Gillian Martin, Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action announced today (Thursday 19 June 2025) the new proposed climate targets for 2026-2045.

The Carbon Budgets propose a five-year, statutory limit on emissions:

• 57% lower than 1990 levels for 2026 - 2030
• 69% lower than 1990 levels for 2031- 2035
• 80% lower than 1990 levels for 2036 - 2040
• 94% lower than 1990 levels for 2041 - 2045

In the announcement, the Cabinet Secretary said:

“To ensure we protect rural communities and have a thriving rural economy, we will not adopt all their recommendations on agriculture and peatland and will instead meet our targets in a way which works for rural Scotland, including supporting and protecting our iconic livestock industries.”

Are we to take from this comment that livestock farming in Scotland will be protected from damaging suggestions to reduce meat consumption? This comes only one week after First Minister John Swinney evaded questions about reducing livestock numbers in Scotland, prompting the question should we be eating less meat? This discussion took part during a parliamentary debate on the Climate Change Committee report.

Ahead of the Royal Highland Show, which starts today (19 June), Quality Meat Scotland is suggesting that Scotland needs to increase its beef herds in order to meet demand from a growing population and to reach self-sufficiency by 2030, equating to about two additional cows per herd. Do we really want to rely on imports to beef up (pardon the pun) our supply of red meat on supermarket shelves?

We are not alone in saying that we would prefer to buy British meat for the simple reason that we want to support our farming industry. Jill Stewart, from the Scottish Countryside Alliance, said:

“I want to know where my food is coming from, and I really don’t want to rely on imported meat being flown miles across the world to put food on the table.”

Consumers increasingly prefer food products that are locally and sustainably sourced, with low food miles, knowing their choices support the rural economy and local farmers. We will continue to monitor this issue closely and will challenge any Scottish Government decisions that threaten our food security or the agricultural sector.