they thought support should last for. The full list of questions is available in Appendix B.

In-person workshop

The workshop, held in-person at the Perth Subud Centre on 25^th June 2024, brought together a group of 20 stakeholders to deliberate what was needed to support collaborative landscape management in a Scottish context. To provide a backdrop for the workshop discussions, the workshop began with a brief presentation by an academic expert on lessons for thinking about collaborative landscape management from elsewhere, followed by presentation of initial results from the online survey. Stakeholders were then asked to discuss the following set of four questions, based on the conceptual framework, in small groups, and list their responses:

• What is currently working well in terms of support for collaborative landscape management (drawing on examples from within Scotland and elsewhere)?
• What barriers exist for collaborative landscape management (drawing on examples from within Scotland and elsewhere)?
• In general, what types of support are needed to enable collaborative landscape management?
• How can learning and knowledge exchange about collaborative landscape management be supported?

The small group activity was followed by a full group session, in which stakeholders were asked to consider and discuss the question of how support for collaborative landscape management in Scotland could be done better, and then finally to note down suggested next steps. The full programme for the workshop is available in Appendix C

Recruitment of stakeholders

To recruit stakeholders for both the survey and workshop, we capitalised, initially, on contacts held by the research team with farmer clusters and non-governmental organisations working on biodiversity restoration and climate outcomes. We then expanded the selection through these networks, as well as via recommendations from Scottish Government partners. All of the stakeholders were invited to participate in both the survey and the workshop, though not all were able to participate in both. This resulted in a group of stakeholders who represented a range of different perspectives, including: farmers, farmer cluster facilitators, land agents, landowners, academic experts, and non-governmental organisations working in agriculture, land management and conservation. We also invited organisations involved in administering the Farm Advisory Service, but did not receive a response. Overall, 20 stakeholders participated in the survey and 20 (not all the same people) attended the workshop. These are listed in Table 1, below.

Overall, this stakeholder engagement included representation from a range of stakeholders involved in agriculture, conservation and land management. Existing farmer clusters, in particular, were well-represented, as were agri-environment and conservation NGOs. However, the tight targeting for this project meant that it was not possible for all possible stakeholders to be included. Perspectives from providers of farmer advisories could have been better represented, as could land agencies and the private sector. A UK Government General Election also hampered efforts to include perspectives from UK Government agencies involved in collaborative landscape management. The focus of the study on agriculture also meant that perspectives associated with other land uses, such as forestry and recreation, were not represented. The findings therefore strongly reflect farming and conservation perspectives and, whilst this is relevant to the agricultural reform programme, further studies may be enriched through inclusion of a wider range of perspectives.

Analysis

By design, both the survey and the workshop produced mainly qualitative data, regarding stakeholders’ views on what was needed to support collaborative landscape management. The data was collated by the research team into sets of summary notes, which we read through, carefully, and identified themes across the stakeholders’ responses. For rigour, we compared themes from the survey against those from the workshop, and from both activities against the proposed supportive factors for collaborative landscape management, identified in the conceptual framework. We also compared the themes across different groups of stakeholders, to explore if there was agreement/disagreement or difference between different sectors.

Limitations

We are confident that this methodology enabled us to invite and explore expert insights across a range of agricultural and conservation perspectives, including from actors already involved in collaborative landscape management activities. The combination of an asynchronous online survey with an in-person workshop helped ensure that the study benefited from both anonymous input from individuals, in their own time, and without their responses being influenced by others, as well as in-depth knowledge exchange and deliberation in the workshop. Nonetheless, as with any workshop, it is possible that the discussions, and thus the data, were influenced by the most vocal participants and the general biases of those present, whilst the survey had limited opportunities to yield in-depth responses. We have therefore made efforts to present the results in a balanced way and highlighted areas of disagreement and uncertainty. Both activities were limited by the amount of time available for the study, and a richer picture may have been painted with more time for in-depth inquiry.

Appendix B. Examples of landscape scale collaboration from outside of Scotland that were suggested by survey respondents

Appendix C. Online consultation survey questions

Online Consultation: How can landscape scale collaboration be supported to help deliver nature restoration, climate change mitigation and adaptation?

Introduction – *Watch short, recorded presentation* – embed in Qualtrics.

Thank you for taking the time to contribute your insights to this study on how landscape scale collaboration can be supported to deliver nature restoration, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This short survey will ask you to respond to a series of questions regarding the factors you think are important for supporting landscape scale collaboration. The questions build on the framework outlined in the presentation, in particular:

• how you think collaborative landscape management should be facilitated,
• how you think government and non-governmental actors should support collaborative landscape management,
• what would help support learning in collaborative landscape management,
• and what conditions and resources are needed for all of this.

The survey consists of a mixture of open-ended questions and sliding scales and should take around 10-15 minutes to complete. You will be asked to name the organisation you represent, but this will not be linked with your responses in the findings or outputs from this study, to ensure you are not identifiable (please refer to the information sheet and consent form for further details).

1) Do you consent to take part in this survey? (You do not have to answer all questions and you may withdraw at any point).

Yes/No (Conditional question – Yes needed to advance).

3) For which organisation do you work?:

Free Text

4) What measures (e.g. administrative, funding, logistical, etc) are required to support land managers to undertake collaborative landscape-scale management to benefit biodiversity and climate mitigation?

Free text

5) What should be the role of a) governmental and b) non-governmental actors in decision-making around collaborative landscape management?

a) governmental actors

Free text

b) non-governmental actors

Free text

6) How can the impact of collaborative landscape-scale activities be monitored and evaluated?

Free text

7) To what extent do you agree that the following are important factors in enabling landscape-scale collaboration to benefit nature restoration and mitigate climate change?:

Building on existing relationships and collaborative activities between landholders.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Facilitation of collaboration (e.g. having an advisor who helps convene, plan for and enable collaborative activities).

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Availability of sufficient time, funding and resources for the planning and implementation of collaborative activities.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Developing clear and realistic plans for collaborative activities.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Balancing top-down governance and bottom-up initiatives.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Navigating complex and competing interests.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Support for monitoring and evaluating the effects of collaborative landscape-scale activities.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Ensuring application processes for accessing incentives are accessible and user-friendly.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

8) Are there any other factors you think are important for supporting landscape-scale collaboration? If so, please elaborate.

Free text

9) Are there any factors that tend to constrain or hinder landscape collaboration? If so, please elaborate.

Free text

10) For how long do you think support for facilitation of collaborative landscape activities should last (from the point at which any particular collaboration commences)?

Less than 1 year

1-2 years

2-5 years

5-10 years

Longer than 10 years

Indefinitely

11) For how long do you think support for implementation of collaborative landscape activities should last (from the point at which implementation of a particular activity commences)?

Less than 1 year

1-2 years

2-5 years

5-10 years

Longer than 10 years

Indefinitely

12) Are there any lessons from your experiences or knowledge of collaborative landscape management you would like to share?

Free text

13) Are you aware of any examples of landscape scale collaboration in other countries that could be useful for Scotland to learn from? If so, please mention them here.

Free text

14) Any additional comments.

Free text

*End survey.*

Appendix D. Workshop activities

Landscape-scale collaboration to benefit biodiversity and climate change outcomes – stakeholder engagement – Stakeholder workshop 25/06/2024 Subud Centre, Perth

Aim: To explore stakeholder perspectives and encourage dialogue regarding what is needed to encourage landscape-scale collaboration in the Scottish context.

Welcome and introductions (11:00 – 11:15)

• A brief welcome from the project team.
• Housekeeping stuff – include mention that we will be audio recording and taking notes.
• Expectation that we want to hear from everyone, and everyone’s views are welcome and ought to be respected, including where there are disagreements.
• Run through the agenda.
• An overview from Scottish Government, explaining why we are all here today and Scottish Government’s interest in exploring the possibilities around developing some form of future Landscape Scale Collaboration mechanism within an agri-environment context.
• Brief introductions – name, organisation/sector representing, plus icebreaker question (e.g. favourite vegetable).

Session 1 – Setting the scene (11:15 – 11:50)

Aim: to set the scene with regards to understanding of ‘collaborative landscape management’ for agricultural land and holdings.

To do that, we will hear short talks from:

i) Expert on landscape collaboration approaches, about current understanding in research on landscape-scale collaboration;

ii) initial results from the online consultation survey.

Each presentation will be around 10 minutes, plus 15 minutes for questions at the end of the session.

Session 2 – Share ideas about what is needed to support landscape-scale collaboration in Scotland (11:50 – 13:00)

Aim: to facilitate discussion regarding what participants think is needed to support landscape-scale collaboration in a Scottish context.

This will involve a ‘Carousel’-style activity, whereby stakeholder participants will be split into small groups, rotating around four ‘stations’, each featuring a different discussion question. Proposed questions are:

• What is currently working well in terms of support for collaborative landscape management (drawing on examples from within Scotland and elsewhere)?
• What barriers exist for collaborative landscape management (drawing on examples from within Scotland and elsewhere)?
• In general, what types of support are needed to enable collaborative landscape management?
• How can learning and knowledge exchange about collaborative landscape management be supported?

Participants will be asked to write their group’s responses on pieces of flipchart paper at each station. These will be stuck up around the room for participants to read during the lunch break.

45 minutes – 10-minute explanation – then diminishing amounts of time at subsequent stations (15 mins – 10 mins – 5 mins – 3 mins) 15-minute buffer for overrunning.

Lunch 13:00 – 13:45: Good food & networking.

Session 3 – Plenary discussion (13:45 – 15:00).

Aim: clarify what is needed to support landscape-scale collaboration in Scotland.

This will start with a summary of points brought up during Session 2. Participants will have had time to look at all of the responses that have come up on the flipcharts for the carousel activity. Lead facilitator (SP) will give a brief summary of these as well.

We will then do a ‘think-pair-share’ activity, whereby each participant writes down their thoughts on a sticky note, then compares with the person next to them, and then we ask participants to share with the room. This will be framed around the question:

• how could support for collaborative landscape management in Scotland be done better?

Facilitation note: Encourage participants to be specific about what needs to change, and who can do what, and even, optionally, when.

Then, finally, we will move into more of an open, plenary discussion around opportunities, actions and potential next steps for supporting collaborative landscape management in Scotland.

Facilitation note: Make sure to check and acknowledge differences and disagreements, if not already aired – explore why they might be coming up.

75 minutes – 10-minute review of previous session – 5-minute explanation of next task – 10 minutes for ‘think-pair-share’ question (5 min ‘think’, 5 min ‘pair’) – 50 minutes for general discussion. Then 15 minutes for closing comments.

Finish by around 15:15 – buffer of 15 minutes for closing and leaving.

© The University of Edinburgh, 2024
Prepared by The James Hutton Institute on behalf of ClimateXChange, The University of Edinburgh. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure the information in this report is accurate, no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements. The views expressed represent those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent those of the host institutions or funders.

1. 
   

   This refers to the RESAS Strategic Research Programme ‘People and Nature’ project (JHI-D4-1), which aims to examine the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss – social values and behaviours. https://sefari.scot/research/projects/people-and-nature ↑

   
   

Collaborative landscape management is the enhancement of ecosystems via combined efforts of multiple farmers and land managers across a landscape. It has potential to help meet Scottish Government targets associated with addressing biodiversity loss and climate change.

This research investigated a variety of models and experiences of collaboration to explore how support for collaborative landscape management in Scotland could be provided. This can help inform how such support may be incorporated in the Agricultural Reform Programme and other relevant policy areas.

Summary of findings on success factors, required support and opportunities

Stakeholders identified the following support needs:

• Coordinated support for collaboration, both across government policies and between government and other stakeholders.
• Facilitation to bring groups together and enable planning, preparation for and implementation of collaborative landscape management approaches. This includes long-term funding and training for facilitators.
• Long-term funding dedicated to incentivising and supporting implementation of collaborative activities. This could include investing in existing collaborative structures. Greater accessibility and flexibility of funding are needed to encourage engagement in collaborative landscape management.
• Encouraging private sector investment to incentivise engagement in collaborative landscape management and enable greater flexibility for context-specific, bespoke projects.
• Training, conferences and knowledge sharing to foster a culture of collaboration.
• Monitoring, evaluation and communication about the benefits of collaborative landscape management approaches.

For further details please read the report.

If you require the report in an alternative format, such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

Research completed in April 2024

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/4747

Executive summary

To deliver climate change mitigation and adaptation, nature restoration and high quality food production, the Scottish Government produced their vision for agriculture, along with the next steps, to encourage sustainable and regenerative farming in Scotland. A programme of work is underway to reform agricultural payments with a greater emphasis placed on delivering environmental outcomes with a proposed structure of four payment tiers tied to a suite of potential measures that will deliver tangible outcomes.

This study identified the most suitable metrics that could be used to monitor the success of the proposed measures in the agricultural reform programme against environmental outcomes. This includes consideration of cost-effectiveness, practicalities and the skills and capabilities of those tasked with monitoring.

Findings

We found potential metrics for assessing the success of the measures for all outcomes. Most metrics can already be applied as the methods are available, whilst a small number are under development and could be applied in the near to medium term. These metrics fell into several categories:

• Emissions cannot be measured directly, so we suggest using current farm-level tools to assess GHG emissions, known as carbon audits. A field level, real time GHG emission model is in development as well as a tool for doing this for ammonia.
• Many metrics depend on direct sampling of soil or biodiversity and can’t be realistically replaced by proxies or existing data. However, well designed sampling programmes can maximise the efficiency of sampling, e.g. sampling for soil carbon, nutrients, pH and eDNA can be done at the same time.
• The outcomes associated with animal health, nutrition and breeding must be largely monitored through proxy metrics. These are relatively easy to measure and provide useful information directly to the land manager.
• A few metrics, such as pesticide usage data or area under permanent habitat, collected as part of the agricultural census, can be derived from existing data.
• Some of the metrics in development could take advantage of samples/data collected at the start of any monitoring programme (e.g. soil eDNA, acoustic monitoring) and others would come online later (e.g. LIDAR-derived hedge data).
• The measure ‘retain traditional cattle’ could not be related to the outcomes.
• Deciding on a suitable suite of metrics to assess the benefits of the Agriculture Reform Programme is only one step as there are issues related to design, sample size and data to be considered.

Recommendations

A full list of suitable metrics for each measure from the Agricultural Reform list of measures is supplied in an accompanying spreadsheet “MeasuresXMetrics.xlsx”. The spreadsheet can be filtered to look at what metrics are suitable for each measure, which outcome they relate to, whether the metric is suitable for direct assessment, if it provides additional useful information or if the metric is still in development, whether the metric is suitable against multiple outcomes and who can carry out the monitoring.

Table 1 summarises the spreadsheet by showing which metrics relate to each outcome. The final choice of which metrics to collect will depend on two main factors:

• The availability of resources to carry out any monitoring programme
• The sampling philosophy adopted; whether widespread collection of a few metrics, where data collection could be partly done by land managers, versus a programme designed to give accurate data at the national level by sampling intensely from a representative sample of locations with mainly expert-led sampling.

Combining information on who can do the monitoring and potential likely costs of expert-led monitoring, we suggest the following monitoring philosophy is appropriate:

• All enterprises to assess soil erosion and buffer strip effectiveness.
• All livestock enterprises to record growth rate, milk yields, mortality, conception rates, replacement rates, age at slaughter for sheep and cattle.
• ScotEID to require information on sires.
• All enterprises to use farm tool calculators (carbon audits) to model GHG emissions. Livestock enterprises to model ammonia emissions when a suitable tool is available. The requirement to model might be limited to enterprises above a certain size to reduce costs.
• The remaining outcomes would be best assessed using expert-led monitoring in a sample-based programme similar in philosophy to the Welsh approach. The resources available for monitoring and statistical power analysis would be key inputs into developing a sampling approach with decisions about the trade-off between number of metrics recorded versus sample size needing to be made.

Table 1. Metrics identified as worthy of adoption in future monitoring, listed by outcome – a full list of which metrics are suitable to assess each measure are shown in the spreadsheet. Metrics are divided into three categories: Suggested metric – a suitable metric for monitoring the relevant outcome(s) that can be applied now; Additional metric – a useful set of additional information or approaches; and Metric in development – analytical methods are still in development, but samples/data can be collected and archived for future analysis. Metrics suitable for use for multiple outcomes are shown in bold.

Glossary / Abbreviations table

Introduction

This report examines the potential metrics for assessing the environmental outcomes of measures identified in the Scottish Agricultural Reform Programme.

Policy environment

Agriculture is a major contributor to Scottish greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; currently, it is responsible for c. 20 % of countrywide emissions (Brodie 2023). Agricultural management has also been a major driver of the declines in above- and belowground biodiversity (Walton et al. 2023) and puts significant pressure on Scottish water bodies, preventing them from reaching Good Ecological Status (Environmental Standards Scotland 2022).

Following on from the Scottish Government’s Vision for Agriculture, a new Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill has been passed, which will allow for a new framework for future support payments for farmers (“farmer” is used in this report to cover both farmers and crofters), including for environmental goods. This will encourage sustainable and regenerative farming practices that will help Scotland transition towards net zero, reverse the decline in biodiversity, and improve soil health and water quality.

It is anticipated that there will be a new framework for agricultural payments focused on key outcomes of high-quality food production; climate mitigation and adaptation; nature restoration; and wider rural development alongside a just transition. Greater conditionality will be key, with a transition towards shifting 50% of direct payments to climate action and funding for on-farm nature restoration and enhancement by 2025.

At present a draft list of measures (Appendix A) is being appraised by Scottish Government that covers both land-based and animal-based actions that should lead to improvements in biodiversity, climate, flooding, soil health, water quality and animal health and welfare. However, a system of monitoring and verification is needed to ensure compliance and that the measures are delivering the desired outcomes.

Aims

The aims of this project were:

• To identify potential metrics that could be used to monitor the success of the proposed measures in delivering the desired environmental outcomes (Appendix B). Those metrics that could be used in practice will have to be cost-effective, practical and within the skills and capabilities of those tasked with the monitoring.
• To take an overview across all the metrics and outcomes to refine the list of metrics to avoid duplication and maximise the usefulness of information collected.

Considerations for selecting appropriate metrics

Introduction

To determine whether any changes over time are the result of direct action through applied measures, it is important to be able to compare areas where measures have been applied with other similar areas that are not in the scheme (control sites). Without this, it is not possible to determine whether any change detected is due to the measures or to other drivers.

It is also possible that even if an improvement is not detected on sites where measures have been applied, the measures might mean that a negative change, that would otherwise have occurred, has been avoided.

A Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) design is commonly used for monitoring the effect of environmental interventions. However, a difficulty is that areas which are originally selected as controls may join the scheme later. Also, as pointed out by Emmett et al. (2014), it can be difficult to select appropriate controls given the numerous other factors, including field contents, size, and boundary characteristics that would need to be held constant across matched pairs. Even if the areas selected as controls are not part of the current scheme, they may not be true controls as they may have benefitted from similar environmental measures under legacy schemes.

As a result of these issues, it can be difficult and costly to assess outcomes at the level of individual farms, though overall performance of measures can be assessed through an appropriate monitoring scheme.

Requirements

Effective monitoring requires an appropriate baseline for measuring outcomes against (Pakeman et al. 2020). A proper baseline gives power to any analysis, as it is detecting change against known values for indicators. For example, agricultural soil monitoring as part of scheme monitoring will need to align with the national soil monitoring programme that is in development.

Similarly, identifying an appropriate sampling design is critical. It needs to cover enterprises in different situations and localities and have the appropriate statistical power to give good evidence on the performance of each measure in at least the medium-term (i.e., to inform revisions to agricultural support schemes). Some outcomes may be detectable quickly, but others, like soil carbon, may take longer to be detectable within realistic sampling regimes (Saby et al. 2008). For other measures it may be difficult to separate the effects of the scheme from market-driven effects, such as the breeding of livestock for reduced methane production, which could be driven by the price of carbon rather than the support from any scheme (Cottle & Conington 2012, 2013).

Selecting metrics

The selection of metrics depends on several factors, including the design of any monitoring scheme, what is being monitored, for whom and for what purpose, and needs to take account of the trade-offs associated with the approach taken. These can be seen as different aspects of taking either a “broad and shallow” or a “narrow and deep” approach to data gathering for the same amount of effort. Data gathered from a “narrow and shallow” approach will be less detailed and likely less robust, whereas a “broad and deep” approach may be too costly to deploy widely.

Sample or population

Taking a sample of the population and focussing monitoring has the benefit of concentrating resources if it is understood that any sampling design has some measure of uncertainty built in. This type of approach has been adopted in monitoring programmes such as Countryside Survey (e.g., Carey et al. 2008) and the monitoring of the Welsh agri-environment scheme Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring and Modelling Programme (ERAMMP), which focusses monitoring on 300 1 km x 1 km grid squares and assesses the impact of the scheme using information on how much land in each square is under Glastir funded management (see Section 8.1.1). The approach allows for efficient linkage between changes in different outcomes, but with the proviso that there is uncertainty and that it can only give a national-level picture.

Citizen scientist or specialist

For agriculture, options will include asking the farmer or land manager to gather information, drawing data from wider datasets, or drawing in specialists to sample and process data. There are advantages and disadvantages to asking land managers, as opposed to specialists, to carry out the monitoring. Land managers differ from citizen scientists in other monitoring, e.g., the British Trust for Ornithology’s Breeding Bird Survey, which is undertaken by volunteers with a high degree of skill at bird recognition. Expectations would have to be tempered in terms of what can be provided.

Consequently, the advantage of monitoring by the land manager is that it is effectively free, it can be repeated frequently and provides information direct to the land manager. This must be viewed against the benefits of sampling with more accuracy and precision by specialists.

It may be possible to develop hybrid monitoring strategies using the advantages of the different groups, either using land managers to take samples (e.g., soils), which are then sent away for analysis, or deploying monitoring equipment, with the specialists undertaking data analysis. Specialist data analysis is preferable from the point of view of scientific robustness, although monitoring equipment does need expert maintenance, calibration and quality control and is more costly. Alternatively, a tiered approach to monitoring could be followed, with land managers collecting some data whilst more specialised data collection is undertaken on a sample of farms.

Meaningful scales of monitoring

The appropriate scale of monitoring is inherent in what is being monitored. For plants, relatively small areas (a few square metres) tend to be monitored, whilst for butterflies and bees, the area might be a transect 100 m long and 5 m wide, and for birds, the British Trust for Ornithology uses 1 km x 1 km grid squares as the basis of their Breeding Bird Survey.

In consequence, the scale of monitoring for different aspects of the environment and biodiversity will not be the same for all outcomes. There is, therefore, some constraint on the overall approach as it is dependent on finding the most appropriate scale for each outcome.

Who is the monitoring for?

The vision for agriculture includes provision for payments that deliver to defined outcomes. If the aim is to inform management at the farm-scale or smaller, in effect using the results of monitoring in adaptive management, then there may be a benefit to a broad and shallow approach. There is also value in aligning monitoring with appropriate advice and resources for decision making. However, if the monitoring is just aimed at showing which measures are value for money, then a national level focus is more appropriate.

Understanding what is driving change

If measured changes can be linked directly to the impact of targeted funding, or with conditions for an agri-environment scheme, then this is a direct demonstration of the efficacy of the scheme.

However, a narrower set of more detailed monitoring may be better placed to understand more precisely what is driving change as a greater range of measured parameters can be used to examine the processes that lead to change. This improved knowledge might be more useful in developing future schemes and inform adaptive management. A tiered approach to monitoring may deliver the best information.

Can you monitor outcomes, or just activity?

It is possible that suitable methods to measure outcomes at the desired scale are not available or practical. Consequently, it may be that measuring actions or activity remain the only option to assess whether management is driving change in the desired direction. However, there would need to be some form of outcome monitoring at a wider scale to assess overall performance of the scheme.

Does land manager-led monitoring need supervision?

This is a contentious issue, but in other spheres such as sampling for water industry and fish farm compliance there are quality assurance assessments of ‘operator collected data’. Some are targeted based on evidence of some kind, but there is a random element to create pressure to conform.

There is a need to consider whether an inspection system is required to ensure there is pressure to maintain high standards of monitoring. Northern Ireland has decided that the best way to obtain robust data for monitoring is to employ people to do the measurement and use techniques such as GPS monitoring to check sample collection protocols are being followed (https://www.afbini.gov.uk/articles/soil-nutrient-health-scheme).

Methodology

We used an expert led rapid evidence assessment to look for different ways of assessing the success of each measure against environmental outcomes. This involved a multistep approach to developing appropriate metric recommendations to monitor the environmental outcomes of the new agricultural support system.

Step 1

For the land-based proposed measures only, we assessed each proposed measure (Appendix B) to identify which of the outcomes it was relevant to. For example, there are nine outcomes listed for In Field – Cultivated Soils, but not all outcomes are relevant for each measure. For example, the outcomes Reducing Soil Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and Increasing soil carbon/organic matter content are unlikely to be affected by Efficient/Reduced use of synthetic pesticides so it would not be useful to monitor those if this was the sole measure in place.

This step was undertaken by individuals with expertise in each outcome.

Step 2

For each combination of relevant outcomes and measures, we used expert knowledge and a search of relevant literature to identify potential metrics that could be employed to assess compliance and/or the success of the measure in reaching the desired outcome (Appendix C). These were categorised in the following ways:

• Compliance or outcome-based
• Already collected under the current payment scheme, by agencies or third parties, or if novel data metrics will be required
• Practical for field-level monitoring, holding-based monitoring or for national-scale monitoring only, or unsuitable for routine monitoring.

This step was undertaken with the expertise of the research team backed up by literature searches. However, for the land-based measures, one individual was tasked with identifying appropriate metrics across all measures relevant to a particular outcome to ensure a consistency of approach. In contrast, the livestock-based measures are more holistic and required an expert to consider the actions around these in the round to identify appropriate metrics.

Step 3

The assessment in Step 2 generated a large list of metrics with associated methods that could be employed to assess the success of the scheme. A series of three workshops was used to consolidate these to ensure that where possible the same method can be employed across as many measures as possible for simplicity and to help in scaling up from individual measures to the success of the whole scheme. This stage delivered a shortlist of metrics that could be used to assess the success of the measures in delivering the desired outcomes, i.e., cost-effective, practical and within the skills and capabilities of those tasked with implementing the metric(s).

Step 4

This step focussed on identifying data collection approaches for consideration, as well as considering requirements for establishing an initial baseline and for future data collection to assess both compliance/activity and outcomes. Data collected could be integrated into existing data sets, such as the National Soil Inventory of Scotland, to give a longer perspective of change.

Potential metrics for each outcome

The outputs from Steps 1 and 2 are presented in Appendices B and C but are summarised below. Step 3 identified a set of metrics that could be employed in monitoring outcomes. This section identifies those metrics that would provide practical and cost-effective information. Potential metrics are categorised into three levels:

• Suitable metric – a suitable and available metric for monitoring the relevant outcome(s).
• Additional metric – a useful set of additional information or approach.
• Metric in development – analytical methods are still in development, but samples/data can be collected for future analysis.

Reducing soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

The outcome

Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are a significant part of the national total. Reducing these emissions is a key goal of the Agricultural Reform Programme and the Climate Change Plan.

Considerations with a metric

Current methods required for direct measurement of GHG fluxes are not suitable for wide-scale use as they are dependent on relatively expensive equipment and a high degree of specialist knowledge to run the equipment.

We suggest that instead of this a modelling approach, based on existing or in development farm/field GHG calculators, is used that would estimate CO₂, N₂O and CH₄ emissions. These are also known as Carbon Audits and are currently funded as part of the Preparing for Sustainable Farming initiative. However, several issues would need considering:

• There are several modelling tools on the market (see section “Reducing Soil Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions” in the Appendix), so an updated review (see Leinonen et al. 2019) of their capabilities would be needed to ensure that only suitable products were used, and to ensure consistency of outputs.
• Assistance may be needed, and hence need paying for, in setting up the calculators in the first instance, as in the Carbon Audits in the Preparing for Sustainable Farming initiative.
• Outputs from the calculator depend on the quality of the primary data gathered, which means data quality checks may be a requirement.
• Feed and forage quality might be useful information to feed into the calculators – see section below on Animal health and nutrition.

Land managers will benefit from these whole farm or field-level calculators with the potential to identify cost reductions or increases in productivity through improved forage and manure management. This could be supported by the soil organic matter and nutrient data collected.

Suggested metrics

Suitable metric: Modelled farm emissions of CH₄, CO₂, N₂O

Metric in development: Modelled gas fluxes in real time at the field scale.

Increasing soil carbon/organic matter content

The outcome

Increasing the levels of soil carbon through regenerative agriculture can make agricultural land a sink for carbon and facilitate the journey to net zero.

