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Food production requires more than a farmer with a field. Farming depends on the wider environment – healthy soils, populations of pollinators, and climatic conditions suitable for growing crops. There is no food security without a stable climate and healthy natural environment.

We spoke with Johnnie Balfour from Balbirnie Home Farms in Fife about the way his farming is evolving to be better for nature and the climate, about some of the problems with Scotland’s current farm funding system, and about what he would like the new system to do.

The Scottish Government must commit to a radical new system of farm funding to deal with climate change, environmental campaigners have said. The call comes after new figures show that climate emissions from agriculture have risen to become the second largest source of Scottish emissions.

Many of Scotland's farmers are changing the way they farm, to allow nature back and to reduce climate emissions. They are the trailblazers, and what they are doing matters to us all.

Research has estimated that in excess of a quarter of all species on Earth exist in soils. Ranging from tiny bacteria to large burrowing earthworms, this ‘underground livestock’ needs to remain biodiverse.

Healthy soils of species-rich grasslands are full of abundance and diversity of microbes, mycorrhizal fungi and invertebrates, such as earthworms, that facilitate greater carbon sequestration and storage.

While financial support for food producers in the transition is critical, support for farmers to meet, learn from each other, share advice and work in partnership, is just as essential. We need peer-to-peer knowledge exchange that supports farmers to try out new things.