Supporting innovation and knowledge sharing in Agriculture

A range of projects aimed at tackling climate change and enhancing competitiveness in the agriculture and food production sectors have received funding of more than £370,000.

The seven awards are part of the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF) with funding focussed on projects which help maximise resource efficiency, cut emissions and enhance viability.

These KTIF projects support knowledge transfer and learning, as well as innovative on-the-ground improvements in agricultural competitiveness, resource efficiency, environmental performance and sustainability.

Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon said: “We have ambitious targets across the agricultural sector in terms of net zero goals, enabling the essential role of agriculture and addressing the need for food security.

“These are issues that affect us all and investment in these successful projects will contribute to meeting these targets.”

Background

The successful projects are:

Project 1: ‘Data driven decisions in Potatoes’ facilitated by Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS).  KTIF Award - £36,095.00. 

Overview: This knowledge transfer based project seeks to improve the productivity and competitiveness of Scottish ware growers. To support potato growers to become more productive and sustainable, reducing their impact on the environment/biodiversity.

Project 2: ‘Trustable IoT’ facilitated by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC).  KTIF Award - £62,832.85. 

Overview: The innovation based project seeks to develop a set of open source standardised processes for IoT sensors and digital devices that measure and triangulate biodiversity baselines and improvements.

Project 3: ‘Reducing Inputs’ facilitated by Soil Association (Scotland).  KTIF Award - £24,000.00. 

Overview: This knowledge transfer project aims to inspire and inform farmers and growers to reduce their use of external inputs including synthetic nitrogen-based fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides; to reduce carbon footprints, tackle disease resistance, improve soil health and ecological performance, protect natural capital and boost financial resilience.

Project 4: ‘Decarbonising Scottish Malting Barley production’ facilitated by Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS).  KTIF Award - £ 36,905.25. 

Overview: This knowledge transfer project’s primary aim is to raise the awareness and understanding amongst farmer producers of the emissions associated with producing malting barley.

Project 5: ‘Agroecology: enabling the transition’ facilitated by Nourish Scotland.  KTIF Award - £112,500.00. 

Overview: This knowledge transfer based project builds the previous project ‘Agroecology - facilitating mindset change’ and its design builds on the learning from that programme.  It aims to widen and deepen understanding of agroecology specifically through a farmer to farmer/crofter to crofter cooperative learning programme.

Project 6: ‘Wader Friendly Farmers: Building a Stronger Network’ facilitated by Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).  KTIF Award - £27,825.00. 

Overview: Another knowledge transfer based project which will look to increase the number of farmers and landowners who are engaged with the Working for Waders Initiative, increase the area of land positively managed for waders and improve data collection from the projects.

Project 7: ‘Farm Carbon Storage Network’ facilitated by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC).  KTIF Award - £85,970.00. 

Overview: This innovation based project seeks to develop a representative farmer group that will estimate their farm carbon stock using soil testing and LiDAR surveys.