Issues with a metric

Soil organic carbon can be routinely measured. There are different laboratory methods available, all of which work well, but a standardised approach would need to be selected for any scheme. Dry combustion (Dumas method) is widespread in its application and thought of as the best chemical method for soil carbon determination (Chatterjee et al. 2009). In addition, some consideration needs to be given to dealing with soil samples from calcareous soils where inorganic carbon levels are high (mainly carbonates), which though rare do include soils like machair soils. Additionally, by linking soil carbon to clay content (measured when characterising soil texture) a measure of the land parcel’s status regarding storing carbon is produced. Thresholds of 13:1, 10:1, and 8:1 clay to soil organic carbon could potentially be applied to arable, arable ley, and woodland systems (Prout et al., 2022).

Laboratory measurement is straightforward, but to calculate stocks, there also needs to be a measurement of soil bulk density (total dry mass per unit volume). Consideration of sampling depth(s) is important as some changes, such as a switch to deeper rooting crops may increase subsoil carbon, while changes in soil tillage might affect the vertical distribution of soil carbon. A standardised sampling protocol needs to take this into account. The approach being taken in Northern Ireland is informative. Every farm and every field are being sampled for carbon and nutrients and soil testing is a precondition of eligibility for environmental payments. Soil carbon stocks are large and are heterogeneously distributed, meaning that quantifying changes over short time periods is seldom possible. For instance, the proposal for a directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience (Soil Monitoring Law) will require samples to be taken every five years. However, to ensure agronomic management changes will deliver and to identify which ones deliver, actions such as the employment of minimum tillage, use of winter cover crops, inputs of organic wastes and increases in permanent vegetation cover (woodland, hedges, grassland) need to be recorded at the field level alongside actions that will reduce soil carbon such as the removal of permanent vegetation cover and ploughing of grasslands.

Further considerations in developing this sampling include:

• Sampling to be carried out by land manager or by experts. There is a trade-off between cost and reliability but given the range of other soil metrics that need to be sampled to assess other outcomes, we suggest that soil sampling is expert led.

• Should samples from the same field be bulked to reduce costs or should they be analysed separately (expensive) to provide measures of error/heterogeneity and the possibility to statistically assess change at the field level rather than at the farm or national level? For instance, the Soil Nutrient Health Scheme in Northern Ireland analyses a bulked sample of 25 cores but this can miss coldspots and hotspots of nutrients (Hayes et al. 2023). The Welsh Soil Project splits each field into three before the W-shaped sampling is done. There is a direct trade-off between the number of fields that can be sampled and the number of samples per field. We suggest that the most useful information comes from sampling as many fields as possible, so a bulked sample per field would be an appropriate sample to measure. Some within field stratification could be done if there was a clear internal boundary, e.g., between dry slope and wetter flat ground.

• Collecting additional information such as the current and past management and cropping at field level would enhance interpretation.

• Several companies already operate soil testing services. In a competitive market, there is a question regarding how consistency is guaranteed and whether a consistency check should be carried out by a third party. United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accreditation would be a minimum standard for participating laboratories.

• Sampling of enclosed land with a single habitat per field is straightforward. However, consideration needs to be given on how to sample from unenclosed land which may contain multiple habitats and a wide range of soil types.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Soil carbon stock, Area under permanent vegetation or other carbon positive management
• Additional metrics: Soil clay content
• Metric in development: Indicators based on soil FTIR spectroscopy.

Increasing resilience to weather events

The outcome

Soils are vulnerable to runoff and erosion after heavy rain and to drought. Improving the resilience of soils will safeguard their continuing productivity, reduce their susceptibility to the runoff of water and nutrients, and subsequent downstream impacts on flooding and water quality.

Issues with a metric

Resilience is a synthetic metric and can be best seen as a multi-dimensional concept. In addition, the thresholds for resilience will depend on soil type. Regarding improving soil resilience, mineral soils that have greater soil carbon concentrations tend to retain water and have better soil structure, allowing water flow through them rather than across them. Soils that show water percolating (high permeability) rather than flow across the surface are at lesser risk of runoff and erosion, whereas compacted soils with lesser porosity and greater bulk densities are much more vulnerable to weather events. Compacted soils also restrict water availability and nutrient dynamics impacting crop growth. The presence of water stable aggregates also helps prevent water and wind breaking down the soil and hence lower the risk of erosion. These indicators are covered elsewhere in this report (see sections Increasing soil carbon/organic matter content, Improving soil nutrient content and Reducing diffuse pollution) and hence not covered here in detail.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Soil carbon stock, Water stable aggregates, Soil bulk density and porosity, Erosion monitoring
• Additional metric: Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS)
• Metric in development: Indicators based on soil FTIR spectroscopy

Improving soil nutrient content

The outcome

Maintaining soil nutrient supply to ensure high levels of productivity is important for efficient farming. However, an oversupply of nutrients can lead to losses as emissions of ammonia and nitrous oxide, or as increased nutrient loadings of freshwaters. While Scotland has no widespread and high impact nutrient issues such as Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland, there are localised issues that have been identified through designations such as Nitrate Vulnerable Zones that might be more cost effective/appropriate to measure.

Issues with a metric

The total concentrations of the various soil nutrients are relatively straightforward to sample and analyse and could be combined with sampling for soil carbon. Analysis methods depend on whether a restricted set of macro-nutrients is the focus, or whether micronutrients and heavy metals are also of interest.

Total nutrient levels work well for some nutrients, but there may be an interest in looking at available nutrients where there is an extraction/exchange step to assess what is available to plants and leaching processes. There are standard laboratory methods for this, particularly for nutrients such as potassium and calcium, but phosphate extraction methods have been developed to be specific for different soil acidity levels (pH).

Unfortunately, neither total nutrient levels nor extractable/exchangeable levels work well for nitrogen, as nitrate is very quickly absorbed by roots, leached, or transformed (e.g., to nitrous oxide). Here, an incubation step is needed, meaning that getting a good understanding of available nitrogen requires sampling, dividing the sample, extracting immediately from one half of the sample, incubating the other half for a set time under standard conditions, and then calculating the release of nitrogen by the soil.

There is an immediate trade-off with adding fertiliser to raise nutrient levels, as excess nutrients can be leached and end up in the aquatic environment, or excess nitrogen can be lost as N₂O. Hence, a balance must be reached where inputs meet plant requirements, while also fostering accumulation of soil organic matter to maximise intrinsic soil nutrient cycling. Current agronomic practice is to apply inorganic fertiliser at rates based on an understanding of plant uptake, but application rates often exceed those which are required as soil-specific variability in supply of nutrients from soil organic matter is usually not accounted for. Tools such as PLANET (Planning Land Applications of Nutrients for Efficiency and the environmenT), a nutrient management decision support tool for farmers and advisers to carry out field level nutrient planning and for demonstrating compliance with the Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) rules, could be useful in this regard.

Maintaining optimal pH for crop growth also appears to reduce soil greenhouse gas emissions (Wang et al., 2021; Zhang et al, 2022), but there is a degree of context specificity, and this may not be appropriate for soils of high organic matter content.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Mineralisable N and available P, Soil pH
• Metric in development: Indicators based on soil FTIR spectroscopy

Reducing diffuse pollution

The outcome

Diffuse pollution has severe impacts on freshwater biodiversity and water quality with risks that climate change (low and high flow extreme increases, warmer temperatures) exacerbates effects such that moderate nutrient loading improvements may not lead to improved water quality.

Issues with a metric

Monitoring of diffuse pollution operates across scales, from the field scale, to highlight local improvements, to the catchment scale to understand cumulative effects and impacts (Bieroza et al. 2021). Field-scale predictions and observations of runoff prevalence and pathways, monitoring of soil compaction (measured by soil porosity) and soil chemistry (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus levels) provides an idea of risk, as does monitoring of in-field erosion (Hayes et al. 2023). Management at the edge of fields, e.g., buffer strips are designed to reduce diffuse pollution, but for best effectiveness, their location and design need to be targeted to ensure that they effectively treat converging runoff pathways and critical delivery points to the channel network (Stutter et al. 2021). Similarly, nutrient losses from field drains also need to be monitored as these can only be mitigated by specially designed and strategically located buffer strips.

Water sampling provides integrative evidence of the effectiveness of measures as it reflects management upstream in the catchment. Whilst monitoring of chemistry, biodiversity (invertebrates) and sediment will provide an understanding of upstream issues, it may be difficult to attribute impacts to diffuse or point source pollution (Glendell et al. 2019).

Water quality is closely linked with soil nutrient status, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus status of the soils, so relevant information can be acquired by soil sampling. However, there is also the need to monitor runoff generation and pathways, soil erosion, sediment flows and drainage waters. Monitoring is especially useful during extreme events, including high and low flows. An understanding of pollutant concentration changes over differing flow stages (e.g., inter-storm sampling) brings a wealth of information beneficial to management about source and transport behaviours at field to catchment scales.

We suggest that land managers are given responsibility for assessing erosion and water flow pathways and the subsequent monitoring of erosion and sediment flows, and potentially taking water samples of drainage waters for analysis by specialist laboratories. This would mean farmers assessing whether individual buffer strips were effective at preventing water flows, or whether their design allowed for flow around their edges by visiting them during periods of heavy rain. Future erosion pathways could be identified using fine-scale elevation data from LIDAR to model the flow of water across the surface of land (e.g. Reaney et al. 2019. Aquatic biodiversity requires specialist surveyors and could be done at the same time as the above-ground biodiversity assessment (Section 6.9).

SEPA currently collect a wide range of data from multiple sites. We suggest that it would be of benefit to use the current SEPA monitoring of agricultural catchments as the basis for studies linking agricultural management and water quality, by ensuring studies are joined up. This may mean enhancing the range and/or frequency of measures taken. A nested design could be followed, whereby field- and farm-scale sampling are nested within these catchments representing different land use typologies in Scotland, with water quality being monitored at the catchment outlet. The detailed knowledge from these catchments could be linked to farm-level data to make national estimates of benefits.

Farm-level models for looking at nutrient inputs and losses have been developed for England and Wales, e.g., FARMSCOPER. However, the extent to which it can be applied to the soils, climate and farming systems in Scotland has not been tested and this would need carrying out before it could be recommended as a metric for use in assessing the efficacy of measures.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Mineralisable nitrogen, available phosphorus and pH, Soil bulk density and porosity, Erosion monitoring and effectiveness of buffer strips (including other enhancements e.g., wetlands, wet woodland, sediment traps)
• Additional metric: Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS), Detailed monitoring in representative SEPA and other research catchments for process-based understanding on management impacts
• Metric in development: Runoff evaluation using LIDAR derived fine resolution topographic data

Improving water and air quality

The outcome

Water quality is tightly linked to freshwater biodiversity. However, it also has implications for the cost of water treatment downstream. Air pollution, particularly of ammonia, can also severely impact local biodiversity.

Issues with a metric

There can be a disconnect between actions at the field scale to reduce nutrient loss and water quality as actions can be poorly sited, poorly implemented and miss important routes of pollutant movement. However, there is clear evidence that reduction in soil nutrient status is the most likely route to deliver improvements in water quality, so monitoring for water quality is intrinsically linked to monitoring of soil nutrient status (Hayes et al. 2023).

High-resolution water quality monitoring that would represent the temporal and spatial variability is expensive and the movement of water in catchments may make linking it to the actions of individual farms problematic. Consequently, we suggest a combination of field/farm-level monitoring of soil nutrient status (i.e., soil organic matter, plant available (mineralisable) N, biologically available P and pH) and detailed monitoring of several representative catchment outlets to improve the understanding of processes. These could be based around SEPA’s existing catchment observation platforms, with additional investment to maximise the robustness of collected evidence.

Further action to reduce point source pollution, such as slurry pit overflow, farmyards and septic tanks, should not be overlooked (Harrison et al. 2019). Monitoring of this would be in the form of capital spend. Best practice should be followed for digestate and slurry application to land.

Currently available sensors for monitoring ammonia emissions tend to be expensive, require technical expertise and are sensitive to meteorological conditions and other atmospheric gases. Lower cost passive samplers, which could be deployed by non-specialists are less accurate, have lower temporal resolution, and require laboratory analysis (Insausti et al., 2020). A similar approach to that proposed for water quality could be implemented, with intensive monitoring of key areas with intensive livestock production systems, coupled with national scale monitoring utilising the National Ammonia Monitoring Network which monitors atmospheric ammonia concentrations monthly. A farm-level calculator for ammonia emissions is in development as part of the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme. This would be the most cost-effective way forward for wide deployment of monitoring.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Mineralisable nitrogen, available P and pH, Soil bulk density and porosity, Erosion monitoring and effectiveness of buffer strips
• Additional metric: Intensive farm-scale monitoring of ammonia emissions in livestock intensive areas, Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS), Detailed monitoring in SEPA catchments for process-based understanding on management impacts
• Metric in development: Modelled farm emissions of ammonia

Improving soil water retention and flow

The outcome

Soil water retention is important in reducing soil erosion and diffuse pollution. If water flows through the soil it is slowed, reducing flood peaks, and there is greater interaction between the soil and water reducing the risk of nutrient loss. In contrast, water flowing across the surface of soils leads to erosion and nutrient runoff.

Issues with a metric

There are several detailed methods available to understand water retention and flow through soils, but they are not appropriate for wide-scale monitoring, apart from their potential use in the detailed monitoring of test catchments. These include detailed measures of soil texture, as well as laboratory measures of hydraulic conductivity. Direct measures of soil compaction with penetrometers suffer from variability due to soil water content, stoniness of the soil and differences between manufacturers. They are not suitable for wide-scale monitoring.

However, a set of straightforward measures are available to assess how soil water behaves. As part of the sampling of soil for soil carbon measurements, bulk density is measured to calculate carbon stocks from carbon concentrations. However, topsoil bulk density can vary seasonally and with respect to management. Subsoil bulk density is an indicator in the draft EU soil monitoring and resilience law and provides a more consistent measure of how the soil is behaving. This is a key parameter for understanding the effect of management on this outcome. However, the additional effort of also recording specific gravity of the soil will allow the calculation of soil porosity, another key parameter that is important for assessing soil water retention.

The Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS) is a qualitative metric that could also be used to supplement other measures and provide land managers with direct information at the field level on the degree of soil compaction, especially if this included both topsoil and subsoil. For quantitative measures of soil structure, the measurement of Water stable aggregates (WSA) should be considered and removes the potential for subjectivity.

Suggested metric

• Suitable metric: Sub-soil bulk density and porosity, Water stable aggregates, Erosion monitoring
• Additional metric: Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS)

Improving soil biodiversity

The outcome

Maintaining a healthy soil ecosystem is critical to the regulation of key processes, as soil organisms are critical to the cycling of nutrients and to plant growth. For instance, soil animals like earthworms are highly important to water movement in soils.

Issues with a metric

Soil biodiversity, whilst a key soil health indicator (Neilson et al. 2021), is unlikely to be practically assessed by the land manager. Identification of surface-dwelling invertebrates, such as beetles and earthworms, requires specialist taxonomic skills; even for earthworms a total count does not work as all functional groups need to be present for good soil health. Existing data is not available for surface dwelling invertebrates, but data collection methods with pitfall traps are standardised, for example by the Environmental Change Network. However, these methods require at least two visits, so may not be cost-effective. Previous earthworm surveys have been carried out (Boag et al. 1997, Carpenter et al. 2012), we suggest that methodologies should be kept consistent.

Molecular methods have been employed for bacteria, fungi and nematodes. However, methods to characterise complete soil biodiversity using eDNA (environmental DNA) are now emerging. As is typical with emerging technologies, there are issues surrounding data interpretation, thresholds and developing and/or defining baseline comparators. It is, perhaps, too early to suggest using this as a monitoring method, as the science relating molecular data to improvements in soil health is in its infancy. However, as soil sampling is likely to be used to monitor other outcomes, samples could be taken and archived for future use as a baseline to assess change.

Pesticide usage could be a proxy for the pressure on biodiversity, and hence pesticide usage data would be a useful addition to direct monitoring. It is already collected in Scotland, but refining the data to consider impacts on soil organisms and the different application rates would be necessary.

Further consideration needs to be given to:

• Collecting contextual information such as the current and previous crops.
• Whether the optimum times for sampling in spring and autumn coincide with the optimum times for sampling soil carbon and nutrients.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Surface dwelling invertebrates and earthworm functional group abundance
• Additional metric: Pesticide usage data
• Metric in development: eDNA samples archived as interpretation needs to improve

Removing drivers for biodiversity loss

The outcome

As much of Scotland is affected by agriculture, sensitive agricultural management is important to delivering the goals of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy.

Issues with a metric

Biodiversity is intrinsically multi-dimensional, but typical agri-environmental monitoring targets habitat diversity, birds, pollinators and plants, as they give information at different scales.

In most schemes, biodiversity monitoring is done by specialists, as it is the status of priority species that has been the driver for the development of the scheme. However, that is not practical in terms of cost at the farm level, so a choice must be made between:

• Land manager-led monitoring aided by tools such as report cards and identification guides. Bird surveys could allow different levels of precision from individual species to groups (e.g., finches). Similarly, pollinator surveys could record at the level of group (bumblebee, honeybee, butterfly, hoverfly) or plant surveys, by numbers of different types of flower (e.g., daisy, pea types) in a set area. Alternatively, there is the possibility of sub-contracting to specialists if grant payments included money for monitoring. Land managers setting out acoustic recording devices also fits into this space. The resulting files could be uploaded to a central organisation responsible for analysis. The methodologies for data analysis are still in development, but sound files could be archived for later analysis when the methodologies have matured to deal with high levels of false positive identifications. The biodiversity audit as part of the whole farm plan also falls into this category.
• Specialist surveys on samples of farms with the sampling design considering the implementation of measures (Pakeman et al. 2020) or being large enough to assess change for most measures, however, they are distributed across the landscape (e.g., the Welsh approach to monitoring Glastir).

There is a clear trade-off here between broad and shallow versus narrow and deep approaches. To enable adaptive management at the farm level, then land manager-led monitoring is important, but there is the risk that the measures deliver higher numbers of generalist species, do not benefit species that are a conservation priority, but the data is incapable of showing this. It may be that a hybrid approach is necessary, so that field/farm-level data is complemented by detailed measures on a sample of land holdings. However, sample sizes need to be sufficient to confidently assess change. Previous monitoring studies, e.g., Perry et al. (2003), could be used to identify appropriate levels of sampling needed.

Currently collected biodiversity data is not appropriate for agri-environment monitoring for a range of reasons, mainly due to mismatches in scale between land holdings and the specific sampling method used. In the case of breeding bird data, it has been used as a measure of general farmland diversity against which the performance of in-scheme farms has been judged.

Proxies for habitat diversity currently collected by RPID would be useful data, but it only characterises area and has no measure of quality associated. Alternatives include using remote sensing data (e.g., habitat maps or LIDAR derived information on hedgerow extent and conditions) that provides information on land cover and structure, but these are only proxies for biodiversity.

Finally, pesticide usage is a clear driver of biodiversity loss. Usage statistics are already collected using a sampling approach to assess a Scotland-level picture. However, the diversity of chemicals applied, and their different application rates would require methodological developments to combine their usage into meaningful statistics.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Bird, pollinator and plant composition and diversity
• Additional metric: Farmland habitat diversity, pesticide usage survey data
• Metric in development: Acoustic diversity, LIDAR derived hedge data

Improving animal nutrition

The outcome

Improving animal nutrition will reduce the time taken to deliver animals to market. This reduces lifetime emissions especially of methane.

Issues with a metric

Improving livestock nutrition leads to increased animal performance and reduced methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions. Monitoring of nutrition can be undertaken through laboratory analysis of feedstuffs. The key analyses are forage digestibility – which can easily be undertaken by many feed companies – and dietary crude protein. There is also an important trade-off already mentioned between optimising nutrition and the increased fertiliser use, leading to greenhouse gas emissions and/or pollution of water courses. However, these are very much business-related metrics, and their collection may not be informative as a means of national monitoring, particularly as silage quality varies between fields, time of year and across years. The need for its collection as part of a national monitoring scheme is, therefore, debateable.

Instead, we suggest that simple measures of animal performance are collected and form part of routine monitoring of flock/herd status. These reflect actual performance rather than inputs into the system and are easier to record.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metrics: Growth rates, Milk yields (Dairy cattle only), Mortality, Conception rates, Replacement rates, Age at slaughter
• Additional metric: Feed analysis for digestibility/protein

Improving animal breeding

The outcome

Focusing on animal breeding can improve the productivity of farming systems and, also, increase the quality of products like meat and milk. In terms of reducing methane production, breeding can directly reduce emissions, but also quicker growing animals will release less over their lifetimes.

Issues with a metric

Selective breeding for improved productivity, improved efficiency or reduced methane emissions could drive permanent and cumulative improvement in performance and/or reductions in methane emissions. Monitoring of selective cattle breeding for specific traits could be undertaken through applications for calf passports to ScotEID, but this would rely upon sire details being recorded on passports (which is currently not mandatory) and on the sire’s genetic potential for selected traits being known.

Proxy measures such as growth rates, milk production, conception rates and days to slaughter could also be used to monitor improvements over longer time periods but could be confounded with improvements in nutrition and health.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Sire details included on applications to ScotEID for calf/lamb passports
• Additional metric: Growth rates, Milk production, Conception rates, Age at slaughter

Improving animal health

The outcome

Improved animal health has a direct benefit to animal welfare. However, it also reduces losses during the production process, improving productivity and reducing methane emissions on a lifetime basis.

Issues with a metric

Several endemic (and exotic) diseases and syndromes can impact on the production efficiency and associated GHG emissions of farmed livestock. Some diseases have a direct impact on individual animals and metrics such as growth rates, reproductive success, and replacement rates. Others have a more indirect impact at herd/flock and national level, through how diseased animals are managed following diagnosis. Data and metrics on the prevalence of key priority diseases and health conditions at a national level are currently not collected, but would be invaluable, if logistically challenging. Eradication may be feasible for some diseases, e.g., Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD), but requires the relevant tools, e.g., vaccines, and diagnostics to be available, in addition to coordination and buy-in across the industry.

The most straightforward was to assess animal health would be to collect a common set of proxy measures, e.g., growth rates, age at slaughter, conception rates, replacement rates and mortality rates will be the most feasible approach to measuring progress on animal health. This approach could also be applied to animal breeding and nutrition.

Recording all these metrics would be useful to both national-level monitoring of performance and for the land manager’s care for their livestock. This could also include records of veterinary medicines used to gauge movement towards sustainable prescribing, though this complex topic (Humphry et al. 2021) is outwith the scope of this report.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metrics: Growth rate, Milk yields (Dairy cattle only), Mortality, Conception rates, Replacement rates, age at slaughter

Methane suppression

The outcome

Methane is a greenhouse gas with much higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide (methane from non-fossil fuel sources has a global warming potential of 27 times that of C0₂ with a 100-year time horizon, IPCC 2021). Enteric methane is released by ruminants such as cattle and sheep as part of the natural digestion of plant material by their associated microbiota. Methane is a significant part of agricultural emissions and so reducing it is key to reaching net zero emissions.

Issues with a metric

Selective breeding for reduced enteric methane emissions/increased animal efficiency (section 6.11) is a long-term strategy. In the short term, feed supplements designed to suppress enteric methane production could be used to drive down emissions. Sexed semen could be used to optimise herd dynamics by reducing numbers of male dairy calves and increasing male beef and dairy-beef calves. Direct measurement of methane emissions depends upon specialised equipment and is therefore not practical at the herd or flock level.

Two potential options are available. Firstly, to monitor the usage of methane-reducing feed supplements and calculate emission reductions based on their reduction factors. However, appropriate reduction factors for all feed products may not be available for all systems. The other option is to use current carbon footprinting tools (e.g., Agrecalc, Cool Farm Tool), but these need a subscription, may need the help of a consultant to set up and would benefit from information on forage quality and the impacts of feed supplements (so in effect replacing the need for providing information separately on feed supplements). The use of a standard tool across herds/flocks would allow for comparison.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Modelled farm emissions of CH₄, CO₂, N₂O

Nutrient management

The outcome

Poor nutrient management can lead to the emissions of nitrous oxide, methane and ammonia. It also runs the risk of point source and diffuse pollution into watercourses.

Issues with a metric

Organic manures help recycle nutrients and build soil organic matter. However, there is the potential for them to be a source of ammonia, methane and nitrous oxide, as well as nutrient runoff in water courses. Much can be done to alleviate this, with well-designed and covered manure stores as well as appropriate application techniques. Gaseous emissions are difficult to monitor directly, so these would have to be modelled using a farm calculator. Impacts on soil nutrients and water quality are dealt with in previous sections so a separate metric for nutrient management is not necessary.

Suggested metrics

• Suitable metric: Modelled farm emissions of CH₄, CO₂, N₂O, Mineralisable nitrogen and available phosphorus, Effectiveness of buffer strips
• Metric in development: Modelled farm emissions of ammonia

Coordinated metric collection

This section examines opportunities to synthesise across the required outcomes to minimise the number of metrics to be collected.

Why is this important?

Any monitoring must be as cost-effective as possible. Consequently, during the design phase decisions should be focussed on making the recording of metrics as straightforward as possible and to build efficiency into any monitoring programme, for example, by sampling multiple metrics on the same visit.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Gas emissions cannot be realistically measured directly. Using current farm-level tools to assess GHG emissions will deliver against multiple outcomes [Reducing Soil Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, Livestock emissions, Nutrient management]. In addition, a tool for estimating ammonia emissions [Improving water and air quality] is in development, as is a field-level, real time emission model. These will further enhance capability in this area.

Coordinated sampling strategies

Many metrics depend on the direct sampling of soil or biodiversity and can’t be realistically replaced by proxies or existing data. However, well designed sampling programmes can maximise the efficiency of sampling, e.g., sampling for soil carbon, nutrients, pH and eDNA can be done at the same time. Even if this were not possible, sampling of soil nutrients, particularly mineralisable nitrogen and available phosphorus, would deliver against multiple outcomes [Improving soil nutrient content, Reducing diffuse pollution, Improving water and air quality, Nutrient management]. Similarly, monitoring soil bulk density is important for multiple outcomes [Increasing soil carbon/organic matter content, Improving soil water retention and flow], as is Water stable aggregates.

Soil monitoring

A range of soil monitoring is already being carried out for different purposes. There is a need to consider how future monitoring could supplement or replace existing work in this area, including:

• Scottish Government’s National Test Programme’s includes soil carbon measurement in Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF).
• The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Scorecard for soil health which includes soil structure (using VESS Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure), pH, extractable nutrients (phosphorus, potassium and magnesium), earthworms, soil organic matter.
• Linking Environment And Farming (LEAF).
• Red Tractor.
• Soil Association.

Livestock

The outcomes associated with animal health, nutrition and breeding must be largely monitored through proxy metrics, but these are relatively easy to measure and provide useful information direct to the land manager. However, it would be difficult to disentangle the differing contributions of nutrition, health and breeding on the overall performance of the flock/herd. At present, the separate contributions of improving animal nutrition, improving animal health and improving the genetics of the flock/herd are not easily separated but offer three routes for livestock managers to improve performance and consequently reduce emissions, one or more of which can be followed.

National level data

A few metrics can be based on existing data such as data collected as part of the agricultural census or can be derived from existing data such as satellite habitat maps. These are useful additional data, but do not provide the best metrics to assess the success of outcomes. They include: Area under permanent vegetation or other carbon positive management, Detailed monitoring in SEPA catchments to include water quality (nitrate, phosphate etc.), SEPA regulatory monitoring, Pesticide Usage Survey data, Farmland habitat diversity. They can be identified by filtering column I in the terrestrial sheet of MeasuresXMetrics.xlsx file.

Metrics currently in development

There are a range of metrics that are in development, some of which could take advantage of samples/data collected at the start of any monitoring programme (e.g., soil eDNA, acoustic monitoring) but others would come online later (e.g., LIDAR derived hedge data).

Cost-effective data acquisition strategies

Where this report recommends farmer-led metric recording, then this would provide a whole population value that can be followed through time. However, where only a proportion of the population of farms/fields can be sampled there has to be a statistically sound design adopted. This would include a comparison between areas where measures have been applied with other similar areas that are not in the scheme (control sites). A Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) design is commonly used for monitoring the effect of environmental interventions. One issue to be addressed is that areas which are originally selected as controls may join the scheme later, so starting with a larger control population may guard against this.

An example – Wales

In Wales, the Glastir Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (GMEP) sample consisted of a stratified random sample 150 “Wider Wales” 1 km squares and 150 targeted at priority areas for the agri-environment scheme. It should be noted, however, that the “Wider Wales” squares do include land which is in the scheme, and that even the targeted 1 km squares contain differing amounts of land where specific management options have been applied. As it was found that the “Wider Wales” squares had considerable coverage of the scheme, in the more recent ERAMMP National Field Survey the aim has been to capture as much in-scheme and counterfactual land as possible within the full set of 300 squares.

