A beloved celebration of Scottish farming, agriculture and rural communities, the Royal Highland Show will welcome visitors of all ages once more after being cancelled in 2020 and 2021.
Sorry, this event has already happened. Have a look at our upcoming events.
A SEFARI Gateway-funded Specialist Advisory Group brought together a broad range of expertise across key industry stakeholders, Government Policy Leads and relevant SEFARI researchers to discuss livestock health and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), to prioritise health conditions that have the greatest impact on emissions and to identify practical disease intervention strategies and pathways to impact that will encourage uptake across the industry.
Food production and agro-industrial processing generate high levels of waste and by-products (such as peels, hulls and leaves), causing a negative environmental impact and significant expenses. Our global food system is highly inefficient with losses or wastage of food amounting to between 30 and 50% of all food produced. Around 220 million tons of food is estimated to be wasted every year, the equivalent of the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (Food and Agriculture Organisation).
Ben's current research focuses on sustainability in the food system. With a background in the ecology of disease, and child growth and development, he is interested in the drivers of complex systems and the interplay between people and place. Current projects span the food system from consumer behaviour to agricultural production.
Using statistical analyses, he is examining how whole diets may change if people start to reduce meat consumption using both individual cross-sectional consumption data and longitudinal household purchase data.
The Scottish Government has committed to legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2045. This will require a reduction across all sectors of the economy. The agricultural sector is in a unique position to contribute to this goal: it delivers many benefits to the public but also accounts for around 16% of all emissions in Scotland, with 19% of these coming from the North East.
Scotland has ambitious strategies for biodiversity protection and climate action with the intention of achieving a greener, fairer and just future. As most land in Scotland is devoted to some form of agricultural production, farmers and land managers are key players in achieving a transition to more sustainable agriculture and horticulture.
A SEFARI Specialist Advisory Group was established in response to concerns from livestock farmers and agro-ecologists about the adverse environmental impacts of some frontline livestock worming treatments, which reach the environment either in the dung/urine of treated animals or as a result of inappropriate disposal. Information on potential environmental impacts is a prerequisite for approval of veterinary medicines in the UK, but that information is not easy to find or understand.
Working with Scotland’s water sector and water users such as the farming sector, school children and teachers, we have designed this informative, engaging and fun series of educational posters on the important topic of water. We hope that by communicating a clear message about water, and explaining the very words used to best describe it and its many links to human life, young people and the general public will be better able to respond with real solutions in the places they live and work.
My main area of interest lies in machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence and their applications in agriculture, specifically, data-driven phenotype prediction in dairy cattle.
Improvements in the health and productivity of livestock is key for the future sustainability of farming. The intake and utilisation of nutrients from the diet of the dairy cow plays an important role in maintaining the cow’s health, and the nutrients present within its milk also have important benefits for us as consumers.