Getting the message across
As an advocate for the salmon industry, Tavish Scott draws on both his political experience and his island roots
Fish Farmer caught up with Tavish Sco�, chief execu�ve officer of the Sco�sh Salmon Producers’ Organisa�on shortly a�er he had finished a (virtual) session with the Sco�sh Parliament’s Rural Economy and Connec�vity Commi�ee (RECC). Sco� is no stranger to Holyrood, as a former Liberal Democrat MSP represen�ng Shetland and – during the coali�on between his party and Labour – a government minister. So, what was it like being on the other side of the commi�ee table, answering the ques�ons?
He said: “I’ve been on the other side of the desk as a government minister, albeit a long �me ago. Then, you were expected to know everything! In fairness to the commi�ee today, they knew I had with me Anne [Anderson, the SSPO’s sustainability director] and Ben Hadfield [managing director, Mowi Scotland], who do know everything, and they were excellent.”
Tavish Sco�’s appointment as CEO was announced by the SSPO in September this year, and he has taken up the role during what could be called “interes�ng �mes”. The RECC is revisi�ng salmon farming to assess progress two years on from the commi�ee’s cri�cal report on the industry; the SSPO has just brought out an ambi�ous sustainability charter, A Be�er Future For Us All; the Covid-19 pandemic; and there is, of course, the small ma�er of Brexit which is exercising the minds of the salmon producers and the food sector as a whole.
Sco� le� poli�cs in 2019 to take up a new role as head of external affairs for the Sco�sh Rugby Union, but the opportunity to head the SSPO and represent the salmon farming industry was just too good to turn down. As someone who grew up in (and represented) Shetland, his personal connec�ons with the industry are deep, and go back a long way.
As he put it: “I have had a lot of experience with the sector. When I started as a councillor in Shetland in 1994, this was a young, vibrant industry set up by cro�ers in local voes [the Shetland equivalent of a “sea loch”] and it was cu�ng edge stuff. People were learning all the �me.
“Now in Shetland there are more jobs across the sector, both in terms of fish farming directly and the indirect supply chain. It is a hugely important part of the Shetland economy. Indeed, the seafood industry in total is now more important in value terms than gas, to Shetland.”
He added: “A lot of my personal friends are involved in the sector. If fish farming didn’t exist there’d be a lot of small schools that
wouldn’t have kids in them, and there would be parts of Shetland that would have no people. It’s kept some islands alive, no two ways about it. So I’m very proud to be working in this sector, and in this great job.”
Sco� sees two external pressures the industry is currently facing: the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit.
On the pandemic, he said: “That has an impact on the prices our farmers get for the product, and it’s had an impact on demand, with no hospitality industry, restaurants closed, and the economy contracting.”
He went on: “The second external pressure is Brexit and the uncertainty around that, created by the fact that as we speak [18 November] there is s�ll no deal and we don’t know how the arrangements will play out on 1 January.
“We hope to see enormous progress on both of those in the coming days, never mind weeks.”
The salmon industry, of course, also faces its own very specific challenges. An increasing global popula�on needs a supply of nutri�ous food, and fish farming can claim the lowest level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for any animal protein produc�on process. Even so, the industry needs to prove that it can be sustainable.
This is the impera�ve behind the Sco�sh salmon industry’s sustainability charter, which sets out a series of commitments, not only on the environment but also on issues such as fish welfare and the industry’s rela�onship with local communi�es.
Sco� said the most ambi�ous aim set out in the charter is “the one at the top”: a commitment to “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.
He said: “My daughter runs a family farm on Shetland, and I’m acutely conscious of what climate change and reducing GHG mean for livestock produc�on. I get exactly the same point for the farmed fish sector as well. It is going to be a huge challenge. Fish farming should be front and centre in this debate; that’s why we’re being ambi�ous.”
Sco� also stressed the importance of the commitment to work with local authori�es and other bodies to help provide housing and other benefits to the communi�es within which the fish farms operate.
He said: “We need housing because we need workers to live in those locali�es, which means kids in local schools, people buying from the local shop and so on, so the ques�on is can we come up with a mechanism to help local housing associa�ons and local authori�es to provide more housing in rural areas? I’d love for us to achieve that and to start achieving it next year.”
Sco� sees it as “a good sign” that the MSPs at the RECC asked a lot of ques�ons about the sustainability charter. But as well as se�ng out what the industry hopes to deliver, he also has a message for the legislators about what the producers need: a be�er, more efficient regulatory framework.
He explained: “We will be playing an important central part in the economic resurgence of the UK and Sco�sh economies. We need the governments, plural, to recognise that, which in Scotland they absolutely do; but also to ensure that we’ve got a landscape in which we can be more produc�ve. For me that is a central challenge. We’re not arguing for ‘less regula�on’, we’re arguing for be�er and more efficient regula�on.”
He noted that a number of the SSPO’s member businesses farm in
other waters too, and in many cases their costs are higher in Scotland.
Sco� said: “We’d like to see that addressed, but we’d like to see it addressed correctly responsibly and sustainably. That’s the discussion we’re having with government, and of course with our colleagues in the regulatory world.”
Planning is a key issue for the SSPO. Typically an applica�on for a new farm site, or for investment in an exis�ng site, requires a separate approval process on the part of mul�ple regulatory and planning authori�es, which will o�en appear as consultee bodies in each other’s processes.
To some extent this is due to the need to reflect both local interests and the na�onal plan for the marine environment. This is something