To allow sampling effort to be spread across years and provide both temporal and spatial coverage, a rolling monitoring programme was followed by GMEP, in which sites are revisited, for example, every four or five years but different sites are sampled in years two and three. This allows better spatial coverage than if each site was revisited every year, while at the same time providing a more powerful estimate of change over say a five-year period, than not revisiting sites at all. The GMEP scheme uses a four-year rolling monitoring programme. Countryside Survey is also now following a rolling programme. Power analysis for the GMEP scheme (Emmett et al., 2014) suggested that across a variety of metrics, around 45 squares per year was the minimum number that need to be monitored before losing significant power to detect change over a period of 8 years (two cycles of the rolling programme).

Other considerations

Soil nutrients and soil carbon would be most appropriately measured at the scale of fields within farms, as this is the level at which relevant measures are applied. On the other hand, surveys of birds and pollinators, which are mobile over a larger area, might be more appropriately recorded for parcels of land, such as 1 km squares, although it is unlikely that the same measures will have been applied consistently across a whole 1 km square. To provide a common spatial unit across different metrics, the GMEP survey used 1 km squares, but, as it is not possible to sample vegetation and soils over the entire square, five randomly placed plots in each square were used for vegetation monitoring and soil samples were taken from the same plots. Vegetation was also recorded in other plot types, for example, along boundaries and field margins.

If fields rather than squares are to be used for soil monitoring, a representative sample for a particular field or part of a larger field can be obtained by bulking individual cores. For example, in the Soil Nutrient Health Scheme in Northern Ireland samplers follow a ‘W’ shaped track and take 25 cores. This should give a good estimate of the mean for an individual field but unless replicate cores are analysed individually it does not provide an estimate of the variability within the field. As a result, it is not possible to determine whether a change in a particular field between two sampling occasions is statistically significant. Under the Scottish Government’s National Test Programme 20% of arable and improved grassland can claim funding for soil testing each year. If this scheme is continued, it could mean complete coverage of all arable and improved grassland fields after five years. The recommendation of Scotland’s Farm Advisory Service (FAS) is that larger fields should be divided into 4 ha units, potentially with the help of the 1:25000 soil map. This approach might provide sufficient replicate samples across a farm as a whole to allow a change to be detected on a specific farm, although it should be noted that unless a suitable control is available it may not be possible to attribute any change to particular measures and that soil carbon changes in response to measures might take longer than five years to be detectable.

A note on data

Monitoring across a range of outcomes and metrics will generate a considerable volume of data. This will require a significant investment in design and development of the databases and in the staff required for data curation.

Alongside the technical aspects of database curation and management, consideration should be given to who owns the data – whether the land manager as it concerns their land holding or the taxpayer as they paid for it, who has access to it? – a narrow access regime provides increased security, especially around GDPR, but wider access allows for a broader range of analyses to be carried out. Furthermore, an overall data controller/owner would likely need to be appointed to comply with GDPR. It should be possible to develop data frameworks, where analysis without direct access to locations is possible (similar to medical data where analysis is separated from any data identifying subjects) and comply with Freedom of Information requests. Arguably, data should follow FAIR data principles and be open access as it has been funded from the public purse, as in the European Soil Observatory.

Conclusions

Some metrics will clearly be valuable in identifying the benefits of future agri-environmental management. For example, the collection of data on soil carbon and methane emissions clearly supports the Scottish Government’s climate ambitions. Others will support policies regarding sustainability (soil erosion) and the health of Scotland’s freshwater resources (reducing diffuse pollution). There is a mix of field data collection, farmer-collected data and modelled information with some usage of existing data.

It should be noted that several metrics have been identified that may only be proxies of the outcome they relate to, such as area of non-farmed habitats or pesticide usage, but they have the advantage of being based on already collected data with the cost savings this brings. Other metrics are still in development but should either be available by the start of the scheme or where samples can be collected for future analysis.

There are several outcomes that are closely related and need consideration together. Improving animal nutrition requires maintaining soil nutrients at a level where protein is not limiting growth. This may require the application of organic and/or inorganic fertilisers. However, excess nutrients can end up as N₂O and ammonia emissions from slurry and the leaching of nitrates into freshwater. Careful management to optimise nutrient use is, therefore, required to reach all the desired outcomes: improving soil nutrient content, reducing diffuse pollution, improving water and air quality, livestock nutrition and nutrient management.

A second set of outcomes are also closely related, those dealing with livestock genetics, health and nutrition, alongside reducing methane emissions. Improved efficiency across the livestock sector should increase margins but at the same time reduce the methane footprint of meat.

Some metrics are not useful in isolation and need to be collected as a set to be useful. This is particularly true for animal health, nutrition and genetics where a range of data on growth rates, milk yields, mortality, conception rates and replacement rates are needed to get a full picture.

The final choice of which metrics to collect will depend on the availability of resources to carry out the monitoring and the type of sampling philosophy adopted. Assembly, curation and analysis of the data will all add costs to metric collection but it is important to get the most out of the data. Data ownership is also a key consideration.

Given the division between farmer-led and expert-led monitoring highlighted in the spreadsheet and in Section 6, we suggest the following:

• All enterprises to assess soil erosion and buffer strip effectiveness as this is highly site specific.
• All livestock enterprises to record growth rate, milk yields, mortality, conception rates, replacement rates, age at slaughter for sheep and cattle.
• ScotEID to require information on sires.
• All enterprises to use farm tool calculators to model GHG emissions. Livestock enterprises to model ammonia emissions when a suitable tool is available. The requirement to model might be limited to enterprises above a certain size to reduce costs.
• The remaining outcomes are best assessed using expert-led monitoring in a sample-based programme similar in philosophy to the Welsh approach. Resources available for monitoring and statistical power analysis would be a key part of how to structure this monitoring. They would also determine whether to focus on a small number of metrics and outcomes and cover a larger sample size, or to cover all outcomes on a smaller sample size. The outcomes monitored in this way include those focused on soils, waters and biodiversity.

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List of Appendices

Appendix A. List of measures under consideration

Appendix B. Correspondence between land-based measures and relevant outcomes

Appendix C. Potential monitoring metrics and methods

Measures and metrics spreadsheet

Appendices

© Published by The James Hutton Institute, 2024 on behalf of ClimateXChange. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure the information in this report is accurate, no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements. The views expressed represent those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent those of the host institutions or funders.

To deliver climate change mitigation and adaptation, nature restoration and high quality food production, the Scottish Government produced their vision for agriculture, along with the next steps, to encourage sustainable and regenerative farming in Scotland.

A programme of work is underway to reform agricultural payments with a greater emphasis placed on delivering environmental outcomes with a proposed structure of four payment tiers tied to a suite of potential measures that will deliver tangible outcomes.

This study identified the most suitable metrics that could be used to monitor the success of the proposed measures in the agricultural reform programme against environmental outcomes. This includes consideration of cost-effectiveness, practicalities and the skills and capabilities of those tasked with monitoring.

Findings:

• Emissions cannot be measured directly, so we suggest using current farm-level tools to assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, known as carbon audits. A field level, real time GHG emission model is in development as well as a tool for doing this for ammonia.
• Many metrics depend on direct sampling of soil or biodiversity and can’t be realistically replaced by proxies or existing data. However, well designed sampling programmes can maximise the efficiency of sampling, e.g. sampling for soil carbon, nutrients, pH and eDNA can be done at the same time.
• The outcomes associated with animal health, nutrition and breeding must be largely monitored through proxy metrics. These are relatively easy to measure and provide useful information directly to the land manager.
• A few metrics, such as pesticide usage data or area under permanent habitat, collected as part of the agricultural census, can be derived from existing data.
• Some of the metrics in development could take advantage of samples/data collected at the start of any monitoring programme (e.g. soil eDNA, acoustic monitoring) and others would come online later (e.g. LIDAR-derived hedge data).
• The measure ‘retain traditional cattle’ could not be related to the outcomes.
• Deciding on a suitable suite of metrics to assess the benefits of the Agriculture Reform Programme is only one step as there are issues related to design, sample size and data to be considered.

For further details, please read the report.

If you require the report in an alternative format such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

The Scottish Government’s 2020 Update to the Climate Change Plan 2018-32 recognises the need for large scale and rapid changes to the way we use and manage our land to help reach Scotland’s net zero targets. The Scottish Government is also committed to significant improvements in nature restoration, to tackle the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Critical to delivery of these land use changes will be the size and skills of the workforce in land-based activities. In turn, the size and location of the workforce will be critical to the sustainability of many rural and island communities.

This research explores the condition and composition of the land-based labour market and the potential for scenario-based modelling to project future labour market requirements. The researchers conducted a review of literature and of statistical data, and a small number of stakeholder interviews.

Findings

• Scotland’s national labour market has experienced a number of changes over the past few decades, including demographic ageing, advancing technological change and an increase in people with higher level skills.
• The Covid-19 pandemic, EU exit and the net zero transition have also led to shifts in the labour market.
• It is difficult to build a reliable picture of the composition of the land-based workforce in Scotland for several reasons, including a lack of formal definition of the land-based sector, a lack of consistency in the evidence collected for the sector and the reliance on unpaid and informal family labour.
• The research revealed a partial picture of the current condition of the sector, particularly in rural locations. The analysis at local authority level showed:
  • The number of employees in the agriculture and forestry sectors increased between 2010 and 2021.
  • Recruitment, retention and labour shortages are a problem for employers in some rural areas.
  • Small numbers in rural areas make it challenging at sub-local authority level to explore the condition and size of the labour market.
  • Lack of access to affordable and appropriate public transport, childcare and housing may make it harder for rural employers to recruit employees and reduce the mobility of the rural workforce.
  • Rural areas tend to have higher proportions of small businesses and microbusinesses, which are likely to face challenges in ensuring that staff have access to relevant training and skills development as the labour market changes.

For further details, please read the report.

If you require the report in an alternative format, such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

April 2023

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/4537

Executive summary

The Scottish Government’s 2020 Update to the Climate Change Plan 2018-32 recognises the need for large scale and rapid changes to the way we use and manage our land to help reach Scotland’s net zero targets. The Scottish Government is also committed to significant improvements in nature restoration, to tackle the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Critical to delivery of these land use changes will be the size and skills of the workforce in land-based activities. In turn, the size and location of the workforce will be critical to the sustainability of many rural and island communities.

This report explores the condition and composition of the land-based labour market and the potential for scenario-based modelling to project future labour market requirements. We conducted a review of literature and of statistical data, and a small number of stakeholder interviews.

Key findings

Scotland’s national labour market, as in many other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, has experienced a number of changes over the past few decades, including demographic ageing, advancing technological change and an increase in people with higher level skills. The Covid-19 pandemic, EU exit and the net zero transition have also led to shifts in the labour market.

The composition of the land-based workforce

It is difficult to build a reliable picture of the composition of the land-based workforce in Scotland for several reasons:

• There is no formal, widely accepted definition of the land-based sector, and therefore no clear, agreed set of Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes that describe it.
• There is a lack of consistency in the evidence collected for the sector. It can be defined narrowly and traditionally to focus on primary agricultural production, or expanded to include food processing, or used much more broadly to include, for example, forestry and aquaculture.
• The evidence base is mixed for the sectors that are usually regarded as making it up, with a substantial amount of information for the agriculture and forestry sectors, but much less detail for game and wildlife activities, peatland restoration and nature-based activities, with the latter term increasingly used but also poorly defined.
• Commonly cited employment figures lack direct comparability, notably in forestry and agriculture, due to differences in the way that employment is measured, the breadth of industry definitions used and temporality.
• Self-employed contractors, which are important across several kinds of land-based activities, may not be registered in formal statistics, particularly if they fall beneath the PAYE and/or VAT thresholds.
• There is a reliance on unpaid and informal family labour, particularly in agriculture.

Accepting the above caveats, some of the most widely used recent workforce estimates are given in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Widely used workforce estimates in land-based activities

The current condition of the rural land-based labour market

The research revealed a partial picture of the current condition of the sector, particularly in rural locations. Our analysis at local authority level showed:

• The number of employees in the agriculture and forestry sectors increased between 2010 and 2021. The greatest increase occurred in Mainly rural local authority areas. Within agriculture, the increase in the number of employees is offset by a decrease in the number of working owners, meaning that the agricultural workforce is roughly the same in 2021 as it was in 2010. Within agriculture, a substantial difference between the number of employees and number of full-time workers suggests the importance of part-time and seasonal employees in this sector.
• Recruitment, retention and labour shortages are a problem for employers in some rural areas. Competition between sub-sectors may prove to be a challenge for employers in the short term, given the tightness of the current labour market. Evidence from stakeholder interviews suggests that competition already exists.
• Small numbers in rural areas make it challenging at sub-local authority level to explore the condition and size of the labour market using the Scottish Government’s Urban Rural Classification.
• Lack of access to affordable and appropriate public transport, childcare and housing may make it harder for rural employers to recruit employees and reduce the mobility of the rural workforce.
• Rural areas tend to have higher proportions of small businesses and microbusinesses, which are likely to face challenges in ensuring that staff have access to relevant training and skills development as the labour market changes.

Conclusion

This project has explored the existing evidence base for the land-based sector’s labour market and revealed a very partial picture in terms of current knowledge and evidence, and therefore challenges in projecting future labour market requirements.

Actions to expand and improve both the coverage and the consistency of the quantitative and qualitative evidence base now will help to better understand the size, shape, location and seasonal patterns in the future land-based labour market. This improved understanding will inform decisions about future skills and training opportunities and wider infrastructure provision across Scotland’s rural and urban areas in order to deliver Scotland’s net zero-related land use targets.

These challenges in establishing a reliable picture of the current land-based workforce in Scotland mean that carrying out accurate modelling to understand the future size, scale and location of this workforce is difficult. Some recent studies, including by the Climate Change Committee (2023), have attempted to estimate the impacts on employment in different sectors from net zero-related land use change.

Acknowledgements

The research team would like to thank Sarah Govan, Project Manager at ClimateXChange for her ongoing support and advice throughout this project. We would also like to thank all members of the Project Steering Group for their input both at project meetings and on an ongoing basis via email and phone. Thanks also to those individuals who agreed to be interviewed to discuss our emerging findings; each person provided important insights for our work.

We would also like to acknowledge a number of SRUC colleagues who provided additional support to this project: Mary Thomson, Carol Langston and Davy McCracken who provided feedback on a draft of this report; Steven Thomson for advice on the scenario modelling work and labour force statistics; Ana Vuin who assisted with the evidence search work; Alexa Green who helped with report editing and proof reading; and Lorna Cole, James Banks, John Holland, Rebecca Audsley and Mary Sheehan who provided advice on peatland restoration costs.

Glossary of abbreviations and technical terms

Introduction

The Scottish Government recognises the need for large-scale and rapid changes to the way land is managed to meet the country’s target of net zero by 2045 in its Climate Change Plan 2018-2032 Update (CCPU) published in 2020. Critical to the delivery of these changes are the size, skill levels and location of the workforce across rural and island communities, and indeed the sustainability of those communities themselves.

This report takes a system-wide overview of the existing statistics and what they tell us about the current land-based labour market. This informs the design of a potential methodology for scenario-based modelling work to understand future land-based labour market needs (more detailed information about the project’s aim, objectives, and the associated tasks and methodological approach adopted is provided in Appendix 1).

A number of different sector-specific and general policies and strategies form the context for this work, and there are close links between this project and the work of the Commission for the Land-Based Learning Review which reported in January 2023. The policy context demonstrates the importance of understanding the future land-based labour market but also that this is a complex area which is rapidly evolving. A brief introduction to this policy context can be found in Appendix 2, including detail on the CCPU policy targets.

Understanding the land-based workforce and associated skills

Defining the land-based labour market

It is critical to clearly define what is meant by the term ‘land based’, and in particular which sectors or economic activities are included – and which are not.

There is no ‘formal, official’ definition of the land-based sector, for example, by the Office for National Statistics in their Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes^[1], and we found no significant discussion in the academic literature (see Appendix 3). However, several organisations in the employment, skills and training domain do (either explicitly or implicitly) provide definitions and/or explanations (which are not all consistent), such as Lantra, the National Land Based College, the SQA and other private training providers such as Pearson. These are summarised in Appendix 4.

The Commission for the Land Based Learning Review (CLBLR) was appointed by the Scottish Government to undertake a ‘root and branch’ review of learning in Scotland’s land-based and aquaculture sectors, from early years to adulthood. The Commission reported to Scottish Government in January 2023, and discussed (amongst a range of other issues) the need to reframe the land-based sectors to the nature-based sectors noting that:

“…the term land-based has long been used to collectively describe the range of different industries which use land and the marine environment to produce food and renewable resources. It has also encompassed what have in the past been seen as key supporting roles, such as engineering, equine and environmental conservation. Collectively these industries utilise and manage the majority of Scotland’s land and coastal areas, and have the largest impact on our environment. More recently, the land-based industries have been included within ‘Green Careers’ recognising the key role the Sector plays in nature restoration, climate change mitigation and adaptation.”

This means achieving an accurate and up-to-date understanding of the exact size, composition and location of the land-based workforce is difficult.

The availability of labour market data in Scotland

There is a wealth of labour market data for Scotland, but it is difficult to build a complete and accurate picture across sectors and geographies.

Data on the UK labour market as a whole, and on individual regions and devolved areas (including Scotland) and sectors, is available from a number of sources^[2], with Skills Development Scotland’s (SDS) Regional Skills Assessments (RSA) and Sector Skills Assessments (SSA) particularly useful in providing data on all of the main sectors in the current and future labour market (more information on the data available can be found in Appendix 5).

However, in addition to the lack of a land-based definition, the activities that are usually regarded as being ‘land-based’ are not always easy to disaggregate from other activities (e.g. land-based engineering from other forms of engineering, and food and drink processing from wider manufacturing activities). It is also sometimes the case that, while the original data may be collected at national level broken down for SIC codes (e.g. through the BRES and the Census, for example), when that data is made publicly available, the SIC codes are combined, for example in SDS’s SSA for agriculture, forestry and fishing. Consequently, a detailed understanding of individual sectors may be hard to achieve.

Key challenges in understanding the land-based workforce

The labour market generally, and perhaps particularly for land-based sectors, is complex, and there are key factors that contribute to this complexity:

• Many of those working in land-based activities, such as agriculture, forestry and peatland restoration, are self-employed and/or contractors running their own small or micro business, and so they may not show up in formal statistics. This may be the case, for example, if their business falls below the PAYE or VAT threshold and so does not show up in statistics which only include registered businesses.
• ‘Official’ statistics on the size or composition of the rural economy therefore underestimate its true size and shape (for more discussion of this, see Section 2 in SRUC’s Rural Scotland in Focus 2016 report, for example). One way to gather information on these unregistered businesses is through HMRC data (tax return data for example) but this data is understandably difficult to access and to analyse for confidentiality reasons^[3].
• Not everyone will feature in the data – women and other family members may not always be visible in the statistics (perhaps because they work unpaid on-farm or in farm-related economic activities such as running linked accommodation or shops). Detailed research work has been carried out about women in the agricultural sector, including the 2017 report for Scottish Government for example, and by academic researchers^[4].

For a variety of reasons, we do not have a clear, detailed understanding of the composition of the land-based labour market and its constituent parts. This means that it is difficult to plan for current and future workforce and skills needs, including in different geographical locations. This evidence base is critical to ensuring that the land-based sector can meet its net zero obligations and that appropriate skills and training provision, and wider housing, digital connectivity and transport infrastructure is in place to support employers and their workforce where it is required.

The current rural land-based labour market and key trends

Key characteristics

The Scottish Government’s ‘Understanding the Scottish Rural Economy’ report published in 2018 provided a useful summary, albeit from several years ago before the Covid-19 pandemic and EU exit, on the key characteristics of businesses and employment in rural Scotland. The report confirmed:

• the relatively low proportion (4%) of Gross Value Added (GVA) in the islands and remote rural areas which is directly attributable to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector, with an even lower proportion (3%) in mainly rural Scotland (and 1.3% for Scotland as a whole).
• the growth in GVA in Scotland as a whole since 1997, with the lowest growth observed in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector over this period.
• the considerable variation in performance across Scotland’s rural local authorities with some experiencing employment growth and others not.
• the tendency for unemployment rates to be generally lower in rural areas while employment and activity rates are higher, with part-time, seasonal, self-employment and multiple job-holding particularly prevalent in rural areas.

It is worth noting again here, however, the problem of combining Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing activities as all have had different growth trajectories in recent years. Forestry, for example, has experienced considerable growth in both scale and value since 1997, but that growth is often masked in the data by different trends in the other sectors.

Wider challenges that impact on the labour market

Wider structural challenges face many rural households and may impact on their ability to fully participate in the labour market now and in future. These include:

• Their generally higher spending levels (than equivalent urban households), on food and fuel particularly (combined with lower wages and salaries, as explored in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation-led Minimum Income Standards work for example).
• rural poverty being under-reported in official statistics.
• poor, unreliable, infrequent and expensive public transport provision in many areas.
• a shortage of appropriate and affordable housing for purchase and rent.
• a lack of flexible and affordable childcare.

Housing is a significant and long-standing challenge in many rural and island communities, with poor affordability (both for purchase and rent) and low levels of supply due to a lower rate of new house building and high numbers of second and holiday homes. Rural dwellers, reliant on local, low wage employment, are often priced out of the local housing market. More information on all of these issues is provided in the recent Rural Lives report and in SRUC’s Rural and Island Insights Report 2023.

Evidence suggests more self-employment and part-time/seasonal working in Scotland’s rural communities. While at face value this may be taken as evidence of a flexible labour market with many ways for individuals to engage with work, and of high levels of entrepreneurship, rural and island dwellers are often reliant on multiple jobs through necessity rather than choice. The RSN’s 2021 Cultivating Rural Growth report examines this issue in more detail.

The significance of language – Scotland’s ‘green’ labour market

Terms such as ‘green transition’, ‘green skills’ and ‘green jobs’ have become more widely used to describe the changes required in labour markets to meet climate and environmental goals (such as implementing circular economy practices, enhancing biodiversity, etc.), and to ensure a sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic (see the Scottish Government’s Covid Recovery Strategy for example). As noted in SDS’s February 2022 SSA for the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sectors:

“green jobs are at the forefront of the Government’s plans for recovery. Demand for green jobs (and green skills) is expected to increase rapidly as a result of policy and legislative drivers and consumer choice.”

However, these terms remain poorly defined and there is no single agreed way to quantify them. This matters, because it influences how data is collected and the size, scale, location, gender breakdown, etc., of projections about future skills requirements.

Some approaches take a very narrow definition for green jobs, such as only including jobs that contribute substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality. In contrast, broader definitions could potentially include all jobs on the basis that everyone has an obligation to take action to protect the environment and that there is a huge number of skills which will support the net zero transition. These different interpretations make it difficult to assess the current and likely future spatial distribution of the green labour market (for example, in terms of the spread of jobs between rural and urban areas) and thus the geographical variations in required skills and training provision. A detailed discussion of different definitions is provided in Appendix 6, along with information on the 2022 Green Jobs in Scotland report, Greensoc, the new green occupational definition, the Green Jobs Workforce Academy, and the UK Green Taxonomy which may provide greater clarity.

The Scottish Government has increasingly recognised the importance of green jobs and green skills to Scotland’s future labour market as the country recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, without a clear definition of what is (or is not) included, it is hard to quantify where these jobs are, their type, pay and skill levels, in order that education and training providers and businesses and individuals can respond appropriately.

Recent trends in Scotland’s national labour market

Scotland’s national labour market, similar to other OECD countries, has been affected by a number of longer-term trends over recent years, including:

• Demographic ageing
• Technological advancement, including mechanisation
• Robotisation and digitalisation (e.g. artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc.)
• Changes in emerging markets at the global scale
• Changing work-life preferences, including a shift to flexible and home-based working in some sectors
• Changing land and housing values
• Changing methods of education and training delivery
• Circular economy, bioeconomy and net zero trends and targets.

In addition, there are a number of short-term shifts which have occurred more recently:

• the Covid-19 pandemic, which has accelerated processes of digital transformation and increased levels of remote or hybrid working but has particularly benefited those in higher skilled, higher paid jobs.
• the UK’s exit from the EU has led to changes in the availability of overseas workers in some land-based sectors, including agriculture.
• there have been wider international economic and political shifts, including the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis, which have further impacted on supply chains, prices, labour markets and household decision-making (in relation to house purchasing for example).

It is likely that, in future, some sectors in the economy will see an increasing demand for workers and new skills required from both new workers and those already in employment who may be required to reskill or upskill. However, the ‘tight’ labour market, plus restrictions on workers coming in from overseas, raises concerns as to the extent to which the UK labour market (both rural and non-rural) may be in a position to flexibly respond to these new demands.

While the terms ‘green jobs’ and ‘green skills’ are being widely used internationally and in Scotland (see for example, Hirst and Lazarus’ work for NatureScot in 2020; and work by Ecuity Consulting for the Local Government Association in England projecting future green jobs requirements), they are not well defined (see Section 6.1.2).

Key activities in the land-based labour market

Much of the economic and employment data that is publicly available is at relatively large geographic scale (e.g. local authorities) mainly to protect the confidentiality of individuals and businesses, and often is not analysed for rural and urban differences. This makes it difficult to achieve a detailed understanding of the labour market in Scotland’s sub-regions and localities. Appendix 7 summarises some information on the rural labour market; more up-to-date information can be found in SRUC’s Rural and Island Insights Report 2023, published in August 2023 and in the Scottish Government’s Rural Scotland Data Dashboard and accompanying report which were published in December 2023.

We found very limited academic literature on the labour market in land-based sectors (see Appendix 3), with most information found in industry or government sources. Considerably more information was found for the largest sectors of agriculture (see Appendix 8) and forestry (see Appendix 9). We also found information relevant to the game and wildlife management sector (see Appendix 10) which, while not featured in the policy targets in the 2020 CCPU , is an important sector in terms of understanding current and future land use change. There is an emerging body of academic research and practitioner experience on peatland restoration and on nature-based activities (see Appendix 11).

Agriculture

Agriculture is the most significant land use in Scotland, with 80% of Scotland’s land mass under agricultural production. Employment in agriculture is a key component of the land-based labour market, particularly in rural areas. However, there are a number of different sources of data on the agricultural labour market collected by national statistical agencies and by sector-based organisations (by which the agriculture sector is well served^[5]) and based on different ways of measuring employment (see Table 2). As a result, it is difficult to obtain a definitive clear, accurate picture of the size of this sector’s current labour market, as well as to make predictions for the future. The primary sources are set out here. Additional sources are detailed in Appendix 8.

• The June 2021 Agricultural Census estimated the total agricultural workforce in Scotland to be around 67,400 workers^[6] in 2021. One year earlier, the 2020 Agricultural Census estimated a total workforce of 66,700. In 2018, the number of people employed in agriculture was estimated at 67,000, accounting for 2.5% of the total number of people employed in Scotland, and around 8% of the total rural workforce.
• According to NFUS, based on 2020 Agricultural Census data, agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that, in addition to the (just under) 67,000 direct employees, a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.
• These estimates are somewhat lower than the data from the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) which estimated employment in two-digit SIC code 01: Crop and animal production to be 75,000 in Scotland in 2021.

Table 2: Employment in Agriculture by employment measure and survey

The Scottish Government’s Rural Scotland Key Facts publication in 2021, based on data from the Inter Departmental Business Register from March 2020, described agriculture, forestry and fishing as accounting for 15% of the remote rural workforce and 12% of the accessible rural workforce in 2020 (0.5% in the rest of Scotland).

Figure 1 depicts data from the June Agricultural Census from 2011-2021. The Census data shows that the agricultural workforce is roughly the same in 2021 as it was in 2011, having declined from 67,800 in 2011, to 63,500 in 2016 (a 6% decrease), before recovering to 67,400 in 2021.

Figure 1: The Agricultural Workforce 2011 to 2021, June (2021) Agricultural Census data, Scotland

Source: June (2021) Agricultural Census. Note: Total employees calculated as sum of full-time, part- time and casual and seasonal.

Working occupiers are highly significant to the workforce in agriculture and make up more than half of the total workforce. Nonetheless the workforce composition has shifted slightly between 2011 and 2021. While the total number of employees has increased by 7% over the period, driven by an increase in part-time staff (13%) and casual staff (15%), over the same period the number of working occupiers has decreased by 6%.

