Innovation

Nine new Monitor Farms across the country will be opening their gates to local farming communities in the coming weeks.

The objective of the Monitor Farm Scotland programme is to help improve the productivity, profitability and sustainability of farm businesses through practical demonstrations, the sharing of best practice and the group approach to addressing industry issues.

A new agricultural EIP-AGRI Focus Group on benchmarking draws attention to the benefits and makes a number of recommendations for improvements.

Benchmarking is finding out how you are doing compared to other similar businesses and using this information to improve. For farmers this can include comparing data on feed costs, herd health, crop yields and so on.

The deadline for applications to the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF) is Thursday 2 February 2017.

KTIF is designed to support projects that increase farmers’ skills and knowledge by delivering training, coaching, courses and farm visits, and by supporting on-the-ground improvements in competitiveness, efficiency and sustainability.

A €2 million European Union (EU) project to increase lamb survival rates, funded under Horizon 2020, has been announced.

Scottish farmers and researchers will work with people in Spain, Romania, Italy, France, Ireland  and Turkey to reduce lamb deaths.

Between 2 to 6 million lambs in the UK die every year before they are three days old.[1] 

From rural start-ups to Scotland's favourite established businesses, 100 rural businesses are announced as finalists in the 2017 Scottish Rural Awards.  

Background

The annual Scottish Rural Awards are the ultimate benchmark of success in Scotland's countryside, highlighting the enterprise, skill and innovation of those who live and work in rural areas.

Are you planning on doing any agri-environmental management in 2017?

This could be part of an Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) scheme, a greening measure, or just a desire to do something different. Want to know if your management makes a difference? Soil Association Scotland can help you find out! 

Soil Association Scotland's 'Future Farming Scotland' programme has won one of RSPB's prestigious Nature of Scotland Awards.

At the recent Nature of Scotland Awards ceremony, the 'Future Farming Scotland' programme took home the prize for the 'Food and Farming' category.

Mike Strachan from Forestry Commission Scotland reports on the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) workshop on 'New value chains from multi-functional forests held in Vienna on 10 and 11 November 2016.

The European Innovation Partnership (EIP) aims to bridge the gap between Research and Practice in Agriculture, Food and Forestry across Europe.  I was fortunate to be invited to attend the workshop in Vienna where I helped to lead discussions on the role of Agroforestry in supporting value chains. Eighty participants from 21 countries attended.

Irish farmer Margaret Farrelly has won the 2016 Copa Cogeca’s European innovation prize for women farmers.

Margaret Farrelly started out with 150 hens selling to a local packer. Today she has over 160,000 hens and an annual turnover of €6.2 million. Her company employs 33 people and she works with 22 other Irish farmers to deliver free-range Irish eggs and liquid eggs.