Natural Capital - Reflections from the Nature Friendly Farming Summit

In this episode of Natural Capital, Harry Fisher and Alex Pirie reflect on their time at Scotland’s first Nature Friendly Farming Summit. The summit explored how to scale nature-friendly farming to deliver for people, nature and climate and brought together farmers, policymakers, researchers, and environmental leaders to discuss how Scotland can build a resilient, nature-positive farming future. The summit addressed how nature and profitability are not opposites and showed how the path to a thriving, nature-friendly farming future is already taking shape.

Harry and Alex explore the main themes from the day, from farmers as stewards of the land, how profitability and biodiversity can go hand in hand and set the scene on biodiversity loss, climate pressures, and the need to de-risk nature-based solutions. The episode also looks at the future of funding, how current and new payment systems can reward environmental outcomes and discusses some of the key messages and announcements made on the day.

Host Harry Fisher, Producer Iain Boyd, Editor Kieron Sim, Executive Producers Kerry Hammond & Kirstyn Blackwood

Related FAS resources:

FAS Environment - https://www.fas.scot/environment/

NC LENs episode - https://www.fas.scot/podcast/natural-capital-landscape-enterprise-networks-leven-lens/

NC John and Louise Seed Woodend episode - https://www.fas.scot/podcast/arable/

Thrill of the Hill - https://www.fas.scot/sounds/thrill-of-the-hill/

Other Related Resources:

Nature Friendly Farming Network - https://www.nffn.org.uk/

Minister for Agriculture speech - https://www.gov.scot/publications/minister-for-agriculture-speech-nature-friendly-farming-network-summit/

RSPB article on summit - https://www.rspb.org.uk/scotland/news/nature-friendly-farming-summit-scotland

AECS announcement - https://www.ruralpayments.org/news-events/ministers-have-confirmed-the-2026-round-of-the-agri-environment-climate-scheme--aecs-.html

Alex Pirie - https://www.sruc.ac.uk/all-unearthed-posts/meet-the-consultant-alex-pirie/

Timestamps:

0:56 – 6:10 Intro to summit, nature friendly farming and setting the scene

6:11 – 25:26 Range of different farmers, organisations and messages from speakers and exhibitors

25:27 – 29:10 Policy, government messages and funding announcements

29:10 – 35:04 Landscape scale initiatives and LENs

35:05 – end. Summing up and main takeaways.