Data from the BRES shows a similar trend in terms of the overall size and composition of the workforce in agriculture. Figure 2 reports various measures of employment in the agricultural sector between 2010 and 2021 using the 2-digit SIC code (01: Crop and animal production, hunting and related service activities).

According to the BRES, mirroring the broad trend seen in the Agriculture Census data, between 2011 and 2021 total employment (including working owners)^[8] declined from 70,000 in 2010 to 66,000 in 2016 before recovering to 75,000 in 2021. However, a slightly stronger trend is seen for the change in composition than in the Agricultural Census data. Measured by BRES, the number of agricultural employees increased by 21.43% from 2011 to 2021. This estimate is however somewhat sensitive to the choice of base year. For example, measured from 2010 to 2021, the increase is 13.33%.

Figure 2: Employment in 01: Crop and animal production in Scotland 2010 to 2021, Scotland

Source: Nomis (2023). Note: The information between 2010 and 2014 excludes units registered for PAYE.

Figure 3 below shows the strong rurality of employment in agriculture and depicts employment in relation to rural and urban local authorities using the Scottish Government’s RESAS 2018 rural-urban local authority classification: Larger cities, Urban with substantial rural areas, Mainly rural areas, and Islands and remote areas. Figure 3 demonstrates that the majority of agricultural employees are in the mainly rural local authority areas. The number increased from 21,250 persons in 2010 to 24,600 persons in 2021.

SDS’s SSA in 2022 reports a decline in the current workforce in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors of 11% between 2012 and 2019. Geographically the highest number of workers in these three sectors combined is in the Highlands and Islands, Tayside and the South of Scotland areas.

Figure 3: The number of employees in the agricultural sector in Scotland by the RESAS Local Authority-level Rural-Urban classifications between 2010 and 2021, Scotland

Source: Nomis (2023). Note: The information between 2010 and 2014 excludes units registered for PAYE.

Based on data provided by SDS in their 2022 SSA for the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sectors, looking forward, in the 2022-2025 period, the number of people in employment in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector is forecast to grow by 1.1 per cent (400 people). This is a slightly smaller percentage growth than is forecast overall across Scotland where employment is predicted to rise by 1.2 per cent (31,900 people). Most of this growth will be in the skilled agricultural trade occupations. The forecasts for 2022-2025 suggest there will be 10,200 job openings in the sector due to some jobs growth and opportunities created as a result of the need to replace workers leaving the labour market due to retirement and other reasons (i.e. replacement demand). Whilst positive, caution is needed as a wide range of factors may impact the future labour market. At the time of writing the economic outlook is uncertain and labour shortages continue to be a dominant issue.

In terms of the longer-term (2025-2032), the short-term growth will cease and decline in employment is predicted by 2.6 per cent (-1,000 people) (to a level of 37,500 people in 2032). This is in contrast with employment growth forecast overall across Scotland where employment is predicted to rise by 1.5 per cent (40,700 people). It is also expected that there could be an ongoing requirement for skilled people to fill opportunities created by people leaving the labour market. Forecasts show that there will be 21,000 job openings in the long-term. This will be driven by the need to replace workers leaving the labour market in Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (i.e. a predicted expansion demand of -1000 people, combined with a predicted replacement demand of 22,000 people creates a total requirement of 21,000 people).

Forestry

As is the case with agriculture, the forestry sector is also reasonably well served in terms of sector bodies of different kinds^[9] and there is a substantial amount of information on employment and skills available through some of these organisations. Again however different approaches are taken to measuring the size and shape of the labour market. Employment figures for forestry are given in Table 3. Key points include:

• A study by CJC Consulting in 2015 estimated that direct employment in the Scottish forestry and wood processing sector^[10] was 12,143 FTE in 2012/13, total employment was 19,555 FTE, and GVA was £771 million.
• Adopting a wider definition of the forestry sector that includes forest recreation and tourism,^[11] Scotland’s Forestry Strategy 2019-29 reported that in 2015, Scottish forestry was estimated to contribute almost £1 billion to Scotland’s GVA and employed approximately 25,000 FTE (total employment).
• Most recently, Forest Research’s (2022) Forestry Statistics note that direct employment in UK forestry in 2019 stood at 18,000 (with data taken from the BRES), with a further 7,400 employed in primary wood processing (based on industry survey data).
• The Forestry Skills Action Plan produced by the Scottish Forest and Timber Technologies Group in 2020 builds on the 2015 data to note that the 25,000 FTEs employed in forestry at this time represented a reduction of 16% since 2014, due to rising productivity and/or an increase in self-employment.
• The Action Plan notes the dominance of males amongst the forestry workforce (79%), and that the self-employment level is around 50%. It reports that the greatest number of forestry businesses are in the Highlands, the South of Scotland, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire and Argyll and Bute.
• The Action Plan notes that the average salary for forestry workers (forest craftspersons, harvesters, tractor drivers) is currently £22,880 and £30,680 for forestry managers, although skilled harvesters can earn as much as £50,000.

Table 3: Employment in forestry by employment measure and survey

Using publicly available data from the BRES, Figure 4 below shows Scottish employment in the forestry sector between 2010 and 2021. For most of the period, the number of employees has ranged around 3,000, although between 2020 and 2021 there was a rapid increase to 4,500. The majority of employees were in full-time employment, which increased from 2,500 in 2020 to 4,500 in 2021 (80%). The proportion of working owners within the workforce remained relatively stable and therefore total employment (employees and working owners) increased from 4,500 to 6,000 between 2020 and 2021 (50%)^[14]. As this relates to a single year, more work would be required to be more confident of this trend.^[15]

Figure 4: Employment in SIC two-digit code 02: Forestry and Logging 2010 to 2021, Scotland

Source: Nomis (2023). Note: The information between 2010 and 2014 excludes units registered for PAYE. The Employment statistic further includes working owners.

Mirroring the situation for agriculture, Figure 5 shows the strong rurality of employment in forestry and depicts the total number employed in relation to rural and urban local authorities using the Scottish Government’s RESAS 2018 Urban Rural Local Authority Classification. It demonstrates that the majority are in Mainly rural local authority areas, and that growth in employment has occurred in these areas where the number of employees increased by 44.75% between 2010 and 2021. Again, however, more work is needed to be confident that this represents a real trend.

Figure 5: The number of employees in the forestry (and logging) sector by the RESAS local authority-level Rural-Urban classification between 2010 and 2021, Scotland

Source: Nomis (2023). Note: The information between 2010 and 2014 excludes units registered for PAYE.

Peatland restoration

Peatlands are a key part of the Scottish landscape, providing significant carbon storage potential, an internationally important habitat, a means of improving water quality and reducing flood risk, and highly attractive locations for tourism.

In contrast to agriculture and forestry, however, peatland restoration is not recognised as a discrete ‘sector’ in the way data is collected (i.e. the SIC codes used), nor does it have well-established representative sector organisations. It was not possible to find accurate and up-to-date data on the numbers of people currently employed in peatland restoration activities in Scotland. While there is growing academic work to understand the costs and effectiveness of peatland restoration (see for example, Glenk et al. 2022; Glenk and Martin-Ortega, 2018; Artz et al., 2019) and the motivations and experiences of actors (see for example Novo et al., (2021)) this work has yet to address current employment levels.^[16]

The research team therefore sought to gather more qualitative information from short interviews with several individuals working in different capacities in the sector (see Appendix 1). The results emphasised that the restoration work itself involves a very wide range of occupations, knowledge, skills and equipment across different sites, partly dependent on their characteristics, location, altitude, topography, access, etc.

Peatland restoration work is primarily conducted by skilled machine operators. Most peatland restoration projects will require some form of designer as a main consultant, an ecologist and a project manager for the contractors who do the work. Some companies are exploring how to manage this work in-house but, in most circumstances, self-employed sub-contractors are used. Following initial restoration, maintenance and monitoring work may be required. Within the wider supply chain the skills/professions that are required include hydrologists, soil scientists, ecologists, conservationists, engineers, project managers, administrative staff, researchers, and manual workers of various kinds.

Nature-based activities

There is no single universally accepted definition of the nature-based sector. A report by Hirst and Lazarus in 2020 for NatureScot includes the following nature-based solutions in a broad definition of nature-based jobs:

• Peatland restoration
• Flood risk management
• Blue carbon
• Coastal ecosystems
• Woodland restoration
• Low carbon and regenerative land use including agriculture, forestry and wildlife management
• Sustainable marine management and fisheries
• Green finance
• Urban green infrastructure, including planning, ecological engineering, active travel networks
• Sectors highly dependent on natural capital (especially tourism and food and drink)

This broad definition is worth bearing in mind in relation to the CLBLR’s recent report which recommended consideration of using this alternative ‘label’ for the land-based sector.

Despite a thorough search by the research team, NatureScot appears to be the only organisation generating evidence about the contribution of and labour requirements for this sector. The 2020 report for NatureScot by Hirst and Lazarus is the most comprehensive study of the nature-based sector that could be found and this estimates that:

• the sector makes a significant contribution to the Scottish economy, amounting to 195,000 jobs or 7.5% of Scotland’s workforce in 2019.
• the number of jobs increased by 12,031 between 2015 and 2019 (a 7.5% increase), accounting for one-third (31.7%) of all job growth in Scotland during this period.
• this growth rate was more than five times the rate of all jobs in Scotland in the period 2015-19.
• this is also likely to be an under-estimate as some of the smallest businesses operating in the sector are likely to be unregistered. It is also difficult to separately identify the key nature-based sectors, and it is also possible that some nature-based activity is actually included in other sectors, such as construction (e.g. of water-based projects).
• the majority of these jobs are in rural local authority areas, with 9% being Island and remote, 46% being Mainly rural, 24% being Urban with substantial rural, and 21% within Larger cities.

As shown in Table 4 below, Hirst and Lazarus (2020) build on the work of two earlier studies. Various definitions for nature based activities have been used resulting in a range of estimates for employment in the nature based sector (see Appendix 11). Notably, Biggar Economics (2020) include employment in oil and gas extraction which is excluded from other studies on the basis that it is not assessed as sustainable.

Table 4: Nature Based Jobs in Scotland

Looking ahead, Hirst and Lazarus (2020) argue that significant further growth is anticipated on the back of the expansion in activities – including peatland restoration, green infrastructure and green finance, woodland creation, and blue carbon – required to meet our net zero targets by 2030 and 2045. Several opportunities were identified for nature-based skills development by Hirst and Lazarus (2020), including a need to fill operational jobs more effectively, for which recruitment is often local and sometimes through sub-contracting arrangements. While graduate and post-graduate jobs were found to be relatively easy to fill, there were challenges with operational posts due to a lack of applicants, a lack of experienced candidates and competition for the same skills from other sectors.

Conclusion

While the evidence base for the agriculture and forestry workforce is relatively well developed, though not always consistent, that is not the case for the peatland restoration and nature-based sectors where the evidence base is limited.

This is mainly due to:

• data-related issues (not least that these two sectors do not map easily onto existing SIC codes) which mean that activities are hard to identify and define clearly, and therefore hard to analyse and understand.
• the nature of the workforce in many of these activities, again with a dominance of contractors and individuals working on a self-employed basis, who may travel around locations to access work opportunities.

There is potential for competition for individuals with relevant and transferable operational skills between sectors – for example between construction and some aspects of peatland restoration, and between peatland restoration and forestry, but it is difficult to ascertain the potential extent and impact of this competition from existing data. Moreover, the extent of this competition will also be affected by wage levels in different sectors, the geographical and seasonal distribution of jobs, ease of access to and the cost of transport in rural communities, access to appropriate and affordable housing, access to training and re-/up-skilling initiatives, etc. In future, gathering both qualitative and quantitative data on these issues will be hugely valuable to improving our understanding of the complexities of the land-based labour market and the issues that affect it.

Modelling the likely future workforce

Introduction

This research included a requirement to design an appropriate scenario-based modelling approach to anticipate future workforce needs and skill sets associated with the land uses required to support Scotland’s transition to net zero. The rationale for the modelling work was to identify the scale of future workforce needs required to deliver the policy targets set out in the CCPU 2020, particularly those relating to peatland restoration and woodland creation. Identifying these needs is critical in order to understand the potential for labour supply and demand to match (or not), thus leading to better labour utilisation and higher productivity. Information about the size and location of the future workforce is also critical to informing knowledge and evidence about the future of rural communities and decisions about infrastructure investments, in particular relating to demand for housing (of different types), transport and a range of vital services.

However, we were unable to find sufficiently reliable datasets on input costs to inform a robust approach. A detailed account of the research undertaken is set out in the Appendices, to initially assess existing research on the future of the labour market (both land-based and more generally) from the wider UK and Scotland (Appendix 12), to review approaches to scenario creation (Appendix 13) and to devise a sound approach to scenario-based modelling based on input cost information (Appendix 14). The approach is summarised here.

Scenario modelling work

Introduction

The research team set out to assess the effect on employment of the Scottish Government’s policy targets in relation to peatland restoration, woodland creation and regenerative agriculture, based on our review of:

• the existing evidence about these activities, and
• parallel studies which have adopted a variety of different methodologies to estimate future employment requirements (see Appendices 12 and 13).

An early decision was taken to step back from assessing future employment in regenerative agriculture as it was considered that the Scottish Government’s targets lacked sufficient specificity to be quantified in biophysical or monetary terms. In future, if a policy target is specified (e.g. a proportion of land area that should be under regenerative or low carbon agriculture, or a proportion of agricultural output which should be generated using these techniques, though such targets would be hard to agree, measure and monitor) then this modelling could be revisited using the approach proposed here.

The team began development of a model by focusing on the peatland restoration sector, where a search of the literature highlighted a particular knowledge gap.

Peatland restoration – overview of methodological approach

We examined the Scottish Government’s target to restore 20,000ha peatlands per year to consider the impact on employment in upstream sectors. Step by step details of our approach are set out in Appendix 14. We searched the literature for information on peatland restoration costs, seeking to understand unit costs of different inputs, including labour and machinery requirements, and how these may vary between sites.

Data challenges encountered

While the quality and availability of data on peatland restoration costs is increasing, information remains partial, and we have been unable to find a reliable indication of the cost structure of peatland restoration work within the published literature (see Appendix 14 for further information on peatland restoration costs that the team was able to find).

Several factors lead to substantial variations in peatland restoration costs. These include:

• the condition of peatland to be restored, and then subsequently maintained.
• the type of existing land use.
• the restoration technique required.
• remoteness and accessibility of the site.
• the scale of work required (e.g. degree of drainage/number of dams required).
• material requirements dependent on the degree of degradation.

While these factors are becoming better understood, it is not straightforward to discern their relative influence on the overall costs which are largely summarised per hectare (ha). We were unable to find information on how labour or machinery requirements may vary by site conditions, and to add further complexity, the costs are changing all the time as the cost of materials and equipment changes. Technology advances (e.g. LiDAR) may lead to reduced labour requirements over time too, although in contrast to this, costs may rise as the ‘easier to reach’ sites are restored first.

Overall, it was not possible to determine a reliable estimate for the cost structure for peatland restoration. However, the detailed evidence gathering conducted for this study provides a strong basis from which to tackle these data challenges, and build indicative estimates of future jobs required in peatland restoration.

Approximately half of all peatland restoration projects in Scotland are supported by Peatland Action. This provides a wealth of existing data and an opportunity to collect more detailed figures for analysis of current and future employment requirements.

Woodland creation – overview of methodological approach

Having first focused on peatland restoration, the research team then examined the Scottish Government’s 18,000ha per year afforestation target (from 2024/25), to consider the impact on employment of delivering this target. To inform this analysis we searched the literature for information on woodland creation costs, seeking to understand unit costs of inputs, such as labour and machinery requirements, and how these may vary between sites (for similar reasons to those outlined in Section 7.2.3 for peatland restoration sites).

We were similarly unable to find a reliable indication of cost structure for woodland creation within the published literature, and were unable to complete the planned analysis (see Appendix 14 for information that we did find on costs, including the useful work of Glaister in 2019).

There is potential to identify further detailed data sources which could inform a future analysis, if required. For example, the report published in March 2022 for Scottish Forestry, the Forestry Commission and the Welsh Government which explored the impact of investment in forestry on employment which may provide some useful insights, and we understand an update to work on the economic contribution of forestry to the Scottish economy is in preparation.

Net Zero and Land Based Employment

The impact of net zero on the land-based workforce

Although the team was unable to complete the modelling work, we reviewed prior studies that had considered the impact on employment of implementing net zero related land use change in the Scottish / UK context. We found:

• a relative lack of research examining the impact of net zero commitments on employment in the land-based sector. This is however a rapidly expanding field and a number of relevant studies have been published while our work was ongoing.
• the evidence base is entirely within the grey literature. The team is not aware of any peer reviewed academic literature that has sought to assess the magnitude of changes to employment relating to net zero commitments.^[17]

Various studies have estimated changes to employment arising from specific activities within the land-based sector such as tree planting and peatland restoration. Some of these also assess the impact of particular policy targets. A report by WPI (2021) for Green Alliance provides an example of this and summarises marginal employment impacts (per 100 ha) identified by prior studies.

The recent Net Zero Workforce report by the Climate Change Committee (2023) seeks to evaluate the impact of net zero across the UK workforce. Within this they evaluate the impact on employment in Agriculture and Land Use, as one of six broad sectors of the economy. To our knowledge this is the only assessment of employment impacts across these sectors.

We also considered the evidence base for the likely impact on employment in specific sectors:

• Forestry
• there is a wide range in the magnitude of estimates across studies.
• Glaister (2019) provides an estimate of the number of workers required to deliver six forestry work programmes. This could be regarded as providing a lower range estimate of direct employment in the forestry sector.
• we are hesitant to suggest an upper range estimate from the current literature. An impact assessment drawing upon Westbrook and Ralphs (forthcoming) could provide an upper range estimate for the sector, and further assess indirect employment that would be supported by an expansion of activity.
• Peatland restoration
• there is a narrower evidence base for the likely impact of net-zero on employment, although the magnitude of estimates across studies is broadly consistent.
• Agriculture
• This is a notable omission. Agriculture is the largest land-based sector by output and employment, yet there is a relative lack of evidence concerning the likely effect of net-zero commitments on employment in agriculture. The Climate Change Committee (2023) report is the only estimate that the team has been able to find in their extensive search.

Similarly we are not aware of any studies which have sought to quantify the impact of net-zero on employment in the game and wildlife sector.

The impact of net zero commitments across the land- based sector

To our knowledge, the report by the Climate Change Committee (2023) A Net Zero Workforce is the only source which has assessed changes in employment across the land-based sector as a whole.

The Climate Change Committee (2023) assessed the potential impact of net zero on the UK workforce. Taking as a reference the technological and behavioural changes described by the Climate Change Committee’s Balanced Net Zero Pathway, they assessed the likely influence of such changes to key sectors of the UK economy.^[18]

Following on from a review of the literature, the Committee defined specific scenarios to identify lower range and upper range estimates for changes to employment across the UK in the Agriculture and Land Use sector (detailed in Table 5 below). These scenarios do not necessarily reflect Scottish Government policy. Their estimates provide an indication of the likely direction and magnitude of changes to employment across the land-based sector, though as highlighted in the report and through the wide extent of estimates they present, there is considerable uncertainty regarding employment impacts.

The Committee estimated that the greatest potential for job creation is in afforestation, followed by non-livestock agriculture, while livestock agriculture is at greatest risk of job losses. Employment in food processing could either be positively or negatively impacted, while employment in peatland restoration shows modest potential for job creation, when compared to afforestation and non-livestock agriculture.

Table 5: Change in number of jobs across agriculture and land use (United Kingdom), reproduced from Climate Change Committee (2023).

The impact of net zero commitments in forestry

Estimates of the net- zero workforce in forestry are summarised in Table 6 below. There is a relatively wide extent in the magnitude of estimates across studies.

The upper range estimate provided by the Climate Change Committee (2023) is considerably greater than has been suggested by prior studies and we see some reason to be cautious of relying on the upper end of this range (the method applied in creating the estimates is not detailed). In addition to this, work commissioned by the Forestry sector in Scotland has produced a more conservative range of estimates (see Table 6).

Work by Westbrook and Ralphs (forthcoming) has estimated the marginal employment effect of ten forestry case studies in Scotland. They outline considerations for how this might be used to assess the impact on employment of implementing the Scottish Government’s national target. The team believe that this approach offers a promising means to understand the net zero forestry workforce.

Glaister (2019) defined industry work programmes for key forestry activities, estimated work rates for each activity, then calculated the number of workers that would be required to fulfil those work programmes (see Appendix 5). A strength of this approach is that it gives an indication of the number of workers required in specific roles. For instance, estimating the number of workers required to plant trees is 941 FTE or 2041 seasonal workers working 45% of the year.^[19]

A drawback of this approach is that it does not fully assess the wider indirect impact of an increase in forestry activity on employment through the wider forestry supply chain, for instance in building roads or supplying machinery. Glaister also adopted a narrower definition of the forestry sector than the prior CJC (2015) report and does not consider employment in forestry sector organisations, forestry land agents, forest recreation and tourism or local authorities. For these reasons, Glaister’s estimates might be regarded as a lower range estimate for the forestry sector. An impact assessment, drawing upon Westbrook and Ralphs could provide a robust upper range estimate for the sector.

Table 6: The impact of Net Zero Commitments on Employment in Forestry

The impact of net zero commitments in peatland restoration

Estimates of the net-zero workforce in peatland restoration are summarised in Table 7 below. While the evidence base is fairly small, the magnitude of estimates is broadly consistent across studies.

In the CCPU (2020) the Scottish Government estimated that 200 FTE direct contractor and delivery jobs would be created by their commitment to spend £25 million per annum on peatland restoration, though due to the seasonal nature of work this would likely require a greater number of workers each working part of the year. This is in line with the lower end of the range indicated by WPI (2021) and sits below that indicated by the Climate Change Committee (2023).

Further considering jobs supported indirectly through the wider supply chain, WPI (2021) estimate that as many as 800 jobs could be supported by 20,000 ha per year peatland restoration. This is broadly in line with the upper end of the range estimated by the Climate Change Committee (2023).

Table 7: The impact of net zero commitments on employment in peatland restoration

Additional issues to consider

Alongside the need to continue work on establishing estimates of the future scale and composition of the workforce, the literature and our stakeholder interviews highlight some further issues, which are inter-related, that require consideration when attempting to generate quantitative assessments. This demonstrates the importance of gathering both quantitative and qualitative data when undertaking scenario planning work.

Skills

In 2020 Skills Development Scotland produced a Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan which set out an overall direction of travel for the labour market in response to Scotland’s net zero commitments. This argues that reaching net zero by 2045 will require transformational change across the economy, including the emergence of new jobs and transitioning existing jobs to embed new green skills. Workers will require both hard and soft skills. The plan further emphasises the importance of meta-skills such as self-management, social intelligence, innovation and an ability to communicate well.^[20]

Seasonality

The issue of seasonality is key to understanding the scale, type and location of future jobs in the land-based sector, in particular the extent to which it is possible for individuals to move between land-based sectors to perform different activities at different times of the year, or indeed between the land-based and other sectors. The potential for workers to connect different seasonal activities and work across sectors may be important for workers ability to meet accommodation and living costs in rural areas, and therefore to attracting sufficient workers to fulfil these roles.^[21]

Based on the sources that we have reviewed (Appendix 12), we suggest that the main tree planting period is October – March, excluding December and January and that the key busy period for peatland restoration is August – March (with interruptions due to winter weather). Due to having similar busy periods it seems unlikely that roles within tree planting and peatland restoration will be fulfilled by the same individuals.

To attract workers to fulfil seasonal roles in tree-planting, it may be important to consider the potential for complementary off-season work. In this respect hospitality (commonly the second largest employer in rural areas) may have a complementary calendar, though perhaps a differing skill profile.

Attracting Workers

It will be necessary to attract workers across the land-based sector both to fulfil targeted increases in activity (particularly in tree planting and peatland restoration), and to offset natural attrition due to retirement and other factors.

Research highlights factors which may make this more challenging. Recent workforce studies have indicated that many employers across Scotland are experiencing recruitment challenges in a tight labour market.^[22] Within the nature-based sector, Hirst and Lazarus (2020) point to a divide between graduate posts (drawn from national labour pool) and operational posts (drawn from local labour pool), with operational posts generally harder to fill and experiencing stiff competition from other sectors.

In future, increased competition for skills could serve to enhance wages. Westbrook and Ralph (forthcoming) suggest that wages in the forestry sector may have to rise to attract a sufficient supply of workers. They highlight that median pay for forestry workers (£20,590) is substantially less than the UK national average (£29,577) and less than in other skilled roles involving machinery operation, including agricultural machinery drivers (£28,062), road construction operatives (£28,460) and mechanical engineers (£37,050). Added to low wage rates, the nature of the work in terms of remoteness and isolation, its physical nature and level of potential danger, and the change in mindset needed for much of the activities (see the points made in stakeholder interviews for this project in Box 1), may also serve as further discouraging factors.

Anecdotally, it is said that wage rates in peatland restoration are often above the market rate. Despite this a shortage of local skilled peatland restoration contractors has been highlighted as a barrier to upscaling restoration efforts (Reed et al., forthcoming). This point was further reflected in stakeholder interviews (see Box 1).

Learning Pathways

A widely raised point is the need to attract learners to the land-based sector. Hirst and Lazarus (2020) report that low awareness of opportunities and the range of jobs available was cited as a challenge by stakeholders across the nature-based sector alongside the need to better engage young people and non-traditional groups.

This was further picked up in the CLBLR (2023) which recommended work to be taken to reframe the land-based sector as the ‘nature-based sector’ to be more inclusive of the range of activities within the sector.^[23]

The CLBLR considered that a greater emphasis on sustainability and natural capital could enhance the perception of the sector, helping to attract learners. They further recommended supporting an increase in sector school/college partnership learning pathways (again see Box 1).

Considering the forestry sector more specifically, research by UHI, Lantra and the Institute of Chartered Foresters has pointed to a potential future skills shortage in the forestry sector if longstanding challenges around recruiting students and declining provision of higher education courses are not addressed.^[24] They highlight a need to improve perceptions of the industry and make it more attractive to potential students.

Demographics, Housing and Employment

The Scottish Government’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation (March 2022) recognises a number of structural economic challenges including deep-seated regional inequalities with post-industrial areas lagging behind and rural and island areas facing particular challenges such as a falling labour supply, poorer access to infrastructure and housing challenges which are holding back local businesses. The Strategy goes on to note that:

“The transition to a net zero economy presents Scotland with the further challenge of achieving a just transition that delivers positive employment, revenue and community benefits, in contrast to the industrial transitions of the 1980s.”

Elsewhere green land use change has been highlighted as an opportunity with potential to address labour market challenges. For instance an analysis by WPI for the Green Alliance found that across the UK, areas with the greatest potential for afforestation also faced greater than average labour market challenges. They take this to imply that an increase in tree planting showed potential to create jobs in these areas (WPI, 2021).

For this to be feasible however there must be attention to wider rural challenges such as demographic ageing and rural housing provision. Given that rural residents may already be less mobile than their urban counterparts due to structural challenges such as a lack of local childcare and affordable transport and housing, this may mean that they are less able to take advantage of new opportunities that arise.

Coupled with this are challenges around delivering and accessing training in rural locations which may mean that rural workers are not able to access the most up-to-date education and training options available. Hirst and Lazarus (2020) highlight the importance of small and micro-businesses across the nature-based sector, which could be a barrier to enhancing skills provision as smaller businesses often lack the ability to access formal training delivery. Alongside this, the remote location of work alongside seasonality of employment can make training more costly and challenging to organise (Scottish Forest and Timber Technologies, 2020).

The information in Box 1 is based on an interview with an individual working in the land-based sector in an island community. Many of the points discussed here are illustrated in the quotes taken from the conversation.

Conclusions

This project has reviewed evidence relating to the composition and condition of the land-based labour market and its likely future trajectory given the Scottish Government’s policy targets set out in the 2020 Climate Change Plan Update. We examined the potential for a methodological approach to model future labour requirements in the land-based sector in order to ensure that climate change and net zero targets are met.

The composition of the land-based workforce in Scotland

The research highlighted challenges in assessing the overall composition of the land-based workforce, with no commonly agreed definition, which in turn affects the way the required data is collected. The difficulty in identifying and clearly delineating some land based activities, such as peatland restoration, from the SIC system means that there is a lack of dedicated information on these activities within multi-sector labour market studies. The amount of information available varies between sectors, with much of it drawn from industry sponsored reports ..

. The research identified widely used estimates for key sectors, however due to differences in how employment is measured and how industry boundaries are defined, these are not directly comparable with one another. Industry groups in agriculture commonly depend on headcount figures which count part-time and full-time employment equally, while in forestry estimates are expressed as full-time equivalents (FTEs).

