Blog

After a winter of unceasing heavy rains, and many farmers struggling to get into the field for spring sowing or to re-sow damaged autumn crops, it’s been a difficult start to the 2024 growing season. Agriculture is already having to cope with climatic shifts, while at the same time trying to reduce its environmental impact, reduce its contributions to further climate change, and still turn a profit.

Luis Loria-Rebolledo, Dwayne Boyers and Verity Watson from the University of Aberdeen’s Health Economics Research Unit were recently awarded a joint SEFARI Gateway and PHS Fellowship.

Collaboration amongst partners in an agri-food supply chain can bring benefits for its members and boost the chain competitiveness. However, often such collaboration needs an incentive to motivate change.

In December 2022, Mairi Gougeon, (then) Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands and Kate Forbes (then) Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, committed to apply a rural lens to projects funded under NSET.

The UK Government announced on the 14^th of May the release of the first annual UK Food Security Index.

Hope, positivity, and optimism were the takeaways from the 2024 Edinburgh Conservation Film Festival, hosted by the Edinburgh Science Festival and supported by SEFARI Gateway.

For the past three years, the festival has invited the submission of short films to shine a light on the work of people, communities, and organisations from all over the world that are working to protect, restore and enhance the biodiversity of our shared planet.

Scotland's 2022 Census shows that Scotland’s population is ageing. With people aged 65 and over outnumbering people aged 15 and under by more than quarter of a million. Numerous physiological changes occur with increasing age which can result in chronic medical conditions and illnesses.

As a result of work commissioned by the Scottish Government funded Strategic Research Programme (SRP) looking at resilient food supply chains, a group of farmers teamed up with Professor Mike Coffey at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). Their project will demonstrate the application of large-scale recording and genotyping of dairy cattle to accelerate genetic improvement for traits that lead to better resilience of their farming systems within a net zero context of the future.

The production of soft fruits in Scotland, the main fruit category produced in the country, has a marked seasonality. This has a mirroring effect on nutrition and the quality of diet consumers are exposed to every year.

Youth out-migration in Scotland’s rural communities remains a significant concern, and increasing levels of youth retention, in-migration, and return are seen as key to longer-term population sustainability. While youth out-migration in rural places is often linked to limited employment and housing opportunities and constraints of services in rural places, evidence also shows that experiences of belonging, and family connections are important in shaping young people's migration patterns.