Differences in industry definitions also present a challenge. The agricultural sector within the June Census stops at the ‘farm gate’ (i.e. it refers to the total agricultural workforce on farms), whereas the forestry sector within the CJC (2015) study is broader and includes workers employed in timber haulage, forestry consulting, and local authorities. Employment statistics for the nature-based sector are also not directly comparable with those for agriculture or forestry because they already count part of agriculture and part of forestry and therefore combining figures for nature based employment with either forestry or agriculture would result in double-counting.

For all of these reasons it is not straightforward to determine how many people currently work in the land- based sector.

The current condition of the rural land-based labour market and key trends

Our analysis at local authority level using BRES data shows headline employment trends in agriculture and forestry over the last ten years, highlighting both similarities and differences between sectors.

A key area of similarity is that employment is strongly rural. Jobs in agriculture and forestry are predominantly located in rural areas. As such, the majority of employment growth since 2011 has occurred in Mainly Rural local authority areas.

Both agriculture and forestry have seen an expansion in the number of employees over the last decade, however they show differing trends in their total workforce. Within agriculture there has been a shift in workforce composition. A moderate increase in agricultural employees has been offset by a similar decrease in working owners, thus the total agricultural workforce is roughly the same in 2021 as it was in 2011. New positions have predominantly been for part-time and casual staff.

Meanwhile the total forestry workforce has increased substantially over the last decade, by around 50% between 2011 and 2021. The majority of new positions have been for full time staff. The number of working owners has also increased, though overall working owners are less significant than for agriculture, accounting for less than a quarter of the workforce, as compared to around half in agriculture.

Current and potential workforce opportunities exist in woodland creation, peatland restoration, a shift to regenerative agriculture and a growth in nature-based activities due to the Scottish Government’s climate change related targets. It is very difficult with current data to estimate how much and where opportunities are most likely to be concentrated, and the extent to which growth in employment in these sectors or in particular regions may result in decline in other sectors and regions.

Moreover, these opportunities are emerging at a time of ‘tightness’ in the current labour market where there are labour shortages being experienced in some regions and sectors. While this current ‘tightness’ may be primarily a result of labour market changes associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit, wider social trends, and in particular demographic ageing and an overall contraction in the population of working age, suggest that some tightness may continue. There are additional factors in rural areas which affect the size, shape and mobility of the workforce, including the availability of affordable housing, childcare and transport.

Modelling the future work force

The research identified a relatively limited evidence base examining the impact of net-zero commitments on employment in the land-based sector and the variations between sub-sectors. This project explored the potential for undertaking scenario modelling work but it was not possible to complete this using the approach proposed at the outset. There is potential to model future labour requirements and skills needs if detailed cost breakdown information for all of the policy target activities becomes available (i.e. woodland creation, peatland restoration, low-emission agriculture and nature-based activities).

A recent report by the Climate Change Committee (2023) gives an indication of the likely direction and magnitude of employment impacts within the land-based sector. While acknowledging considerable uncertainty around changes, the report indicates positive employment impacts in afforestation, non livestock agriculture and peatland restoration, alongside negative employment impacts in livestock agriculture, and a mixed picture for food processing.

The implied shift in sectoral composition raises important questions around the wider effects this may have on rural economies and communities. For example, how do the supply chains for those industries compare in terms of their size and geography and therefore the likely impacts of on rural economies? Will an expansion of tree-planting and peatland restoration activities and jobs support rural economies and communities in the same way as agricultural activities and jobs? Will these new workers live in rural areas year-round, spend their wages in the local economy and contribute to school rolls?

It is also important to consider the viability of seasonal roles in tree planting and peatland restoration. The ability of workers to connect different forms of seasonal employment may be important their ability to take on seasonal roles. However, due to having similar busy periods it is unlikely that jobs in tree planting and peatland restoration will be fulfilled by the same individuals. More generally, upscaling jobs in rural areas requires attention to wider rural challenges such as housing provision, demographic ageing and the affordability and availability of services including transport.

There is clear value in exploring qualitative and quantitative data for scenario-based work, particularly in an area as complex as the land-based labour market where there will be trade-offs and regional differences. Qualitative ad hoc or tailored exercises can provide complementary insights to those provided by quantitative modelling approaches. A greater understanding of these issues is critical to promoting a just transition and enabling the sustainability of rural communities as Scotland transitions towards its net zero targets.

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Appendix 1: Project aim, objectives and outline methodological approach

The aim of this project was:

“To achieve a system-wide overview of the existing statistics and what they tell us about the current land-based labour market in the rural land use sector in Scotland.”

There were three key objectives and the research team identified four tasks to undertake to achieve them: 

Objective 1: To assess the existing data for the land-based labour market in the rural land use sector in Scotland in order to understand the composition of the workforce and associated skills and identify key gaps. 

Task 1: The desk-based identification and review of key sources of quantitative, statistical data on Scotland’s rural labour market, with a focus on understanding the composition of the rural workforce and associated skill requirements, and its resilience to change. The research team undertook an extensive search for publicly available and secure access only information relating to the labour market in the UK and Scotland. We also identified any gaps in our understanding, particularly relating to sectors/activities that may become more important in future. 

Objective 2: To analyse the available evidence and report on the current condition of the rural land-based labour market, including trends of continuity and change since 2010. 

Task 2: The desk-based identification and review of available academic and other relevant, non-quantitative evidence on the current condition of the rural land-based labour market and related skills issues, including trends of continuity and change since 2010.

Objective 3: Using a scenarios approach, to model likely future rural workforce needs and skill sets associated with the land uses anticipated as part of the transition to net zero. The scenarios were aligned with the policy targets set out in the Climate Change Plan Update, and focus on the key delivery dates of 2030 and 2045. 

Task 3: Informed by a review of similar studies that have sought to model future workforce needs and skill sets associated with the land uses anticipated as part of the transition to net zero, and a review of how scenarios have been developed and used in similar studies, we designed a methodological approach to create a working model to explore likely future rural workforce needs and skillsets associated with the land uses anticipated as part of the transition to net zero.

Task 4: When the team was at the stage of having a draft report and a preferred methodology for the scenario modelling work, we undertook a small number of interviews with relevant stakeholder organisations and SRUC colleagues to sense-check our evidence review, scenarios and modelling work. Ethical approval for these interviews was obtained from SRUC’s Social Science Ethics Committee. Interviewees were sent the draft report to read in advance of the conversation (where time permitted) and interviews were recorded (with permission). The interviews were relatively unstructured, allowing the interviewee scope to raise issues of importance to them to inform the project. The data from these interviews is reported here anonymously with no individuals or organisations identified.

Appendix 2: Policy context for the land-based labour market

A2.1 Climate, environment, place-based and skills policies

The Scottish Government’s Environment Strategy sets the overarching framework for Scotland’s strategies and plans relating to the environment and climate change. The vision set out in this Strategy is: 

“By 2045 – By restoring nature and ending Scotland’s contribution to climate change, our country is transformed for the better – helping to secure the wellbeing of our people and planet for generations to come.” 

The Scottish Government’s climate change legislation sets a target date for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Changes to climate change legislation and associated consumer behaviours to move towards greater sustainability will impact on the economy and society, including the labour market, in various ways.

The Government’s Climate Change 2018-32 Plan, published in 2018, and its Climate Change Plan Update published in late 2020, describe the large-scale changes needed to help reach our statutory net zero targets. The third progress report on the Climate Change Plan Update was published in May 2023. In addition to this, the Scottish Government also has ambitious targets to end biodiversity loss by 2045, requiring simultaneous and significant improvements in nature restoration. A new Scottish Biodiversity Strategy to 2045 was published in December 2022.

Changes to Scotland’s workforce will be required to meet these ambitious targets, with land-based activities having a key role to play, in particular in rural areas where much of this activity can be found; this includes agriculture, forestry, peatland restoration and nature-based activities. Recent policy documents set out the direction of travel in these sectors, including the Scottish Government’s Agriculture Vision ‘Sustainable and Regenerative Farming – next steps’ (published in March 2022), the Scottish Government’s Forestry Strategy 2019-2029 and its planned Circular Economy legislation and Route Map to 2025 and beyond. There have also been independent inquiries and reports, such as the Farming for 1.5^o inquiry and the Commission for the Land-Based Learning Review which have contributed to thinking regarding the future shape of land-based activities. The independent review of Scotland’s skills delivery landscape, chaired by James Withers reported in June 2023, having undertaken a call for evidence in Autumn/Winter 2022.

At the same time, some elements of the policy context are yet to be confirmed, including the future support regime for agriculture (though more information has been available on this since the speech by the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands Mairi Gougeon at the Royal Highland Show in June 2023) and the shape and organisation of Scotland’s agricultural knowledge and innovation system (AKIS) (a report by the James Hutton Institute published in May 2023 undertook an options appraisal for this), both of which are highly relevant to this project.

The work of the first Just Transition Commission between 2019 and 2021 and the second Commission which started in 2022, recognises the potential for people and places to be affected in different ways by these workforce changes. The Scottish Government recognises the scale of the transition required in its response to the first Commission’s final report and has committed to setting out a series of just transition plans. A discussion paper to support engagement on a just transition in the land use and agriculture sectors was published in June 2023.

The Land and Agriculture Just Transition Plan (LAJTP) is due to be published in line with the future arrangements for agricultural support to replace the CAP following the UK’s EU exit, and will focus on those who live and rely on Scotland’s land for their livelihoods and wellbeing and on maintaining thriving rural and island communities. The LAJTP will look to demonstrate how Scottish Government policies to tackle and adapt to climate change and wider Scottish Government action will support:

• the creation of new or expanded economic opportunities in sectors such as nature-based solutions, natural capital investment and maintenance, green tourism, sustainable and regenerative food production and wood products.
• an increase in health and wellbeing for both people and the environment, and
• greater community empowerment as we look to ensure those already disadvantaged do not carry the burden, and that more benefits such as skills enhancement and employment opportunities flow to local communities.

In terms of its policies for specific places, Scotland does not have a distinct rural policy or strategy; the Scottish Government takes the approach of mainstreaming where rural issues are reflected in mainstream policy development. In late 2022, there was a new commitment for the projects which are funded as part of the National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET), to undertake checking using new ‘Rural Lens’ guidance to ensure that these projects take account of and meet the needs of Scotland’s rural communities and people. In April 2023, in his vision for Scotland, First Minister Humza Yousaf announced that a Rural Delivery Plan would be published by 2026 and alongside this in the same timescale, a Remote, Rural and Islands Housing Action Plan. Since the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, which exists to support and help meet the unique needs of Scotland’s islands, the Scottish Government has committed to publish a National Islands Plan every five years with an annual review, and, alongside other relevant authorities as set out in the 2018 Act, a commitment to undertake Islands Community Impact Assessments.

The Scottish Government’s Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan sets out the Government’s plan to maximise the transition to net zero by 2045, ensuring that the workforce has the skills required to make the transition to net zero just, fair and inclusive to all. Demand for green jobs and associated green skills is expected to increase rapidly in response to these policy drivers and to wider consumer behaviour changes. Linked to this, fair work is an important policy driver for Scottish Government, particularly given that the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing socio-economic inequalities. The Government’s Covid-19 Recovery Strategy focuses on a number of priority actions including upskilling and retraining opportunities for employees impacted by the pandemic and the transition to net zero, support for low-income families most at risk of poverty, and mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people.

A2.2 The National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET)

It is worth adding further information about the NSET, which was launched in March 2022 and demonstrates, amongst other things, how central natural capital and natural capital based sectors are to economic policy in Scotland.

The Strategy recognises a number of structural economic challenges which preceded the Covid-19 pandemic, including Scotland’s ageing population and relatively high level of economic inactivity (one in five people in Scotland). Structural inequalities led to many households living in poverty and Scotland’s productivity lags behind that of many advanced economies. There are also deep-seated regional inequalities with post-industrial areas lagging behind and rural and island areas facing particular challenges such as a falling labour supply, poorer access to infrastructure and housing challenges which are holding back local businesses. The Strategy goes on to note that:

“The transition to a net zero economy presents Scotland with the further challenge of achieving a just transition that delivers positive employment, revenue and community benefits, in contrast to the industrial transitions of the 1980s.”

Nevertheless there are also notable strengths:

• Scotland is in the top quartile of OECD countries for higher education, research and development,
• the percentage of the population with tertiary education, and
• young people’s participation in the labour market.

Looking to the future, the NSET notes the Scottish Government’s aim in relation to achieving a more skilled workforce in Scotland, where there is a focus on the transition to net zero, the digital revolution and lifelong learning. Through three NSET projects funded on the skills theme, the focus is on adapting the education and skills system to make it more agile and responsive to economic needs and ambition. This includes supporting and incentivising people and employers to invest in skills and training throughout their working lives and expanding Scotland’s available talent pool at all skill levels to give employers the skills pipeline they need to take advantage of opportunities.

Specific NSET actions around skills include implementing the next phase of the Green Workforce Academy and implementing a lifetime upskilling and retraining offer that is more straightforward for people and employers. Importance is also placed on the implementation of the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan, the Green Jobs Skills Hub to share information on skills shortages and opportunities throughout the labour market, and the Commission for the Land Based Learning Review (CLBLR) which reported in January 2023 and offers an opportunity to link across existing work in the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland and the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan. Closely linked to these developments, the new SkillSeeder web platform was set up in 2020 as a skill sharing marketplace funded through CivTech Challenge 5 where courses and training can be listed across all sectors and those seeking training can find information and sign up in one place.

The NSET also refers to the fair work agenda which is a key policy driver for the Scottish Government and also its Future Skills Action Plan which built on the recommendations of the Enterprise and Skills Board’s Strategic Plan published in 2018. The Action Plan contains four themes:

• Increasing system agility and employer responsiveness;
• Enhancing access to upskilling and retraining opportunities;
• Ensuring sustainability across the skill system; and
• Accelerating the implementation of the learner journey review.

A2.3 The Climate Change Plan Update policy targets – further information

The work undertaken in this project is particularly aligned with the policy targets set out in the Climate Change Plan Update (CCPU).

The CCPU notes the Scottish Government’s commitment to green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic which captures the opportunities of our transition to net zero:

“That means creating green jobs, developing sustainable skills and nurturing wellbeing. This approach recognises climate change as a human rights issue and the transition to net zero as an opportunity to tackle inequalities.”

Scotland has ambitious targets to end it’s contribution to climate change by 2045: a commitment to reducing emissions by 75% by 2030 (compared to 1990) and to net zero by 2045.

The Update emphasises that:

“Scotland’s natural capital is one of our greatest assets and is central to our future net zero economy, developing thriving rural economies based around woodland creation, peatland restoration and biodiversity, as well as sustainable tourism, food and drink and energy” (p9).

The Update also calls for a coordinated approach, a whole system view (as taken for example in the Third Land Use Strategy), across sectors and policy targets, though the document itself contains policies and targets for individual sectors.

At the centre of the Scottish Government’s commitment to securing a just and green recovery, is a commitment to increase the number of good, green jobs, and to enable people to access these jobs through training and reskilling. To further align the skills system with the demand resulting from a green recovery and the transition to net zero, the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan was also published alongside the Update.

The policies and targets in the Update can be summarised as follows:

• Land use, land use change and forestry:
• The Update contains plans to significantly increase forestry and peatland restoration in particular to reduce greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and increase the levels of carbon dioxide being absorbed and locked up in timber products.
• The Update sets out a plan to continue to expand forest cover in Scotland, with an increase in new woodland creation from the current target level of 12,000 ha annually in 2020/21 to 18,000 ha in 2024/25. Scottish Forestry and Forestry and Land Scotland will work with investors, carbon buyers, landowners and market intermediaries to increase private investment in new woodlands in order to increase the woodland carbon market by at least 50% by 2025. 
• As of March 2020, over 25,000 ha of peatland have been put on the road to restoration, and earlier this year we announced a £250 million ten-year funding package to support the restoration of 250,000 ha of degraded peat by 2030. To deliver on the 2032 emissions reduction envelope annual peatland restoration needs to be far higher than the current 20,000 ha annual target and we will work closely with delivery partners, land owners, managers, farmers and crofters to continue to encourage more restoration of peatland, both traditional bog but also land that offers the highest emission savings per ha. 
• Agriculture:
• There is recognition in the Update of the need for agriculture to produce high quality food and deliver high environmental standards and emissions reductions going forward, as well as manage soils and grasslands appropriately and deploy technology innovatively to support all of these activities.
• The Update provides a routemap for agricultural transformation, building on the work of the farmer led groups, and including a shift towards low carbon sustainable farming. The Agricultural Transformation Programme will be scaled up to enable farmer and crofters to purchase equipment to reduce emissions and support practice change. Options to explore multi-faceted land use will also be followed, including forestry, peatland restoration and management and biomass production, especially for those farmers wanting to step back from agricultural businesses.
• Electricity:
• The CCPU announces further policies to continue the rapid growth in renewable energy generation over the past twenty years, moving from a low to a zero carbon electricity system, with the potential for NETs to deliver negative emissions
• Renewable energy generation in Scotland accounts for the equivalent of 50% of our energy demand across electricity, heat and transport by 2030
• Publish a bioenergy action plan in 2023
• Waste and circular economy plans/targets:
• Continue to embed circular economy principles in wider green recovery
• Increasing recycling, reducing food waste, reducing materials going to landfill

The Update contains a section which outlines what the policies mean in practice in terms of a pathway to 2032 (p18). This section of the report states:

“By 2032, the natural environment and landscapes around us will have undergone significant restoration, with a sustainable land use system that prioritises nature and biodiversity. 21% of our land will be covered by forest, following increased funding of £150 million as well as our target of planting 18,000 hectares per year by 2024/5. We will also have restored over 250,000 hectares of peatland with £250 million of investment over 10 years, protecting this significant carbon store, and restoring wetland habitats. The prioritisation of these “nature-based solutions” and restoration projects will deliver multiple benefits, not only in terms of carbon sequestration, but also enhanced biodiversity, improved air and water quality, and landscapes and ecosystems that are more resilient to climate change.

Meanwhile, the agricultural sector will have supported these changes in land use, through the use of appropriate land for afforestation, including further integration of woodlands on farms, and peatland, while continuing the important role of food production. Farmers and crofters will continue to be supported for their key roles of producing high quality food and environmental stewardship while meeting conditionality for delivery of high environmental standards for emissions reduction and biodiversity. They will be adopting all available low-emission technologies and practices supported by the introduction of new approaches, alongside environmental conditionality. Through partnership working between government and industry, for example through the work of the farmer-led groups and realigned and enhanced advice, agricultural businesses will have the skills and tools they need to produce food more sustainably, while adopting new technologies and innovative approaches.”

Appendix 3: Web of Science database search terms

The research team undertook a search of publications using Web of Science to assess the extent to which the impact of net zero and biodiversity commitments on the land-based labour market has been explored.

Table A1: Information on the research team’s Web of Science database search terms

Sources published 2010 and earlier were excluded.

TS stands for topic search, this means that the search is for the terms in four fields: Title, Abstract, Keywords and Keywords Plus. Sources are returned only if they include one (or more) term from each set of brackets.

Appendix 4: Defining the land-based sector

Lantra Scotland is the sector skills organisation for land-based activities in Scotland. The organisation’s website has a wide range of information on pathways into jobs and qualifications. In their 2009 Environmental and Land Based Scottish Sector Profile report they define the sector as including a set of SIC (2003) codes^[25] (see Box A1).

In its 2012 skills assessment report for the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector, Lantra notes that the sector has a key role in feeding our nation and is indispensable for our current and future economic prosperity. Businesses in the sector safeguard the UK’s natural environment and natural heritage and are on the front line in the drive for food security, sustainable development, growing the rural economy and adapting to climate change by reducing greenhouse gases and creating more renewable energy. More specifically in terms of the SIC codes (2007) included, Lantra include Code 01 (crop and animal production), 02 (forestry and logging), 03 fishing and aquaculture and 75 (veterinary activities). However, they note that the sector is broader than these categories, and includes farming, horticulture, viticulture and hunting and trapping, as well as aspects of animal health and welfare. Forestry and logging consists of silviculture (forest management), logging and coppicing. Fishing includes both fresh water and marine fishing, while aquaculture covers the farming of freshwater and marine plants and animals. Support services to these industries (such as agricultural consultants) and plant propagation are also included in the definition. Veterinary activities covers farm animals and domestic pets, and in terms of occupations, the sector includes veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses as well as any other auxiliary personnel. Outside the scope of this skills assessment are research and development activities relating to the sector, such as plant trials and biotechnology.

The (UK-wide) National Land Based College (‘the one stop shop for land based careers and skills’), refers to the UK Government’s approach of regarding ‘land based’ careers as the:

“Agriculture, Environmental and Animal Care sector which offers a range of career opportunities^[26]. The term ‘land based’ traditionally relates to farming and industries connected to the land and environment, including horticulture, food production, forestry, conservation, landscaping and equine (horses)…Land based careers are diverse and use a number of different skills. Many roles combine cutting edge science, engineering and IT with an understanding of the natural world and how it works. Skills within the more creative leisure sectors are also required, with opportunities in landscape design, floristry, tourism and recreation. Careers can also include working with animals, nature conservation and caring for our land and environment. Many of the careers span a number of the areas above, and skills gained are transferrable between these sectors.”

The NLBC has worked with City and Guilds to design technical qualifications to increase skill levels in the land-based sector, including agriculture, animal management, environment, countryside and conservation, equine, forestry and arboriculture, horticulture and land-based engineering.

The research team also reviewed the remit of the Commission for the Land Based Learning Review (CLBLR) which was appointed by the Scottish Government to undertake a ‘root and branch’ review of learning in Scotland’s land-based and aquaculture sectors, from early years to adulthood. The CLBLR provided independent, evidence-based advice to Scottish Ministers around the best ways to provide opportunities and qualifications through school, college, university, and work-based learning, including apprenticeships, for more people and specifically more women, to work with and on the land, particularly in green skills. The work of the CLBLR supports the Government’s ambitions of delivering a just transition to net zero, by ensuring Scotland’s learning system equips people with the skills and knowledge needed to work in the country’s land-based sectors as well as any new and emerging green occupations in land-based sectors. The Scottish Government will respond to the CLBLR’s report later in 2023.

The review considered the learning pipeline for the following sectors: 

• agriculture 
• aquaculture 
• biodiversity 
• environmental conservation 
• equine 
• fisheries management 
• food and drink processing 
• forestry, trees and timber 
• game and wildlife 
• horticulture 
• peatland restoration

The review did not include nature-based tourism, outdoor recreation and renewables (wind, hydro and solar)^[27].

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) makes reference to the ‘land-based and environment sector’ which it argues makes up 6% of all UK businesses, employing 660,000 people. The SQA describes that its qualifications have been developed with Lantra and industry contacts (and they link to a variety of industry bodies^[28]) to ensure they are relevant and provide people with the skills needed to work within this sector, and cover a wide variety of disciplines, including: animal care, aquaculture, environmental management, horticulture, forestry, landscape management, wildlife and conservation management, and much more.

Pearson, an awarding body offering academic and vocational qualifications, offers ‘land-based studies’ which includes agriculture, horticulture and land-based studies, with the latter including a range of subjects/courses, including plant and soil science, environmental and conservation management, wildlife ecology, developing a land-based enterprise, farm livestock husbandry, crop production, planting/care of plants, etc. which could support people going into a variety of jobs. The National Careers Service in its Environment and Land category includes a very wide range of occupations^[29]. The Careermap website, in its sector spotlight on the land-based and environmental industries, splits the sector into three broad areas: land management, animal health and welfare, and environmental industries.

Appendix 5: Key data and evidence sources on the UK and Scottish labour markets

Table A2: Macro-level data on the UK and Scottish labour markets

Table A3: Micro-level data on the UK and Scottish labour markets

As evident in Table A2, the team reviewed a range of sources of employment information and this final section of the Appendix provides a little more information from some of the key sources.

The Scottish Government produces secondary analysis of the latest labour market information from a range of sources, including the ONS’ Labour Force Survey, the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the Annual Population Survey in its Labour Market Summary. It also publishes an annual report on Scotland’s Labour Market based on Annual Population Survey data with the most recent version published in 2020/21. This report contains information on a range of labour market issues, including employment rates (including by local authorities, sector and age), types of work (e.g. underemployment, contractually secure employment, gender segregation and job-related training) and skills. It also provides local authority level data on the proportions of people with low/no qualifications.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) hosts a large amount of data on its website relating to Scottish employment, labour market and skills issues, including its regular Covid-19 Labour Market Insights reports. The Scottish Labour Market Information and Intelligence (LMI) Framework (involving SDS, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Jobcentre Plus, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Funding Council, Scottish Government, Scottish Qualifications Authority and the Improvement Service) encourages all organisations to work collaboratively to collate, analyse, publish, etc. labour market evidence. Through this framework, SDS provides Regional Skills Assessments (RSA) and Sectoral Skills Assessments (SSA, including information on job postings, employment forecasts and skill requirements, amongst other things). Both of these are built from existing datasets combined with regional/industry insights, and provide coherent, high-level evidence to inform future investment in skills. More information on these assessments is provided in the sector-specific sections later in the report. SDS also has a RSA Data Matrix Interactive Tool which provides data on over 80 indicators at Local Authority level, and for other sub-regional geographies.

SDS’s Covid-19 Labour Market Insights Report from July 2022 notes the strong inflationary pressures, worker shortages, supply chain challenges, the cost of living crisis and the projection that the UK will enter a recession towards the end of this financial year as important issues impacting on the current Scottish (and UK) labour market. It goes on to note that the supply of people in the labour market has been impacted by high levels of economic activity, EU exit and demographic challenges. Labour shortages remain a dominant issue for businesses in Scotland, due to people being reluctant to change roles and challenges funding suitably skilled candidates and demand for workers remaining exceptionally high. The CIPD’s Labour Market Outlook from Summer 2022 also reports that employers are reporting labour shortages as a dominant issue across all sectors. They are increasingly focused on upskilling existing workers (41%), followed by advertising more jobs as flexible (35%) to tackle recruitment challenges. In this Outlook, 47% of employers reported having hard-to-fill vacancies.

A Fraser of Allander Institute survey (the Scottish Business Monitor) from May 2022 also reports high numbers of businesses experiencing recruitment difficulties and problems filling roles. They note a variety of reasons, including candidates lacking skills/ experience, a lack of applications overall, and sometimes candidates’ wage expectations being higher than businesses could offer. Some businesses also reported difficulties retaining staff, including due to increases in remote jobs in the labour market (such as people being offered highly paid jobs in the London labour market but able to work in rural and island Scotland, for example).

Appendix 6: Green skills and green jobs

Terms such as ‘green transition’, ‘green skills’ and ‘green jobs’ have become more widely used in relation to the changes required in labour markets to meet climate and environmental goals (such as implementing circular economy practices, enhancing biodiversity, etc.), and to ensure a sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, as noted in SDS’s February 2022 Sectoral Skills Assessment for the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sectors:

“green jobs are at the forefront of the Government’s plans for recovery. Demand for green jobs (and green skills) is expected to increase rapidly as a result of policy and legislative drivers and consumer choice.”

However, they remain poorly defined and there is no single agreed way to quantify them. The UK Government has not set out a definition of ‘green jobs’, nor how it will measure progress towards its ambitions –though a UK Green Taxonomy is under development and could provide this in future. The ONS estimates the number of UK green jobs in two ways:

• UK employment in the Environmental Goods and Services Sector (EGSS), defined as ‘areas of the economy engaged in producing goods and services for environmental protection purposes, as well as those engaged in conserving and maintaining natural resources’; and
• Information collected from businesses through the Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy (LCREE) survey, focussing on (a different) 17 sectors^[30] deemed low-carbon or related to renewable energy and defined as ‘economic activities that deliver goods and services that are likely to help the UK generate lower emissions of greenhouse gases, predominantly carbon dioxide’.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) confirms the lack of an agreed definition of ‘green jobs’ (ILO 2018 p. 53, p135). They argue that a ‘purist’ definition takes a narrow approach defining them strictly in terms of green credentials – jobs that ‘contribute substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality’. However, the ILO tends to take a broader definition, arguing that green jobs are ‘decent jobs that contribute to preserve or restore the environment, be they in traditional sectors such as manufacturing and construction, or in new, emerging green sectors such as renewable energy and energy efficiency’.

Contributors to the UK Government’s House of Commons’ Inquiry into ‘Green jobs and the just transition’ (p7-8) identified a range of other possible definitions, some of which included social care and the emergency services; others included all jobs because people across all jobs have an obligation to take action to protect the environment.

The ONS identify two further ways green jobs could be measured:

• the sectoral approach, which involves identifying relevant sectors, e.g. renewable energy, and either assuming all jobs in this sector are ‘green’ or deciding which jobs within the sector are ‘green’ and which are not; and
• O*NET, a United States database, which sorts jobs in sectors that could make up a ‘green economy’ into three categories, based on the interaction between skills and the transition to a greener economy.

Following the UK Government’s Green Jobs Taskforce definition of green jobs (p9), would encompass a wide variety of different sectors, including jobs in nature and habitat management, the circular economy, etc.:

employment in an activity that directly contributes to—or indirectly supports—the achievement of the UK’s net zero emissions target and other environmental goals, such as nature restoration and mitigation against climate risks.

The UK Government’s Green Jobs Taskforce report published in 2021, referred to the Government’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution published in 2020, and builds on an inclusive definition of green jobs and skills noting that every job has the potential to turn green and that there is a huge range of skills which will support the net zero transition.

Focusing on Scotland, increasing the number of green jobs has been a priority for the Scottish Government for several years, in order to reach ambitious environmental and net zero targets (see for example, the Programme for Government 2020-21, which announced £100m over the next five years for the Green Jobs Fund to support new and increased opportunities for green job creation across Scotland).

So, there is clear evidence both internationally and at UK level that green skills are regarded as increasingly important, but a lack of clarity over whether all jobs are potentially green, or only sectors related to environmental activity – or even certain jobs within certain sectors – should be included. However, without a clear definition it is impossible to quantify where these new jobs are, what type they are, what pay levels they offer and what skill levels they require, in order to inform the future skills and training plans of education and training institute and businesses themselves.

The Green Jobs in Scotland report, commissioned by the Implementation Steering Group behind Scotland’s Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan and supported by the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland was published in November 2022. The report argues that, in order to ensure that everyone benefits from the net zero transition, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of what constitutes a green job and to determine the future jobs and skills needs. It goes on to argue that the definition should be inclusive to take account of the impact that the net zero transition will have on a broader range of jobs.

This recently published Green Jobs in Scotland report defined three different categories of green jobs:

• New and Emerging: The impact of green economy activities and technologies creates the need for unique work and worker requirements, which results in the generation of new occupations. These new occupations can be entirely novel or ‘born’ from an existing occupation. An example is solar system technicians who must be able not only to install new technology but also to determine how this technology can best be used on a specific site.
• Enhanced Skills and Knowledge: The impact of green economy activities and technologies can result in significant change to the work and worker requirements of existing occupations. This impact may result in an increase in demand for these occupations. The essential purposes of the occupation remain the same but tasks, skills, knowledge and external elements, such as credentials, have been altered. An example is architects, an occupation in which greening has increased knowledge requirements pertaining to energy efficient materials and construction, as well as skills associated with integrating green technology into the aesthetic design of buildings.
• Increased Demand: The impact of green economy activities and technologies can increase employment demand for some existing occupations. However, this impact does not entail significant changes in the work and worker requirements of the occupation. The work context may change but the tasks do not. An example is the increased demand for electrical power line installers and repairers related to energy efficiency and infrastructure upgrades.

The Green Jobs in Scotland research has developed a new green occupational definition, or a ‘GreenSoc’. The GreenSoc is based on an adaption of the three types of green occupations, and then applied to Labour Force Survey (LFS) data and data scraped from job vacancy websites. The report includes an analysis of green jobs by industry, occupation and demographics, and in terms of the latter, identifies eastern Scotland and south west Scotland as where demand for new and emerging green jobs is highest.

The report highlights a number of limitations in developing GreenSoc for Scotland which are relevant for the work being carried out in this project. These limitations include a lack of sensitivity in both the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) and the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC), where the classification at four digital level (which is standard for the SOC; the SIC codes were updated to five digits in 2007 to provide more nuance) is blunt in terms of providing detailed information on the exact tasks, skills and knowledge of any occupation. The problem of being unable to disaggregate larger occupational or sectoral codes is a challenge that is important in this research. The report argues that what is ideally required to better inform and drive awareness and action to support reskilling and upskilling is data disaggregated at the 5-digit or even 6-digit level within the SOC.

The Green Jobs Workforce Academy notes that the Scottish Government has prioritised six sectors in Scotland’s journey to net zero (they are important to the economy and to net zero too): construction and the built environment; transport; nature; energy; engineering; and life and chemical sciences. In terms of the nature sector, the ‘My World of Work’ website notes plans for a five-fold increase in peatland restoration, a doubling of tree planting and more investment in the Woodland Carbon Code. It notes the need for 9,900 new workers in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors over the next three years (in contrast to the decline in jobs in agricultural production and the food sector predicted by the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan 2020-2025, CESAP) and that it is expected by 2031 there will be around 18,200 new job opportunities in: crop and animal production; fishing and aquaculture; agriculture; finance; urban green infrastructure; tourism; forestry, trees and timber; peatland restoration; sustainable tourism; green finance; urban greenscaping; and integrated land management.

The research team identified a number of other reports exploring ‘green jobs’. For example, the Greening the Giants Report produced by Onward in 2021 notes that there are 12 sectors where it will be challenging to decarbonise, including agriculture. It notes that this sector is geographically concentrated which will result in spatially uneven consequences (see also WWF’s 2022 Land of Plenty report and the Carbon Brief 2022 report), though there is no detailed discussion of future jobs/skills requirements (see also the NFU’s [2019] report on Achieving Net Zero). The Onward Report recommends implementing a gradually rising regulatory baseline for soil and animal husbandry within the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, and including agriculture in the emissions trading system and introducing innovation grants for vertical farming and cultured meat projects. The Economy 2030 report from the Resolution Foundation with the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE focuses on the theme of ‘green vs brown jobs’ and the regional differences in terms of the geographical distribution of each, but there is little discussion of the land-based sector specifically.

A report to the European Commission by Bowen and Hanke in 2019 estimated green jobs by industry and found that some low emitting industries (such as real estate activities) had a greater proportion of people in potentially green jobs than some high emitting industries (such as agriculture, forestry and fishing). The report argues that the journey to net zero may involve pervasive changes to the composition of jobs, much of which will be achieved by labour market turnover, where employees switch the industry in which they work.

Appendix 7: Information on the rural labour market

Table A4: Occupational breakdown of the labour market by the Scottish Government’s Urban Rural Classification (2016)

Table A4 (Table 27 reproduced from Rural Scotland Key Facts 2021) shows the breakdown of the labour market in rural areas by SOC. This shows that across Scotland, the highest proportion of workers is in the lower managerial and professional occupations classification (with the rural proportions lower than in the rest of Scotland, though still accounting for one in four workers). While remote rural areas have a lower proportion of people in the higher managerial and professional occupations classification (12%), the proportion of workers in this category is highest in accessible rural areas (the data tables that accompany this report can be found online here).

Figure A1 below shows the sectoral breakdown of employment in rural Scotland. This is also taken from Rural Scotland Key Facts 2021 (Figure 12 in Rural Scotland Key Facts 2021). This shows that the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector accounted for 15% of employment in remote rural Scotland in 2020, compared to 12% in accessible rural Scotland (and only 0.5% in the rest of Scotland). This sector accounts for the highest proportion of private sector employment in remote rural areas; only the public sector accounts for a higher proportion (17% in both accessible and remote rural Scotland).

Figure A1: Employment by industry sectors and the public sector (2020)

It is also worth providing some detail here on the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland 2019-21 which contains further discussion on some of the challenges of rural labour markets. The Plan notes the need to understand various key features of rural areas which underpin any action, including:

• where they are,
• their diversity,
• the diversification of the rural economy away from the primary sector in recent years,
• the need for a robust evidence base,
• the need to understand how rural-specific and national policies and practices play out in rural locations, and
• the need to understand how jobs and skills interventions play out in relation to wider economic and social issues as mentioned above, including the availability of affordable housing, transport infrastructure, etc.

The Plan sets out the relatively complex policy context for skills and jobs interventions, which includes Skills Investment Plans for specific areas (including the Highlands and Islands and the South of Scotland, for example) and sectors (including several of relevance to rural Scotland such as food and drink, tourism, aquaculture and the timber and forest industries), plus City Region and Growth Deals such as the Borderlands, sector strategies (including for agriculture, tourism and food and drink) and organisational strategies, including for HIE and SOSE.

The Plan identifies some of the particular challenges of delivering training and skills provision in rural areas where learners and employers are dispersed, demographic ageing is occurring at a faster rate than is the case in the rest of Scotland and employment rates are generally high, with lots of people working part-time, from home and often in multiple jobs, but with low productivity levels. It notes that over the period 2018-28, total requirement (the number of people required to fill employment demand, including expansion and replacement demand) in Scotland’s rural areas is forecast as 256,000 jobs, accounting for almost one quarter of the total requirement for Scotland. 90% of this will be in Mainly Rural areas. In terms of sector, total requirement will be greatest within:

• wholesale & retail (51,800 jobs),
• agriculture, forestry and fishing (33,500 jobs – which represents 76% of the total requirement for the sector across Scotland) and
• administrative and support services (32,500 jobs).

In relation to the land-based sector specifically, the Plan notes the long-standing issue of the under-representation of women and their contributions in this sector with many roles un- or under-paid, and the need to address this in future to bring about positive recruitment change.

A key point is the higher tendencies for employers to report hard-to-fill vacancies in rural areas, and that rurality tends to exacerbate skills shortages, due to wider challenges around talent, attraction and retention, connectivity and training, and education provision^[31]. Technical skills shortages were often reported, including in forestry and engineering, where there are national shortages, and in a range of core business skills, including management and leadership, mentoring and customer services.

The Plan outlines five priorities for future action, including:

• achieving a better understanding of the sills that employers need and aligning provision to support this
• providing individuals with accessible education and skills provision
• developing the current rural workforce through upskilling and reskilling
• building a secure pipeline for the future, and
• taking a strategic coordinated approach to tackling skills in rural areas.

Appendix 8: Background information on the agricultural sector

The most recent statistics on the agricultural sector are reported in the main body of this report and this Appendix provides some additional background information about the sector.

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, with 85% of Scotland’s land being designated as Less Favoured Area (LFA), meaning that there are challenges for agricultural production relating to soils, climate, topography, etc..

It is worth noting that, like businesses operating in many other sectors, agriculture, forestry and fishing sector businesses are experiencing significant challenges currently relating to the cost of living (or cost of doing business) crisis, including increased costs for fuel, fertiliser and food. More positively, businesses in general across the sector are adopting new technology and innovation, which is resulting in a demand for higher skills, including digital.

The UKCES (2016) report noted some of the wider drivers of change in the agricultural sector, including productivity improvement (including through investment in technologies) which will lead to decreased future labour demand and rising cost pressures – which have been exacerbated recently – which will encourage long-term efficiency savings and likely further reduce labour demand. Changes in consumption patterns were noted as an important driver of changing demand for agricultural outputs, including a shift towards substituting domestic and indeed ‘local’ products for imported foods, and a growing trend for eating out (though this may have been impacted longer-term by the Covid-19 pandemic). Overall however it was projected that the UK would remain a net importer of food and beverages. On balance therefore, modest growth in agricultural and fishery activity was expected to increase demand for domestically-produced foods and drinks, stimulating activity in agriculture and fishing industries.

Although now over a decade old, Lantra’s 2012 report is still relevant, noting the high levels of self-employment in agriculture, forestry and fishing (around 50% of the workforce in 2012), and the importance of seasonal working and unpaid family members (3% of the workforce, higher than the national average of 0.3%). The Lantra report also confirmed the dominance of male employees who significantly outnumber female employees (though it is worth noting that many females engaged in this sector may not be formally recognised as employees). It also confirmed that the workforce is ageing with a dominance of individuals from the white ethnic group (99%), a prevalence of skilled trades, elementary and managerial occupations, and a dominance of full-time workers (80%), with 19% part-time across the sector.

In terms of skill levels, the Lantra report noted that those working in the sector are on average highly skilled but poorly qualified and more likely to have no formal qualifications when compared to the rest of the economy. Around 53% of employers in this sector provided some form of on/off job training in 2011, compared to 59% across the rest of the economy but the sector is the third lowest in terms of employers providing training. This can be explained by a range of factors including high capital intensity, simple product market strategy, high levels of risk and uncertainty, high levels of variability of income, lack of regulated entry into jobs, high travel costs due to remoteness and lack of ICT infrastructure.

The Lantra (2012) report made a series of recommendations regarding priority areas for action relating to upskilling and entry, progression and sector careers, some of which were defined as ‘crucial’ and some as ‘other high priority’. The areas defined as ‘crucial’ included:

• a need to ‘professionalise’ the sector (including to change perceptions and make it more attractive and to increase the number of people working in it with formal qualifications)
• improved succession planning
• environmental management
• risk management
• scientific knowledge and technology transfer, and
• ICT to aid technological change.

It is interesting to see environmental management included in the crucial areas for upskilling more than a decade ago. Other areas included in the ‘other high priority list’ also showed recognition of the changing role of farmers encompassing activities beyond food production, including woodland management, practical conservation, marketing and market analysis, negotiation and influencing and public engagement in agriculture, forestry and fishing. The report concludes that the future workforce in agriculture, forestry and fishing would need to ensure a balance between high level technical and high level business management skills; this is particularly interesting when it is noted that agriculture is usually perceived as a low tech sector. It is not, however, clear is the extent to which these recommendations have been implemented as data is not available to evaluate the changing skills levels amongst the agricultural workforce. This is partly due to a lack of empirical data collected on this, but also due to the challenges mentioned previously, for example, the difficulty of collecting information from the many small businesses and self-employed contractors who operate across the sector.

Skills Development Scotland’s Sectoral Skills Assessments (SSA) provide detailed skills-related information for sectors across the economy. They are part of a wider suite of labour market information published by SDS. The most recent SSA for agriculture, forestry and fishing was published in November 2022. The SSA includes forecast data produced by Oxford Economics, about which SDS notes the following caveats:

• forecasted data are based on what we know now and include past and present trends projected into the future.
• the more disaggregated forecasts become, the less reliable they are likely to be.
• their value is in identifying likely direction of travel rather than predicting exact figures.

Information from the most recent SSA is included in the main body of this report.

SDS’s Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan 2020-25 discusses the opportunities and skills implications of the climate emergency, including in relation to agriculture where emissions need to be reduced (agriculture and related land use in Scotland are the second largest source of net emissions after transport, although forestry makes a net contribution to reducing carbon emissions – the Climate Change Plan sets out a target of 24% emissions reduction from agriculture from 2020-2032), more peatland restored (250,000 ha of degraded peatland restored by 2030), trees planted (an increase in annual woodland creation to 18,000 ha a year by 2024) and biodiversity enhanced. In contrast to the SDS and Oxford Economics forecasts (and likely mainly due to the use of different definitions), the projection in the CESAP is for a decline in employment in the sector in future (by 5%, 4,600 jobs by 2029) but rising levels of productivity of 17% over the same period.

The CESAP notes a set of skills implications of these changes, including:

• structural change and managing change to low carbon and regenerative farming will require management and technical competencies. Farmers and agricultural managers need the skills to undertake or commission the technical tasks required to reduce emissions.
• precision agriculture will increase the demand for digital skills
• upskilling and reskilling the workforce is critical
• raising awareness of GHG emissions and skills required for their reduction is vitally important to ensure a sector-wide contribution to the net zero target. Such a ‘culture change’ in Scottish agriculture will form part of a ‘transformation pathway’ through which the sector can support the transition to net zero, as outlined by the independent inquiry on farming and climate change in Scotland.

Finally it is worth noting, as this is important later on for the scenario analysis, that the Scottish (and UK) Government has been criticised (see for example, the 2021 report on Towards Net Zero in UK agriculture, commissioned by HSBC, and WWF’s 2022 Land of Plenty report) for not doing enough in terms of a detailed future strategy for decarbonisation and net zero for agriculture, and indeed for wider land use activities, and for not having specific targets and associated investment plans for cutting emissions, the amount of land in low carbon/regenerative farming, etc. This lack of specific targets means that detailed and accurate forecasting work to identify likely future jobs and associated skills needs is challenging.

Box A2 provides some information, taken from the November 2022 SDS SSA, about recent developments across the sector to tackle skills issues.

Box A2: Examples of current skills provision for agriculture (taken from SDS SSA for Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing)

A range of organisations working in the agriculture sector are focused on improving skills and training across the sector. For example, the Skills for Farming Group is developing and delivering a range of interventions that are focused on supporting the skills needs of the industry and better articulating pathways into the sector. One project has focused on developing a Net Zero Toolkit to support the farming community towards net zero, signposting to areas of support and showcasing best practice. The Land-based Pre-Apprenticeship programme continues to build on its success by creating work placement opportunities for young people and the ambition to progress to Modern Apprenticeships. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) also has an Agriculture and Horticulture Skills Leadership Group.

SRUC is working closely with providers and staff to identify new opportunities for regional skills provision (e.g. in horticulture and net zero) across the land-based sector. It is bringing together its provision into a ‘Skills Academy for the Rural and Natural Economy’ which brings together all short course and CPD provision. It is also focusing on encouraging students to develop their entrepreneurial thinking and knowledge through its Enterprise Academy.

Meanwhile, Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society has launched an initiative to develop leadership capability within the sector. The Growing Tomorrow’s Leaders programme provides an opportunity to boost skills and knowledge to help support individuals to meet the challenges and opportunities.

Additional Data Sources

• In terms of numbers of businesses, again drawing on data in Rural Scotland Key Facts 2021, 35% of SMEs in remote rural Scotland operated in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector and 26% in accessible rural areas (2% in the rest of Scotland).
• 56% of the agricultural workforce are farm occupiers who own or rent their farm and work on it; 40% of farm occupiers are female (2021 Agricultural Census). Ownership status (with over half of the current workforce strongly linked to ownership or rental of their land), and the opportunities for new people to take on the ownership or lease of farms, impacts on the ability of individuals to move in and out of the sector. Equally, the movement of people out of (and indeed into) the sector therefore has implications for land sales and ownership in rural Scotland.
• According to the 2021 Agricultural Census, the average age of farm occupiers and the agricultural workforce is high, with 40% of male occupiers aged 64 or older (32% of females) and only 10% of working occupiers aged 41 or under. This demographic profile is important to understand when considering sector-specific interventions to address succession planning, upskilling initiatives, etc. Regular staff make up 31% of the total agricultural workforce, with the majority of these people working full-time.
• By way of comparison, the Scottish Government’s 2020/21 report on Scotland’s Labour Market notes that 50% of the workforce in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector is within the 50 and over cohort.
• Work by SRUC in 2018 (conservatively) estimated that there were 9,255 seasonal migrant workers in Scottish agriculture in 2017; this number has reduced in recent years due to Brexit and other factors (which has likely had a knock on impact on production, in the fruit and vegetable sector, for example). Skills Development Scotland’s most recent Sector Skills Assessment for agriculture, forestry and fishing (published in November 2022) reported that, in 2021/22, the number of EU migrants working in the sector declined by 37.8 per cent compared to the previous year*
• Data from the ONS for the whole of the UK reports that the agriculture sector had 129,000 self-employed people in 2022, accounting for approximately 3% of the total number of those in self-employment in the UK.
• Data from the Scottish Government’s Agriculture Facts and Figures publication in 2019 shows that average weekly earnings in agriculture in 2018 were £460.98 (for regular full-time workers) with an average working week of 44.5 hours.
• Despite the disparities in these data sources, data from the Agricultural Census suggests that the size of the agricultural workforce has been relatively steady over the past ten years (Figure 1).
• The GVA from agriculture in 2020 was estimated to be c£1.4 billion (before support payments, and costs such as labour, rent, taxes and interest are taken into account), accounting for approximately 1% of Scotland’s total GVA. This is slightly higher than the equivalent figures for 2018 which estimated total income from farming in Scotland was £672million and the sector accounted for 0.8% of GVA in Scotland.
• The sector had a forecasted GVA of £2,592 million in 2022, 1.7% of Scotland’s total economic output.

Appendix 9: Background information on the Forestry sector

As is the case with agriculture, the forestry sector is also reasonably well served in terms of sector bodies of different kinds, though perhaps not to the same extent as agriculture^[32]. To reiterate, forestry is often grouped with agriculture (and fishing) for data purposes. Separating out these sectors in future would be useful in order to ensure we have a detailed understanding of them individually and together to inform future labour market needs.

Figure A2: The number of employees (total) in the forestry (and logging) sector by the RESAS local authority-level Rural-Urban classification between 2010 and 2021

Source: Nomis (2023). Note: The information between 2010 and 2014 excludes units registered for PAYE.

As with agriculture, the research team undertook some additional analysis using publicly available data from the BRES to consider employment change in the forestry sector over the last 10 years. Figure A2 and A3 report the number of employees (total and full-time only) in the forestry sector by the RESAS Rural Urban Local Authority Classification between 2010 and 2021, respectively. Mainly rural local authority areas have the highest number of all employees and full-time employees in the forestry sector, and are responsible for most of the significant increase from 2020-21, followed by Urban with substantial rural areas. The number of all employees in Mainly rural areas increased by 44.75% between 2010 and 2021 (Figure A2) and the number of full-time employees also increased by 97.75% during the same period (Figure A3). In particular, the number of full-time employees in the forestry sector has significantly increased from 1,655 to 3,085 people between 2020 and 2021 in Mainly rural local authority areas. More work is needed to check whether or not this is a data anomaly or due to a specific and significant change in circumstance in the sector.

Figure A3: The number of full-time employees in the forestry (and logging) sector by the RESAS local authority-level Rural-Urban classification between 2010 and 2021

Source: Nomis (2023)

Note: The information between 2010 and 2014 excludes units registered for PAYE.

Approximately 18.5% of Scotland is currently under woodland and forest cover (1.4 million ha), an increase from around 5% 100 years ago (the EU average is 43%). Forestry values have been rising since 2000 (see for example, Forest Research 2022; Clegg and Tilhill 2021; Savills 2019), with Savills (2019) reporting that forestry investments have significantly outperformed other asset classes over the last decade achieving an average return of 15.8% compared to 5.6% for equities. McMorran et al. (2022) noted the sharp rise in land values which has resulted from the increase in forestry investment recently. This has resulted from a number of factors, including institutional investors and financial institutions entering the market looking for new environmental investments (including amenity, recreational and rewilding projects), global timber shortages (but the ongoing need for timber to meet house-building targets), and global policy drivers to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and achieve net zero, including through tree planting and woodland creation (see also McMorran et al. 2022). McMorran et al. (2022) noted that 2021 saw the largest ever annual investment in commercial forestry land with total investment in commercial forestry land in both 2020 and 2021 reaching just over £200 million, around double the levels seen in preceding years. Similar work by Knight Frank shows UK farmland values peaking in the mid-2010s and plateauing since (Knight Frank 2021).

The forestry sector is also characterised by a high proportion of workers with no formal qualifications and there is a prevalence of lower level qualifications (though skills are not always related to formal qualifications). The Forestry Skills Action Plan also notes confusion regarding industry standards for training as licenses can be obtained from different providers. The sector is somewhat fragmented with:

• many diverse microbusinesses operating.
• the high proportion of self-employed workers (which are not always measurable in key indicators).
• the predominance of males over the age of 45 in the workforce.
• the increasing use of tech.
• increasing productivity.
• lack of promotion of a wide range of careers and development opportunities in the sector.

More positively, the sector is becoming recognised as one which can provide a range of ‘green jobs’ within an expanding green economy, and the Action Plan assesses future skill needs within the industry, highlighting the need for technical, operational and strategic leadership skills, more support for new entrants to ensure a more diverse workforce, improving perceptions of the industry among young people, and ensuring succession planning and upskilling. What is not clear from the analysis undertaken here, however, is the levels of skills and qualifications amongst the (large number of) people joining the sector recently as reported earlier, nor where those people are coming from i.e. are they newly qualified young people for example, and/or are they older people/more experienced workers who moving into the sector from other sectors (either land-based sectors or other activities) who can draw on existing skills and/or need training in new skills.

Looking to the future, the Scottish Forest and Timber Technologies Group report from 2019 (Roots for Further Growth) sets out the scale of the future growth in the forestry sector, in particular relating to net zero and carbon sequestration and storage targets, the emergence of new products, including in textiles and biotech, and enhanced digitalisation and mechanisation.

Further considering future workforce requirements, Glaister (2019) was commissioned by Lantra and the Scottish Forest and Timber Technologies Skills Group to review the potential gap between the current trees and timber sector workforce and the capacity required to deliver its key target for woodland creation and forecasted increases in production and associated restocking. The report forecast growth across the sector to 2027 in order to undertake planned/forecast harvesting, restocking and new woodland creation programmes, and estimated an overall increase in employment required from 2017 to 2027 of 32% (or a total recruitment need of 72% if retirement and other factors are considered).

Glaister (2019) estimated the number of workers required to fulfil key roles in forestry, necessary to meet the target of 15,000ha woodland creation per annum in 2027 (the target has since been raised to 18,000ha). Firstly, industry work programmes for harvesting, restocking; new woodland creation; and primary processing were defined. Secondly, the level of resourcing that would be required to fulfil those work programmes (assessed as worker year equivalents) were estimated. Lastly those estimates were mapped to six forestry sub-sectors. Estimated employment requirements per sub-sector are given in table A5 below. Applying Glaister’s (2019) methodology, work by RDI Associates et al. (2021) on behalf of the Forestry Skills Forum for England and Wales, estimated a 51% increase in employment across all roles in the forestry workforce to 2025 and an 86% increase to 2030 on 2019 employment levels for England, and equivalent 72% and 63% increases for Wales respectively. Comparing the number of positions advertised annually on the ICF vacancy service they note a 441% increase from 2016 to 2021.

We further note a prior study by CJC Consulting (2015) which sought to quantify the economic contribution of the forestry sector in Scotland. Taking a relatively wide perspective^[33] CJC Consulting (2015) estimate GVA and employment for three broad categories of forest industries; forestry and timber processing; forestry related recreation and tourism; and forestry related deer and game. They further estimate total employment arising from forestry related recreation and tourism as 6,312 FTE and GVA from this sub sector as £182.8 million. They note however that such figures may not be fully representative of the net contribution of the sector, as forestry related recreation may be expected to displace some proportion of other recreation possibilities. Adjusting for displacement they suggest a range of 4, 270 to 5, 840 FTE jobs created by forestry recreation and £120 to 164m GVA. These authors further estimate total employment arising from forestry related deer and game, with their definition including deer management for forestry, as well as sport shooting within a woodland habitat. Values for both are drawn from PACEC’s (2014) The Value of Shooting report. They assume that 25% of the total activity defined in the PACEC study can be attributed to forestry related deer and game. Applying this multiplier to the PACEC values they estimate total employment to be 2,260 and GVA from this sub-sector to be £68 million.

Table A5. Forecast Employment in Forestry By Sub Sector (reproduced from Glaister, 2019)

*worker year equivalent

Westbrook and Ralph (forthcoming) develop a series of ten case studies in order to assess employment impacts from marginal investments in forestry (results summarised in table A6 below).

Discussing the nature of future job creation, they highlight that targets to increase forest cover “will potentially create substantial additional employment through [various forestry sub-sectors] planting, maintenance, felling, primary and secondary processing, and leisure and recreation forest usage.”

Following from their analysis they suggest that employment impacts will depend on:

• Site characteristics; size of planted area, terrain, type and density of planting, whether new planting or restocking, whether access is improved, whether public access is encouraged, fencing needs;
• Whether nursery stock is domestic or imported;
• Share of tree cover achieved through rewilding as compared to conventional planting;
• Investment in materials, machinery and equipment – whether this is labour productivity enhancing and whether sourced domestically;
• Potential trade off with agricultural production – and scope for transfer of working time from agriculture to forestry

They further suggest that supply of workers wishing to enter the industry will be a constraint. To surmount this they suggest (i) increasing rates of pay, potentially through skill development and (ii) providing more multi- occupational opportunities, including farm diversification and encouraging community based forest ownership.

They highlight that median pay for forestry workers (£20,590) is substantially less than the UK national average (£29,577) and less than in other skilled roles involving machinery operation, including agricultural machinery drivers (£28,062), road construction operatives (£28,460) and mechanical engineers (£37,050).

Table (A6) Marginal Employment Impacts from Forestry Investment (Reproduced from Westbrook and Ralph, forthcoming)

Appendix 10: Background information on the game and wildlife management sector

This Appendix provides some background information on the game and wildlife management sector which is an important land use and employment sector in rural Scotland.

According to Lantra (2018), the game and wildlife management sector has two main purposes: protecting habitats and promoting biodiversity, as well as supporting tourism and recreation. Employees can work with a range of species; however, in Scotland they mainly focus on deer, rabbits and hares, and birds such as grouse, pheasant and partridge. There are three main types of gamekeeper: lowland, upland and highland, and although some principles of their work are the same they work in different ways and with different species. Gamekeepers could also be involved in deer and game rearing (with approximately 40 million game birds released each year in the UK). These two areas of work involve similar basic knowledge but have specific specialities.

A variety of organisations have undertaken work on the sector to explore its value in terms of contribution to the economy, and the number of employees and businesses in the sector, though as is the case with many of the other land-based sectors, the figures provided are different as a result of different approaches to data collection and to defining the sector.

Research carried out by Lantra in 2010 (reported in Lantra 2018) shows that the game and wildlife management industry played an important role in the environmental and land-based sector at this time, representing 9% (2,300) of businesses and 4% (5,300) of employees.

The industry employment base is mainly made up of seasonal or part-time jobs, meaning that it is very difficult to provide clear statistics on business size. It is known, however, that generally businesses are small across the sector. Work by SDS found that microbusinesses dominated the sector in Scotland, with 83% of the sector employing 0-4 people.

As the majority of businesses and employees are in remote locations, there is a reliance on staff being qualified with up-to-date technologies and practices.

A report by Lantra in 2011 on behalf of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) explored skills requirements in the game and wildlife management sector in Scotland. The sector was defined as involving the management of upland, lowland, woodland and wetland game and wildlife species, including partridge, grouse, pheasant and deer. Workers in the sector are focused on protecting habitats, promoting biodiversity, supporting tourism and recreation and providing a source of high quality meat. Game and wildlife makes a significant contribution to the Scottish economy, as well as contributing to the maintenance of Scottish moorland, which is a huge tourist attraction. SNH estimates that wildlife tourism has a value of £67 million to the Scottish economy. The British Association for Shooting Conservation (BASC) Scotland estimate shooting, stalking and angling to have a value of £136 million.

The Lantra report provides a range of information about the sector’s labour market in 2012 (more than ten years ago):

• The game and wildlife sector workforce was male dominated (97.6%), with three quarters (75.8%) aged 45 or over.
• The self-employed (39.4%) were slightly more prevalent than fulltime employees (31.4%) and part-time employees (29.2%).
• Almost a third (29.2%) of survey respondents involved in the game and wildlife sector were found to be self-employed. Just over a third (31.4%) had a full-time involvement in the sector, and the majority (39.4%) stated that they worked part-time within the sector, mainly in a voluntary capacity.
• Some 6.9% of respondents defined their involvement as ‘other’ which, when explored further, meant that these people had a small involvement in the game and wildlife area.
• A substantial volunteer workforce (20%) supplemented the paid workforce within the game and wildlife sector.
• Another 60% was made up of involvement in game and wildlife estates (24.9%), tenant farmers (12.7%), commercial forestry (11.8%), and private woodlands (10.6%).
• Whilst there were 164 job titles listed by respondents, the sector was dominated by four key roles; those job titles with the word ‘keeper/deer manager/stalker’ made up nearly half of the respondents (48.3%).
• Survey respondents were highly qualified, with 95.5% stating that they possessed a relevant qualification citing both accredited and non-accredited courses. Exploring this further found that almost 70% of respondents cited non-accredited but industry-recognised practical certificates of knowledge and competence. From this, it can be concluded that the sector’s workforce is highly skilled, but this is often developed through non-accredited training methods and knowledge transfer activities than full-accredited qualifications.
• The majority of respondents (86.1%) recognised the importance of qualifications, and this was more prominent amongst the workforce who were full-time and in more senior roles.
• Skills gaps were identified in the areas of IT, raising public awareness of the game and wildlife sector, and the higher-level skills related to conservation and ecological issues, such as habitat management.

The report put forward a series of recommendations related to the future workforce in this sector in Scotland (remembering that this work was undertaken in 2011-2012), including improving signposting and access to information on opportunities for training and CPD for those working in the sector, work to determine future skills priorities and where there are gaps, improved communication between those operating in the sector, more transparency about training on offer and accreditations, more courses that include the areas of conservation and technological change, support for the voluntary sector to keep up with the demands for greater professionalism, and greater promotion of the sector to young entrants, career changers and women.

A survey carried out by Public and Corporate Economic Consultants in 2014 on behalf of 17 organisations involved in shooting and conservation revealed that shooters spend an estimated £2.5 billion a year in the UK on goods and services. This produces a direct financial benefit to the UK – defined as gross value added (GVA) – of £2 billion a year. This survey indicated a need to ensure there are trained individuals to support this sector to maintain its influence on the economy.

The report also indicated that there were around 35,000 jobs directly supporting shooting and conservation in the UK. The industry also directly supports around 5,200 full-time jobs in the food and accommodation sector which helps to sustain rural communities in the autumn and winter when conventional income from tourism is likely to be reduced.

Work by Glass et al (2015) explored the socio-economic impacts of grouse shooting in two remote rural areas of Scotland, including the number of jobs (permanent and seasonal) and amount of spend and revenue linked to this activity in the two areas and wider community-level benefits, such as attendance at local schools by children of gamekeepers and their local spending in shops. Although most people answering the project survey in both areas felt positively about the impacts of grouse shooting in their area, the research highlighted that more work was needed to improve estate-community relationships. Some concerns were raised in both areas about the increased number of hilltracks that had been constructed and about illegal raptor persecution.

Thomson et al. (2018) reviewed the socio-economic impacts of driven grouse moors in Scotland and cite a range of estimates for employment linked to grouse moors.

They highlight that direct employment associated with grouse moors includes gamekeepers, shoot managers, other estate staff and seasonal and casual employees, while the industry further creates indirect employment in both upstream sectors which provide inputs and services, and downstream sectors such as game processing.

The key findings of their report note caveats which must be borne in mind when interpreting these estimates, and which bear repeating in full:

• There is a narrow base of evidence that specifically focuses on the socio-economic impacts of grouse shooting, with some additional evidence relating to the wider game shooting or estate sectors. The dated nature of much of this research means that the social and economic impacts of more recent intensification of driven grouse moor management, on some estates, are missing from the evidence base. Therefore, industry-collated and reported data is often cited in contemporary discourse regarding grouse moor management.
• Much of the commissioned research and industry-collated socio-economic evidence suffers from self-selection and self-reporting bias. The lack of a definitive dataset that includes all estates engaged in grouse moor management means that it is impossible to assess how representative research and industry data is of the whole sector.
• The narrow evidence base and inconsistency in data collection approaches mean that evidence on socio-economic impacts is open to criticism. As most of the research has been commissioned by representatives of the grouse or wider estate sector, the objectives of the research have been criticised, by some, as only focusing on demonstrating the positive aspects of grouse moor management. However, despite the limitations, the existing evidence base does provide some context relating to the social and economic contributions of grouse moor management (see Table A7 for a summary of the employment impacts predicted by a number of studies of activities linked to grouse shooting and grouse moor management).

Building on work by Thomson et al. (2018) which noted a lack of evidence of the socio-economic impacts of grouse shooting and alternative moorland land uses, McMorran et al. 2020 explored the socio-economic impacts of moorland activities in Scotland using financial data from case studies to generate information on direct and indirect expenditure and employment impacts. The study explored the potential impacts of moorland for grouse shooting being transferred to other uses, including forestry and woodland. The approach taken in this report is useful in informing the modelling work in this study.

Appendix 11: Background information on the nature-based activities sector

As noted in the main report, there is no single universally accepted definition of the nature-based sector. A report by Hirst and Lazarus in 2020 for NatureScot includes a defined set of nature-based solutions in a broad definition of nature-based jobs, including peatland restoration, woodland restoration, green finance, coastal ecosystems and sectors highly dependent on natural capital (the full text is provided in the main report).

• Green finance
• Urban green infrastructure, including planning, ecological engineering, active travel networks
• Sectors highly dependent on natural capital (especially tourism and food and drink).

This broad definition is worth bearing in mind in relation to the CLBLR’s recent report which recommended consideration of using this ‘label’ for the land-based sector. The term nature-based sector is therefore a term that encompasses all of the activities we describe in this section of the report.

Despite a thorough search by the research team, NatureScot appears to be the only organisation generating evidence about the contribution of and labour requirements for the nature-based sector as a whole, and there are no representative organisations. The 2020 report for NatureScot by Hirst and Lazarus is the most comprehensive study of the nature-based sector that could be found and again the key points from this report are included in the main text.

Looking ahead to the future, Hirst and Lazarus (2020) argue that significant further growth is anticipated on the back of expansion in activities – including peatland restoration, green infrastructure and green finance, woodland creation, and blue carbon – required to meet our net zero targets by 2030 and 2045. They note that action needs to be taken now to ensure that we thoroughly understand and are aware of the skills and capacity needed for the nature-based sector in future. This is because there is a time lag before increased workforce capacity and upskilling works through the system. They argue that skills needs for this specific sector should be mainstreamed and aligned with skills policy, planning and delivery partners. NatureScot’s skills action plan for 2022-23 addresses some of these concerns about the future workforce and skills levels in the sector.

Several opportunities were identified for nature-based skills development by Hirst and Lazarus (2020), including a need to fill operational jobs more effectively, for which recruitment is often local and sometimes through sub-contracting arrangements. It was also noted that many businesses operating in this sector are micro or small with seasonal labour demands where costs and availability of training can be challenging. Workforce-sharing initiatives may be one potential solution to explore, where the costs of training and upskilling are shared amongst employers and jobs are created which are viable, year round jobs, also thereby reducing the potential for loss of employees to other sectors.

The location of many of these jobs in remote rural areas is potentially hugely beneficial for these communities, although many are experiencing shrinkage in their working age population (and have done so for decades), making the attraction of new people all the more important^[34]. Finally, the report suggests that higher education institutes need to be engaged in ensuring that young people entering the sector have an appropriate blend of technical, digital and multi-disciplinary skills, including climate literacy and an understanding of natural capital.

Appendix 12: Seasonality

This section discusses the seasonality of employment in tree planting and peatland restoration. A significant expansion of activity in tree planting, and peatland restoration activity is required in order to meet net zero land use targets. In order for workers to fulfil these roles they must be able to secure sufficient income to cover housing and living costs. Whether this is through taking on a range of roles in the land-based sector, or within the wider economy, it is important to understand the seasonal working patterns as these pose a constraint to taking on further employment

Based on the sources that we have reviewed, we suggest that the main tree planting period in Scotland is October- March, excluding December and January and that the key busy period for peatland restoration is August to March (with interruptions due to winter weather). Due to having similar busy periods it seems unlikely that roles within tree planting and peatland restoration will be fulfilled by the same individuals.

Seasonality is a key aspect of many job roles within the land- based sector. Seasonal patterns in labour demand arise from various factors, including agricultural production cycles (e.g. lambing and fruit picking), seasonal increases in demand (e.g. tourism and hospitality), and seasonal restrictions on activities (for instance due to bird nesting restrictions).

The seasonal and part time nature of activities within the land based sector have been highlighted as a potential constraint to upscaling the labour force to meet net zero land use targets (Hirst and Lazarus, 2020).

While seasonal increases in labour demand can be important to rural economies, seasonality of employment can also create challenges. A reliance on insecure seasonal employment can exacerbate problems surrounding the affordability of rural housing. Responsibilities towards existing seasonal employment may also constrain workers ability to seek other employment, particularly affecting women.^[35]

Seasonality of Peatland Restoration

The need to avoid disturbance to ground nesting birds is perhaps the key constraint to work in upland environments. NatureScot have issued the following guidance for managers and contractors working on peatland restoration;

“To reduce the risk of disturbance, it is recommended that, as a default approach, restoration work should be programmed to occur outside the main bird breeding season (April – July). Despite the recommended default approach, a blanket exclusion for restoration work undertaken during the bird breeding season [was not deemed] necessary and there will be circumstances where restoration work should be possible. This should only be done when active consideration of the likely consequences for breeding birds has been undertaken and can be demonstrated that work will avoid affecting sensitive species.” (Douse and Artz, 2022)

To this end NatureScot have developed a ten- point checklist. While there is no outright restriction on work during bird breeding season, meeting the conditions of the checklist entails further costs to contractors. It is unclear to what extent contractors are willing to bear these costs, or whether the April – July period is viewed as a de facto restriction.

Winter weather is another factor that will influence the number of days in the year on which restoration can be carried out. The arrival of winter weather, snow, ice and strong winds makes restoration work more challenging, while snow lying on the ground may necessitate site closures causing costly delays to contractors (Novo et al., 2021). ^[36] Sites at elevation in upland environments are most at risk of closure due to snow.

Peatland restoration must also be accommodated within wider estate management activities such as lambing, muirburn, deer stalking and grouse shooting which further follow seasonal patterns.

Table A8 Wider Seasonal Influences on Upland Work

*as of 31^st October, 2023

Seasonality of Tree Planting

Tree planting typically takes place over the winter when trees are dormant and less likely to be damaged. Winter planting when the ground is moist also allows the best chance of establishment before spring, though it is also important to avoid planting when the ground is frozen or too wet (The Tree Council, 2021).

Scottish Forestry (no date) indicate that trees are typically planted between October and March. Morgan (1999) meanwhile indicates that due to ground conditions planting should generally avoid December and January.^[37] A range of estimates for the tree planting season are shown in Table 9 below.

The planting season is further constrained by the availability of seedling stock. Bare root stock is only available in the winter when trees are dormant. Container grown trees meanwhile may be planted all year round (The Tree Council, 2021).

Table A9 Estimates of the Tree Planting Season

Appendix 13: Summary of existing research work exploring future labour market and skills requirements

In this Appendix we review a number of research projects and programmes that the research team found that are exploring the size and shape of the current and future labour market and the current and future economic contributions of different activities. This review helped to inform the team’s thinking about the modelling approach to be used in this work.

A13.1 The UK Commission for Employment and Skills

The UK Government’s Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) Working Futures 2021-24 was a publicly funded, industry-led organisation providing leadership on skills and employment issues across the UK until it closed 2017. The UKCES undertook a programme of research including producing and updating robust labour market intelligence, through a number of ‘core’ products, including the Working Futures Series (see for example Wilson et al. 2020).

The Working Futures series from the UKCES was a quantitative labour market model that provided detailed projections of the size and shape of UK employment by industry, occupation (to SOC 2010 4 digit occupational categories), qualification level, gender and employment status for the UK, its constituent nations and for the English regions in the medium to long-term (up to 2024). The modelling of what the future might be like was based on past trends (see Wilson et al. 2016 for more detail on the technical approach, including the data used from the Labour Force Survey and the Census). One major advantage of the Working Futures forecasts is that they were based on a common and consistent economy wide overview of skill needs (as measured by occupation and formal qualifications), allowing detailed comparisons across sectors. This is based on a transparent, specific set of macroeconomic assumptions and economic relationships, affecting the whole economy and its structure.

The focus of Working Futures was on demand for skills as measured by employment, occupation and qualification, recognising that different jobs require different skillsets. Sectoral change is one of the drivers of changing demand for skills, and the projections are based on the use of a multi-sectoral, regional macroeconomic model, combined with occupational, replacement demand and qualifications modules. However, projections should not just be based on changing levels of employment by occupation which provide only part of the story about how the demand for skills is changing, but also on replacement demands. The latter recognises the significant outflows of those retiring from the labour market, or leaving for other reasons, such as for family formation, mortality, net occupational mobility and net geographical mobility. The model shows that, despite projected declines in employment for many occupations, there will be significant demand for the skills concerned to replace those leaving the current workforce (i.e. total replacement demand outweighs expansion demand).

As with all projections, the Working Futures analysis should be regarded as being indicative of likely trends and orders of magnitude, given a continuation of past patterns of behaviour and performance, rather than precise predictions of the future. The projections in Working Futures are based on econometric models and judgement, including with reference to a range of exogenous factors, including global economic trends, productivity levels, UK house prices, etc. and the results should be used in conjunction with other sources of intelligence about the labour market. The rationale for predicting future skills requirements is about better matching of labour supply and demand, in order to achieve better labour utilisation and higher labour productivity. The information produced from analysis like this is critical to policy-makers but also to individuals, education and training providers, and employers to inform policy development and strategy around skills, careers and employment.

Wilson et al. 2020’s recent work provided a benchmark for debate and thinking about the employment future given a continuation of past patterns of behaviour and performance. The overall outlook for changing employment levels and patterns by sector, occupation, qualification and geographical area show many similarities to those set out in the previous set of Working Futures projections. Thus, despite the uncertainties associated with EU exit many of the underlying trends regarding skills remain unchanged.

Working Futures was based on Cambridge Econometrics (CE)’s multi-sectoral dynamic macroeconomic model (MDM-E3) based on the UK government’s official data to provide a comprehensive and detailed picture as well as projections of the UK labour market, focusing on employment prospects for up to 75 industries, 369 occupations, 6 broad qualification levels, gender and employment status as well as economic contribution, including results for the devolved nations and the English regions. This model is normally used to analyse changes in economic structure and assesses energy-environment-economy (E3) issues and other policies. In MDM-E3, the key indicators are modelled separately for each industry sector and (sub)region, yielding results for the UK as a whole. It also disaggregates the UK into twelve regions, including Scotland. Due to the limitations of available data, currently in the MDM-E3 database there are 87 main employing activities distinguished at the UK level (and 46 for the regions), defined using the Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC2007). It can be used for annual comprehensive forecasts to the year 2030 by sector, an in-depth treatment of changes in the input-output structure of the economy, detailed treatment of the interactions between energy generation, environmental emissions and economic development, scenario analysis, to inform the investigation of alternative economic futures and the analysis of policy for the UK as a whole and its regions, and so on (there is more information about MDM-E3 in the Technical report on sources and methods).

A13.2 SDS and Oxford Economics

While the Working Futures modelling work using Cambridge Econometric’s MDM-E3 model provided a common and consistent approach to analyse changes in different sectors, it is worth noting that there are other (similar) models available which will also do this. Skills Development Scotland (SDS) appointed Oxford Economics to provide labour market, sectoral, occupational and skills forecasts for Scotland, both nationally and regionally over the period to 2027. The forecasts provided are produced by Oxford Economics Local Authority District Forecasting Model. Results have been provided for Regional Outcome Agreement areas (ROAs), City Region Deal areas, local authorities as well as Scotland and the UK. The model is based on employment data from the Business Register and Employment Survey and six variables are provided:

• Employment,
• Occupational change,
• Broad industry and sectoral change,
• Total requirement including expansion and replacement demand,
• Employment by gender and status, and
• Demand for qualifications.

Oxford Economics Local Authority District Forecasting Model sits within the Oxford suite of forecasting models. This structure ensures that global and national factors (such as developments in the Eurozone and UK Government fiscal policy) have an appropriate impact on the forecasts at a local authority level. This empirical framework (or set of ‘controls’) is critical in ensuring that the forecasts are much more than just an extrapolation of historical trends. Rather, the trends in their global, national and sectoral forecasts have an impact on the local area forecasts. In the current economic climate this means most, if not all, local areas will face challenges in the short-term, irrespective of how they have performed over the past 15 years. The Oxford approach depends on three factors: global and national outlooks, historical trends in an area, and fundamental economic relationships which interlink various elements of the outlook. Importantly in the context of this work where the scenarios are guided by the policy targets, Oxford’s model provides projections on a ‘policy neutral’ basis. Unconfirmed, aspirational or policies at planning/development stage are not included. Though forecasts are built primarily around the economic relationships above, the use of local knowledge and published material on local development is required to augment the results of the formal modelling process.

SDS, based on the Oxford Economics model, provides a large quantity of information on future skills requirements by sector and by various geographies in their RSAs and SSAs.

Having reviewed these existing models which have been applied to the labour market in general, the appendix now turns to review employment and labour market work which has been undertaken for specific sectors. This is described in the text in the remainder of Appendix 12, and summarised in Table A6 at the end.

Studies of the current and future contributions of peatland restoration activities

A handful of modelling studies which have sought to provide an indication of employment effects from peatland restoration.

Table (A10) Modelled Peatland Restoration Employment Effects

Studies of the current and future contributions of the nature-based sectors

The research team identified a number of studies which have sought to determine the contribution of nature-based sectors to the Scottish economy and to quantify nature-based jobs. Each have employed a similar approach, first identifying nature-based sectors within national statistics, then applying a weighting which reflects either the contribution of natural capital to the sector and/ or the proportion of activity which is assessed as sustainable. The studies have adopted varying conceptual definitions of nature-based activity, and varying approaches to weighting. This has resulted in differing sectoral compositions and a range of estimates for nature-based employment, although most are around 160,000 FTE (direct) jobs in nature-based sectors (c6% of Scottish employment), with further estimates of jobs in the wider supply chain (of 240,000 and 290,000).

Hirst and Lazarus (2020) note that jobs in the nature-based sectors are growing much faster than in the rest of the economy – up to five times the rate of all jobs in Scotland – and accounting for one third of total job growth from 2015-2019. Their work also looks at regional differences, noting that in remote and rural areas, the primary sector dominates in terms of nature-based activities, while in urban areas, nature dependent sectors, tourism and food and drink account for the majority of nature-based employment.

A study commissioned by NatureScot (then SNH) by RPA and Cambridge Econometrics employed IO modelling to assess the Economic Impact of Scotland’s Natural Environment (EISNE). Their approach started from the 128 level two industrial sectors identified in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) 2003 Standard Industrial Classification system (SIC). Employing various techniques they estimate the contribution of the environment to each sector resulting in a list of 26 sectors judged to have significant links to the environment (where they have assigned a greater than 20% weighting), which together comprise the nature-based sector.

They estimated the sectoral GVA by modelling a hypothetical closure of the nature- based sector. They estimate the direct contribution to intermediate demand as £3.9 billion excluding and £8.6 billion including wages in 2003. Further considering the indirect effect of such a shock through inter-industry purchasing (the Type 1 effect) they estimate the contribution of the sector to be £5.9 billion.

Further considering the induced effect of such a shock through changes to wages and household consumption (the Type 2 effect) they estimate the contribution of the sector to be £17.2 billion. From this latter value they estimate GVA per head at around £3,400 per resident per year. They note that these estimates are somewhat sensitive to their weightings (weightings reflect percentage reliance on the environment), acknowledging this they have sought to apply conservative weightings and as such they believe their estimates may under-estimate the real contribution of the sector. They estimate employment in 2003 as 154,000 jobs directly supported by the natural environment or 242,000 when further considering direct, indirect and induced employment.

Building on the EISNE study, in work commissioned by NatureScot, Hirst and Lazarus (2020) sought to make an assessment of nature-based jobs and skills in Scotland. After first updating to 2007 SICS these authors employed a new conceptual definition of nature-based activities provided by NatureScot, then reviewed and updated the weightings assigned in the EISNE report. Applying this new conceptual definition resulted in a number of sectors being excluded that had appeared in the prior EISNE report; namely, construction, membership organisations, sewerage and refuse disposal, and water supply.

Hirst and Lazarus (2020) obtained sectoral employment data from the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) and augmented this to account for ‘missing’ unregistered zero employee businesses, as the BRES excludes jobs in businesses not registered for VAT or PAYE. From their analysis they estimated that there were 166,721 FTE ‘nature based jobs’ in Scotland in 2019. They further estimated that jobs within the sector have grown by 12,031 (7.5%) since 2015, five times the rate of increase of all jobs (1.5%) and accounting for one third (31.7%) of all job growth during that period.

In research commissioned by SRUC, Biggar Economics (2020) define and quantify the scale of the natural economy. Conceptually they define the natural economy as those sectors in the economy that:

• Use natural resources,
• Conserve/ preserve natural resources, and
• Rely on natural resources or on the natural environment.

To operationalise their definition, they start from industrial categories at level 2 as defined in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) 2007 SIC. As a first step they identify those sectors that comprise the primary sector:

• agriculture,
• forestry and logging (SIC 02),
• fishing and aquaculture (SIC 03),
• mining of coal and lignite (SIC 05),
• extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas (SIC 06),
• mining of metal ores (SIC 07),
• other mining and quarrying (SIC 08), and
• mining support service activities (SIC 09).

Then with reference to the Scottish Government IO Tables combined use table they identify those sectors which are particularly reliant on inputs from the primary sectors:

• manufacture of food products (SIC 10),
• manufacture of beverages (SIC 11), and
• manufacture of wood and of products of wood and cork except furniture manufacture of articles of straw and plaiting materials (SIC 16).

As a last step they augment their definition to include broader sectors that would not necessarily be captured by a single sector:

• tourism, and
• energy (including renewable).

For purposes of reporting they remap to six sub-sectors:

• tourism,
• food and drink,
• fishing and aquaculture,
• agriculture,
• energy (including renewables), and
• forestry, logging and manufacture of wood.

Having identified relevant sectors they consider whether a weighting should be applied, deciding to apply a 40% weighting to the tourism sector. Their analysis finds that GVA within the sector is dominated by energy. They estimate that in 2018 the Scottish Natural Economy generated £29.1 billion GVA, more than a fifth of total Scottish GVA, while the Scottish Natural Economy excluding energy generated £8.3 billion GVA in 2018, around 6% of Scottish GVA.

They further find that the trend in GVA is dominated by changes within the energy sector. Including energy, they find that the natural economy shrunk by 18% between 2008 and 2018, while excluding energy GVA within the sector grew by 25% over the period, with the value of tourism increasing by 60% and agriculture increasing by 39%.

Considering employment, their analysis find that the contribution of the energy sector remains significant, though less stark. They find tourism to be the largest employer, employing 87,200 followed by the energy sector and agricultural sector both tied at 67,000. They estimate total employment in the natural sector as 290,100 in 2018, around 11% of Scottish employment, but with regional variations across the six sectors.

RSPB-commissioned work, undertaken by Dicks et al. (2020) assessed the economic costs and benefits of nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change. The study makes a cost- benefit analysis of nationwide implementation of three forms of nature-based solutions: peatlands, saltmarshes and afforestation. Alongside direct monetary costs and benefits, their analysis estimates changes to jobs and sectoral GVA, and these values are presented as additional indicators alongside the primary indicators of their cost-benefit analysis (net- benefit and benefit cost ratio).

Although the report does not explain how the scenarios were designed, the assessment of them within the analysis reflect the authors’ interpretation of the potential scale for nature-based activities across the UK. Changes to jobs and sectoral GVA are estimated by input-output modelling and are described here in the text and in Table A5.

Peatlands

The authors note that peatland restoration projects may be expected to have a positive effect on employment, through the creation of additional jobs both during the restoration phase itself, and in ongoing future operation and maintenance of the habitat. Furthermore, when considering upland peatland areas, jobs can be created in economically vulnerable and remote areas (Committee on Climate Change 2018).

Meanwhile, due to restoration projects jobs may be displaced from activities such as animal raising and agriculture. They consider that such job losses will be typically small for restored upland peatlands, as these are not generally used for intensive and profitable economic activities (Committee on Climate Change 2018). Table A4 below sets out the estimates for jobs created, which include jobs that are created as a direct result of the restoration project and ongoing operation and maintenance of the restored peatland, as well as within supporting industries (i.e. jobs within associated supply chains), and further jobs resulting from increased household incomes and consequent increased household spending.

They note that as part of its recommendations on how to improve the UK’s use of land to meet climate goals, the Committee on Climate Change has recommended that at least 55% of peatland are restored to good status by 2050 (Committee on Climate Change 2020a). Work by Glenk and Martin-Ortega (2018) found that this 55% equates to approximately 1.6m ha of peatlands across the UK, thereby potentially generating approximately 48,000 temporary jobs in the restoration phase and 112,000 job-years during a period of 100 years. The value of the increased job opportunities should be considered alongside the benefit-cost ratio described above.

Saltmarshes

They note that temporary jobs will be created to carry out the restoration activities (as set out in Table A4). These estimates include jobs that are created as a direct result of the restoration project, as well as jobs within supporting industries (i.e. jobs within associated supply chains), and further jobs created as a result of increased household incomes and consequent increased household spending.

Considering an estimate provided by (Adnitt et al. 2007), they note that in the UK, total salt marsh habitat is expected to shrink by 4.5% in the next twenty years due to climate change. If these habitats were to be restored, an additional 308 temporary jobs could be created in a low restoration cost scenario, 660 in a medium restoration cost scenario and 1,628 in a high restoration cost scenario.

Woodland creation

Woodland creation and restoration projects have a positive effect on employment, through the creation of additional jobs both in the restoration phase itself, and in ongoing operation and maintenance of the habitat. It should be noted that job losses may arise as a result of afforestation, typically associated with economic activities originally carried out on the habitat. Job losses are not directly counted in their analysis.

The IO modelling carried out within their analysis estimates that the upfront capital investment for afforestation can generate the estimates set out in Table A11 below. These estimates include job-years that are created as a direct result of afforestation and ongoing operation and maintenance of the woodland, as well as jobs within supporting industries (i.e. jobs within associated supply chains), and further jobs that result as a result of increased household incomes and consequent increased household spending.

Table A11 below summarises the employment related results to the work by Cambridge Econometrics in 2020.

Table A11: Job Creation (Jobs Supported) Within Nature Based Solutions Scenarios Assessed by Cambridge Econometrics (2020)

The Scottish Government (2022) in collaboration with NatureScot examined the economic analysis of how local investment in natural capital can impact local economies, measured as output effect and jobs created in Scotland. Given the limitations of the Scottish Government’s the Input-Output (I-O) tables on the full local economic impacts and the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) of natural capital sectors, the research team applied the I-O model to conduct the new I-O tables and create new multipliers using from the investment information from literature review and the online stakeholder engagement (e.g., labour cost, material cost, etc.). The multipliers were then calculated by using for direct, indirect, and induced effects for the output effect and job creation and for use in economic appraisal of four different types of local natural capital investments: the restoration of upland and lowland peatland, woodland creation and restoration, regenerative agriculture, and coastal habitat restoration. The results suggested that if the four natural capital investments could be achieved, this should enable the increased inclusion of local economic impacts in business cases, including output and job creation, and investment strategies as well as providing better policy decisions in the future for Scotland.

• Estimates relating to net zero land use scenarios

Work undertaken by Vivid Economics (2020) explored the economic impacts of net zero land use scenarios. This work involved a social cost-benefit analysis of the Climate Change Committees net zero land use greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation measures in the UK. Their analysis estimates the net benefit of fifteen land use options within forestry, bioenergy, agroforestry, peatlands, and agricultural practices. Net benefit is assessed on both a private (excluding non- market impacts) and social (including non-market impacts, such as avoided emissions) basis.

The analysis does not consider changes to employment, it does however provide a methodology for evaluating costs resulting from different land use activities such as peatland restoration. Alongside this it provides a detailed schedule of costs and an estimate of the level of work required to deliver the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations (15 in total). For peatland restoration, the report also includes an estimate of how much work is required.

• Estimates relating to low carbon and renewable activities

It is also worth referring to a number of reports which have focused on defining and measuring low carbon and renewable activities. Allan et al. (2017) for example note that this presents conceptual (i.e. what’s included and what’s excluded), methodological and operational challenges (i.e. accuracy). The authors review three recent studies in Scotland which have sought to estimate jobs in the low-carbon and renewables sector, and to assess their relatively strengths and weaknesses, and propose that these jobs should be added to the IO tables. The ‘Low Carbon Strategy for Scotland’ projects the number of low carbon sector jobs required in future. Consoli et al. (2016, p1056) argue that “better estimating of green job numbers and identifying patterns of growth (or indeed decline) is important to ensure effective local responses – such as adapting regional skills policies and provisions”.

Markaki et al (2013) applied I-O analysis to estimate clean energy investments by industrial sector and to calculate the macro-economic impacts of these green investments on production and employment in the Greek economy between 2010 and 2020. They produced the I-O table to compute the direct, indirect and induced production and employment effects associated with the selected energy conservation measures (e.g., the promotion of renewable energy technology, etc.). Their results demonstrated that the investments required for energy conservation projects would total €47.9 billion between 2010 and 2020. These investments resulted in an annual average gain of €9.4 billion in the national output with a creation of 108,000 full-time equivalent employment during the same period. The result also showed that the employment produced per €1 million investment in energy saving initiatives in buildings and transportation is considerably greater compared to the development of renewable energy sources in the power generation sector.

Table A12: Summary of findings of existing studies of future economic and employment impacts across a range of land-based activities (to enable more direct comparison)

Appendix 13: Reviewing approaches to scenario creation

A13.1 Scenario Planning

Scenario planning (or scenario analysis, scenario prediction or scenario method) is a technique used in many contexts, usually as a means of strategic planning using a systems-based approach to make flexible long-term plans. It can take into account the often complex relationships between factors, but has been criticised for its inability to take account of disruptions to the plans and for too often being regarded as making predictions rather than as a means of envisaging and thinking through the potential impacts of various plausible futures. However, scenario planning is widely regarded as a useful technique to help a range of different stakeholders – including policy-makers, businesses, communities, etc. – to anticipate change and prepare more robust strategies to respond. It can be used at different stages of the policy cycle from agenda setting to policy design, policy implementation and policy review. Scenarios can be developed based on expert judgements or wider participatory approaches involving stakeholders.

It is important to remember that scenarios are descriptions of potential plausible future conditions. They are not forecasts but rather images of how the future can unfold (Mahmoud et al. 2009).

Dunkerley et al’s (2022) work on ‘Labour market and skills demand, adopting a horizon scanning and scenarios approach’ contains some useful reflections on the value of scenarios work in the context of labour market studies, and the need to include both quantitative and qualitative data in this work. The objective of their work was to scan the horizon of the labour market over the next 15-20 years, to identify the drivers and emerging trends and to create five different scenarios of what the labour market could look like in future. They acknowledge that, while quantitative projections are available (see for example the Working Futures modelling by Wilson et al. [2020]), even if they are robust, they have limitations and are not sufficient alone. For one thing, they do not adequately take into account the many external factors that shape the labour market, which are often characterised by great uncertainty and disruption. This can make planning effective policy intervention aimed at supporting skill development, for example through the right investments in education and training, challenging. Qualitative scenarios can complement these assessments as they can draw on a wider range of factors than can easily be considered in a quantitative framework (see also Störmer et al. 2014 for a qualitative approach to scenario planning).

In their work, Dunkerley et al. (2022) take a mixed method approach including an evidence review, stakeholder interviews, qualitative scenario development and a scenario workshop. From a structured process of examining the most important variables that influence the labour market and skills demand, they developed five qualitative, high-level scenarios for the labour market using a structured approach to reflect uncertainties in the economy, the environment, technology and the wider societal, political and legal landscape, looking 15-20 years into the future. The five scenarios, which are not focused on specific sectors but provide a high level view of the labour market, with the implications for specific sectors drawn out, are:

• Digital greening,
• Living locally,
• Protectionist slowdown,
• Continued disparity,
• Generating generalists.

In terms of the importance of undertaking scenarios work, the authors argue that the purpose of scenarios is not to predict – they are not forecasts or likely predictions – but rather it is to help decision-makers envisage different possible, plausible futures and to support them in assessing which policy levers might be useful under which circumstance. Accordingly, scenario building can be a useful policy planning tool as policymakers can envision different kinds of possible futures and consider different policy levers to address these possible futures. Their development is reliant on the existing evidence base, expert opinion and current thinking on what is plausible.

From their research, Dunkerley et al. (2022) draw a number of implications which are useful context information for the scenarios in this project:

• ICT/digital skills are critical to the future of most jobs.
• Any future vocational education and training system needs to provide clear and more flexible pathways so that workers are well aware of training options and can make informed decisions about what to do and how to do it.
• More flexible, portable training with corresponding micro-credentials could be accompanied by accreditation and licensing of providers to mitigate the risk in quality of qualifications obtained in this way.
• A broad range of stakeholders should be involved in developing courses and training to meet local labour market demand.
• Education and training system also need to teach broad concepts and foundation skills (for example communication, networking, problem-solving, literacy and numeracy skills).
• Employer investment in training will be increasingly important, but employer unwillingness to train their workers will continue to be a barrier. Incentives for life-long learning, both for the employer and employee, will be increasingly important, as will information on the benefits and options outlined.

Dunkerley et al. (2022) also argue that scenario development is not free from, and indeed heavily relies on, expert knowledge and judgements made by the researchers involved. As such in their work, they combined researchers with labour market and skills expertise and scenario specialists. In their work they had a structured six-step process and a ‘systematic framework’ (Gausemeier et al. 1998) which identifies critical factors and combines cross-impact analysis, consistency analysis and cluster analysis to identify scenarios.

Bishop et al. (2007) also review approaches to scenario development. While recognising the popularity of the Royal Dutch Shell method (which they note has been described as the gold standard) they urge practitioners to look beyond this and consider the applicability of a wider suite of approaches. They describe the following broad scenario planning techniques:

• Judgment (genius forecasting, visualisation, role- playing, Coates and Jarratt)
• Analytically looser process relying primarily on the judgment of the practitioners, lacks the methodological structure of other approaches.
• Baseline / expected trend extrapolation
• Defines one and only one scenario, the expected trend or baseline which is then extrapolated.
• Elaboration of fixed scenarios
• Starts from pre- determined scenarios. Practitioners then elaborate the implications.
• Event sequence and probability trees
• Considers the probability of key events occurring, highlights contingent events and maps as a probability tree.
• Backcasting
• Retrospective analysis.
• Dimensions of uncertainty
• Develops a matrix based on different dimensions of uncertainty. Scenarios are built from each element.
• Cross impact analysis
• Develops matrix of potential outcomes and specifies individual and conditional probabilities. By setting threshold value (for event to be said to occur) and iterating the model many times probability distributions can be estimated.
• Modelling
• Scenarios are determined based on differing combinations of model parameters and then implemented in the model.

Fergani (2021) discusses three prominent methods of scenario development (see Table A13).

Table A13: Summary of prominent methods of scenario development (adapted from Fergani (2021)

A13.2 Identifying drivers of change and sources of uncertainty

As identified here, there are various approaches to designing scenarios, but all start with the same first step: identifying drivers of change/key sources of uncertainty in the system.

We can identify some of these drivers/sources of uncertainty affecting the wider UK and Scottish economies here:

• Demographic ageing,
• Digitalisation,
• National and international politics and economics (e.g. the war in Ukraine),
• Lifestyle and working changes associated with the Covid-19 pandemic,
• Climate change mitigation/adaption,
• Energy transition,
• Shift to a service based economy,
• Increasing inequality,
• Brexit,
• Trade with Europe and the rest of the world,
• The cost of living crisis,
• War in Ukraine,
• Government decisions and policy e.g. on inflation, interest rates, monetary policy and fiscal policy.

It is also possible to identify a list of drivers/uncertainties more specifically related to the land-based sector, which may result in unexpected/unintended consequences in terms of land use and land management and which may make achieving these ambitions more difficult, including:

• Policy changes e.g. in terms of the replacement for CAP support, land reform, changes to agricultural tenancies, circular economy ambitions, etc.,
• Mechanisation and digitalisation,
• Land ownership and succession issues,
• Rising Land Values, impacted by:
• Fiscal incentives: IHT/ CGT reliefs,
• Emerging Carbon and Natural Capital Markets,
• High timber and forestry values,
• Demand for plantable land,
• Demand for peat,
• Green Lairds/ Rewilding/ ESG,
• Rising demand (and support) for (bio)energy crops,
• Nutrition and diet transitions,
• Changes to agricultural advice arrangements and associated research activities.

A.13.3 Other issues considered by the research team in developing the scenarios

There are a number of other issues which need to be considered when designing scenarios for the future of the land-based sector and these were discussed int his project with the Steering Group and also on a one-to-one basis with individual stakeholders.

First of all, the likely trade-offs between sectors as Scotland moves towards achieving the CCPU targets, which will require assessments of the net effects on jobs in different sectors.

• Scottish Government tree planting targets may involve trade-offs with jobs in agriculture:
• Woodland creation targets seek to increase woodland cover from 18% (as at 2019) to 21% by 2032, through a tiered increase in the planting rate reaching 18,000ha per annum from 2024.
• Around 80% of land in Scotland is used by agriculture.
• There may be capacity to increase woodlands on farms without displacing agricultural production. Agroforestry, shelter belts and other forms of on farm woodlands are actively encouraged. The recent Land Reform Consultation proposed a Land Use Tenancy which seeks to reduce barriers to tenants wishing to diversify from agriculture.
• However, recent SRUC research has highlighted that larger scale conversion of agricultural land to forestry is already a feature of the market, as current high forestry and timber values have enabled forestry buyers to outbid for marginal hill land and increasingly for lower quality arable land (McMorran et al., 2022). This may result in jobs being displaced from sheep farms (agriculture) or grouse moors (sporting estates which employ game keepers) for example.
• Increasing management of uplands for peatland carbon (a key policy priority for Scottish Government) may involve trade-offs with jobs on sporting estates and in sheep farming:
• The Rural Land Markets Insights Report 2022 highlighted shifting motivations for estate acquisition, a decline in sporting motivations, linked to legislative changes and negative social perceptions of driven grouse shooting that exist among some stakeholders, alongside a parallel increase in landscape scale rewilding motivations and peatland carbon as an investment prospect.
• There is uncertainty around the extent to which a change in upland management in line with such motivations could coexist with / displace traditional sporting jobs.
• Meanwhile land management for peatland carbon requires control/ exclusion of grazing and can be expected to impact on revenues in sheep farming with knock on implications for employment (Aitkenhead et al., 2021). The degree to which revenues are likely to be influenced depends on stocking densities which vary across the country.
• Scotland may evolve towards a more multifunctional vision of land use as many activities are seasonal:
• For example, tree planting is seasonal, usually from October-March, and predominantly from January to March.
• Some peatland restoration tasks are seasonal (due to bird restrictions), and heavy machinery tasks may not be feasible where there is snow cover.
• Seasonality may result in more job churn if workers seek to transition to more secure year-round employment across different sectors.
• One vision is that former sectoral distinctions become less pronounced and a general pool of land-based workers transition between roles as seasonal demands require.
• This would require a significant shift in work cultures not least to incorporate more dynamism and flexibility and there may be cultural/ social barriers to this, as well as limitations in terms of generic v specific skills. For example, can one individual hold the range of skills required to undertake peatland restoration, tree planting and wind turbine installation and maintenance (and what is the range of skills required)?

A second broader issue worth considering is the extent to which Scottish Government targets will create jobs in rural areas and/or in urban areas. Some of the jobs created in the renewable energy sector for example are more likely to be in urban centres than in rural locations. Moreover, the structural challenges in rural communities (such as lack of affordable housing and poor transport connectivity) highlighted by this work as potentially providing barriers to people taking up new opportunities in rural communities also mean that people may need to live in urban locations to undertake rural-based work. This means that the value generated by this employment, if a residence-based approach is taken, may be recorded in urban rather than rural locations.

• Sector-based or holistic scenarios?

It is possible to formulate scenarios which are holistic, i.e. involve targets relating to more than one sector, which are more likely to represent reality in terms of the inter-relationships between different sectors. However, this may not be specific enough to implement using an I-O model. For example, while the CCPU includes specific policy targets for forestry and peatland restoration activities, the ambitions regarding low emission agriculture and nature restoration activities are not clearly specified.

For example, rather than having a simple scenario based only on the target for woodland planting, the scenario could include multiple land use changes, such as an increase in woodland planting, peatland restoration, low emission farming and nature restoration activities. The latter might be described as more of a narrative based scenario (see for example Dunkerley et al. 2022).

An example of a narrow, specific scenario would be:

• “An increase in woodland creation is required as per the Climate Change Plan Update to deliver 18000 ha per annum by 2024/5, rather than the current level of 12,000 ha per annum. This will require an increase in the number of people employed in the forestry sector.”
• “An increase in peatland restoration work is required as per the Climate Change Plan Update to achieve a target of 250,000 ha of degraded peat restored by 2030. This will require an increase in the number of people employed in activities related to peatland restoration.”

An example of a more holistic, narrative scenario with or without targets could be:

• “By 2030/2045, Scotland aims to be planting 18,000 ha of woodland per annum, restoring 250,000 ha of degraded peatland, having X% of its agricultural activity/X% of its agricultural land following low emission and regenerative farming practices, and to have X people involved/£X invested in nature restoration activities.
• “Future landscapes in Scotland’s rural areas will comprise more peatland restoration, woodland expansion and nature restoration, with an increase in low emission agriculture. Creating and maintaining such a multifaceted land use system requires a workforce which includes individuals with a range of land use and land management skills.”
• “Future rural economies in Scotland will be thriving and based around woodland creation, peatland restoration and biodiversity, sustainable tourism, energy and food and drink”.

We also considered whether the scenarios – irrespective of whether they are based on one or many sectors – could have three ‘levels’ i.e. achieving the CCPU policy target by 2030/2045, not/under-achieving the target, or going beyond the target.

The team also considered the potential to have regionally-focused scenarios, for example:

• “Dumfries and Galloway already has X ha of woodland and forestry and local provision (e.g. through SRUC) for training and skills development in this sector. This area could deliver ?% of Scotland’s future woodland/forestry land use, but this would require an increase in employment in the sector of X people across the region, with a focus on X, Y, Z skills.”

The decision on the approach to take was informed by discussion with Scottish Government research analysts and policy officials and the availability of appropriate data, and whether or not they could be implemented using the IO modelling approach. The team also reviewed scenario-based approaches used in other similar studies. One example is the 2020 Vivid Economics report which identifies 15 options across five different land use options (forestry, bioenergy, agroforestry, peatlands and agricultural practices and technology) and four scenarios (business as usual, net zero, high mitigation uptake and technology push).

Focusing on future possible land use changes rather than changes in employment, Thomson et al. (2018) identified five scenarios that they argued are technically feasible up until 2050:

• Business as Usual (BAU): Current trends in human diet, land use and management continue to 2050.
• High Mitigation Uptake: Agricultural land is spared as a result of a reduction in food waste, changes in diet away from red meat and dairy products, increased yields and improved agricultural practices: this land, is converted to forestry, energy crops and agroforestry. Some peatlands which are currently used for agricultural purposes are either permanently rewetted or partly rewetted by raising the water table. Wholly rewetted peatlands are partly restored to semi-natural vegetation.
• Technology Push: There is high uptake of mitigation practices and technological development in agriculture together with high levels of change in diet away from animal products, which are replaced with plant-derived food and other protein sources (e.g. synthetic and cultured meats) as well as large reductions in food waste. The land spared is afforested and used for biomass fuel crops, and there is some peatland restoration. This scenario also includes some multifunctional land use, e.g. agroforestry and re-instatement of hedges around field boundaries.
• Multifunctional Land Use: Reduction in food waste and dietary change away from red meats and dairy products combined with improved agricultural practices allows higher uptake for agroforestry and medium levels of afforestation, along with some increase in the area of biomass fuel crops.
• Maximum food production: Human diet retains current intake of meat and dairy products. Improvements on agricultural practices and yields increase food production per ha, but land remains in agricultural use rather than being re-purposed.

Further comments from the Project Steering Group on the scenarios

A number of other comments were also received from the Project Steering Group at the interim meeting and at meetings before and since this, to inform the team’s scenario-related work and these are summarised here. Overall, they demonstrate the complexity of work which aims to predict future employment change when (a) there are gaps in existing data and (b) there are a number of inter-related issues that will affect future employment, including levels of pay, seasonality of activities, the potential for multiple job holding, etc.:

• It may be valuable to have reference to specific numbers rather than generic as this could be useful to determine the likely requirement for training and development of the skills and skill provision in these sectors, such as peatland restoration and woodland restoration/creation. On the other hand, steering more towards generic scenarios would be more useful as there are still significant unknowns as to the specific trajectories but we do know that the ‘more’ and ‘change to existing jobs’ projections will be highly likely.
• It may be useful for the scenarios to include upland and lowland deer management – it’s still early days but there may some labour market effects as a result of the recommendations from the Deer Working Group report in relation to the sector, and of course this is likely to have implications for the woodland and peatland restoration aspirations. The team considered that to meet woodland creation targets would require some assumptions about deer control, either through significant fencing requirements or through reducing deer numbers, both of which would have implications for jobs.
• The option of targeting one (or more) scenarios to specific regions (e.g. Dumfries and Galloway) on the basis of their existing land use pattern (e.g. a large amount of land already under forestry and woodland) was considered. However there was a concern that as scenarios are often (mistakenly) understood to be predictions, the work could take a more regional/micro look at the changes, which would then help to expose difficulties around the geographic location of workers and low rates of movement within the country. If there was a focus on one region, it would be useful if the model could be ‘re-used’ for another region. Any model would need to take into account wider factors/characteristics of the region including housing, infrastructure, differing land uses/qualities, etc.
• It was suggested that having one or two sector specific scenarios might be helpful for 2030 and 2045 (e.g. relating to forestry and woodland creation and peatland restoration) plus two or three more general scenarios (e.g. high timber production, natural capital focused scenario). It was also noted that the latter may be a more appropriate reflection of the future labour market where people will need to deliver to a range of land uses and land management with a range of skills. At the same time, it was commented that data still tends to be sectoral in nature which is a key limitation in terms of calculating the future workforce needs and skill sets through the scenario analysis.
• How will modelling take into account changes in the types or ‘quality’ of jobs available, gender and age differences (note the high average age of farmers and the often unrecognised role of women in agriculture) and also the role of the unpaid – and therefore mainly unmeasured and unresearched – workforce.

Based on reviewing all of this information, the research team concluded that several forms of scenarios were possible with the ultimate aim of modelling the impact of net zero and biodiversity commitments, particularly those for forestry planting and peatland restoration (and acknowledging that there is considerable potential for land use trade-offs):

• Technically oriented scenarios, following closely Scotland’s commitments in the update to the Climate Change Plan and Biodiversity Strategy; these could be single sector focused, or include multiple sectors, e.g. productive forestry vs natural capital driven land use priorities.
• Broad narrative-based scenarios reflecting societal level drivers of change as for instance used in the Working Futures study.
• Geographically defined scenarios to highlight regional level drivers and outcomes.

A13.4 Expert input

The team sought further advice from several individuals in different stakeholder organisations across the land-based sector to inform the approach. Undertaking additional qualitative data collection to inform the quantitative work in scenario-based modelling is an approach advocated by researchers involved in the Working Futures programme (see for example, Dunkerley et al. 2022):

• There are potentially huge variations in the cost of peatland restoration (in particular) as the restoration work is dependent on such a wide range of factors, including altitude, previous/existing land use, access, etc. One of our interviewees commented on the potentially substantial input requirements:

“Easy lowland sites can be around £1,500 per hectare; more complex and more remote upland sites can be in the region of £5,000 per hectare. However, in the Peak District they are looking in the region of £25,000- £40,000 per hectare. The numbers and types of machines vary too, depending on access (i.e. some hill tracks and bridges can’t take 14 tonne diggers which may be most useful for most damming work) and helicopter requirements. If material, such as coir logs, stones for dams, mulch and liming are required, then the price varies hugely.”

• Some large education and training providers can be slow to respond to market changes due to the time needed to recruit new staff and progress new courses through validation programmes. However, developing new short courses in areas where there is existing in-house expertise may be quicker (SRUC and NatureScot’s recently launched accredited peatland restoration course is a good example). Smaller, local training providers will also have flexibility to respond to changing needs in different locations from different groups (e.g. women seeking to enter the labour force), especially if they are able to deliver remotely.
• Further work on the future labour market must be informed by those working in the sector, whether that be contractors, project consultants, etc. This was the case for Glaister’s (2019) work on the future employment requirements in the forestry sector for example. Their knowledge of ‘on the ground employment-related issues’ such as the extent to which people working in peatland restoration may switch to undertake woodland creation (or vice versa), or those working in other parts of the construction industry may switch to peatland restoration is crucial to ensuring that future modelling work truly reflects the situation on the ground. In terms of the latter switch, the short window in which peatland restoration is possible (for example in some locations only once snow cover is gone and before ground nesting birds arrive) means that this may be unlikely.
• The need for more granular data relating specifically to skills requirements in particular sectors. One example is conservation-related activities where specific data is currently hard to find, but these activities are of increasing importance given the biodiversity and climate change crises. Underlying this again is the need to ensure that there is clarity about what is meant by conservation-related activities, i.e. a clearly defined set of SIC codes.
• It is extremely difficult to anticipate the geographical impacts of future labour requirements as this depends on individual worker mobility (which may be reduced when the cost of fuel is high for example, making travel uneconomic) but also a range of other factors. The labour market in the south of Scotland, for example, will be affected by developments south of the border with England relating to forestry planting or peatland restoration targets, wage levels, etc.
• Specific questions about the future of the labour market and the number of jobs in peatland restoration, woodland creation, tourism and hospitality etc. are tied up with wider debates about the future of Scotland’s land and landscapes, and indeed its rural communities. If the labour market continues to be ‘tight’ as Scotland recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, there will be competition between sectors for workers, and prioritisation may need to occur.
• Several interviewees emphasised the importance of place-based solutions co-created with communities that live locally and informed by local priorities and needs, and delivered locally. The latter may involve larger education and training providers shaping their provision to fit the requirements of their region/locality, and smaller training providers also making a substantial contribution. The current work being led by Scottish Rural Action to strengthen Scotland’s rural movement may help to provide a forum for further discussion on this^[38].

Appendix 14: Our approach to the scenario-based modelling for peatland restoration and woodland creation

This Appendix sets out more detail about our proposed methodological approach to estimating future labour requirements in peatland restoration and woodland creation activities.

A14.1 Peatland restoration – overview of methodological approach

The research team effectively sought to perform an economic impact assessment of the Scottish Government’s target to restore 20,000ha peatlands per year in order to consider the impact on employment in upstream sectors. The team searched the literature for information on peatland restoration costs, seeking to understand unit costs of different inputs, including labour and machinery requirements, and how these may vary between sites.

From this we proposed to estimate the typical cost structure of peatland restoration work and apply this to estimate changes to final demand in upstream sectors (those supplying inputs, e.g. materials, machinery and consulting services) arising from the Scottish Government’s planned £25 million per year investment in peatland restoration. The resulting effects on employment in upstream sectors may then be estimated using the multipliers from the Scottish Government’s Supply and Use Tables (or the Scottish Government’s Input-Output (I-O) tables). We acknowledge that these I-O tables cannot provide full and accurate information on the local and/or regional non-market benefits (such as social and environmental impacts) of peatland restoration (or woodland creation) because the I-O analysis only includes information on monetary values.

A14.2 Peatland restoration – data on input costs

We searched the literature for information on peatland restoration costs, seeking to understand unit costs of inputs, labour and machinery requirements and how requirement for these may vary between sites.

Per ha restoration costs

Glenk et al. (2022; 2021; 2020) analyse peatland cost data from monitoring forms submitted to the Peatland Action Programme. This provides the most recent and comprehensive overview of per ha. restoration costs in the published literature. The authors report that to their knowledge no other comparable dataset exists.

Their most recent (2022) analysis reports median restoration costs to be £1,026 per ha and mean to be £1,712 per ha., n = 174 observations across all projects submitted 2016/17 to 2020/21, based on final reported costs. They further highlight variation in per ha. costs by restoration technique and initial site condition. As indicated in Figure A4 below the distribution of restoration costs is somewhat skewed. Due to this they consider that median is a more informative than mean, as mean estimate is distorted by a few large observations.

Figure A4: Histogram of Peatland Restoration Cost Per ha. reproduced from (Glenk et al. 2022)

Relevant literature Reviews

We further note a series of literature reviews which provide additional data, including several commissioned by CXC.

Table A14: Summaries of additional information sources on peatland restoration input costs

The team also identified a number of other relevant studies containing some information on peatland restoration costs:

• Moxey and Morling (2018) Funding for peatland restoration and management
• Moxey (2016) Assessing the opportunity costs associated with peatland restoration
• Grand Clement et al. (2015) New approaches to the restoration of shallow marginal peatlands
• Campbell et al (2019) Peatlands and Forestry

Table A15: Okumah et al. (2019) Datatables

Table A16: Artz et al (2019) Datatables

A14.3 Peatland restoration – Data challenges encountered

While the quality and availability of data on per ha peatland restoration costs is increasing, specific and accurate information on unit costs is sparse and we have been unable to find a reliable indication of the cost structure of peatland restoration and woodland creation work within the published literature.

Various important factors have been highlighted in the literature as contributing to substantial variations in peatland restoration (and woodland creation) costs. These include forest to bog conversion (Glenk et al. 2022), the restoration technique required (Glenk et al. 2022), remoteness and accessibility (Artz et al. 2018), degree of drainage/number of dams required on lowland peat (Grand Clement et al. 2015) and increases in material requirements relating to the degree of degradation (stakeholder interview).

While there is increasing understanding of these factors, the marginal influence of specific factors is not easily discernible from existing cost data which largely summarises per ha and does not control for variation in degradation or magnitude of work required when reporting per ha values for restoration techniques. We were unable to find information on how labour or machinery requirements may vary by site conditions.

Overall, we did not consider that we could achieve a reliable estimate for cost structure and accordingly we have not performed the preferred modelling approach.

However, based on our work, the research team offers recommendations for future work to tackle these data challenges, and indicative estimates of jobs in peatland restoration and woodland creation based on extrapolation of estimates from prior studies.

A14.4 Peatland restoration – Recommendations for future work