Trade-offs between productivity and sustainability

Progress in year 4 is provided for each of the different aspects of this research. Two different sheep systems are under investigation at Kirkton and Auchtertyre upland research farms along with key sustainability indicators of arable crop production. Livestock scientists are also investigating the economic and environmental positives and negatives (trade-offs) associated with alternative housing systems for laying hens and protein supplementation in mammals. Knowledge exchange events through 2019/20 continued to put a focus on hill farming systems and the various steps they could potentially be taking to increase the economic, social and environmental resilience of their systems to climatic and economic shocks.

Highlights

• Trade-offs in livestock systems. Flock performance and productivity metrics were collected from lambing (April 2019), through weaning (September 2019), until the start of Year 5 (pregnancy scanning in February 2020). After poor performance in 2018, the Lleyn ewes recovered much of their form. Good weather following scanning in February 2019 meant that lambing went well for both breeds and was completed late May. That dry weather in April/May 2019 had a knock-on effect by limiting grass growth, but it was still feasible to cut silage in early July and good crop was obtained. Generally good weather continued throughout the remainder of 2019 and - despite some intense periods of heavy rain during the winter – tupping was completed in November/December 2019. The weather conditions in late winter/early spring also meant that the majority of ewes remained in good condition through scanning and the build up to lambing. Carbon footprint analyses have been completed to-date for Year 1 (2015-16), Year 2 (2016-17) and Year 3 (2017-18) of the project. In general, CO2e output per Livestock Unit is slightly higher for the Hill versus Park flock, but overall CO2e output is higher for the Park flock as it continues to be more productive (in terms of overall livestock numbers reared).
• The importance of increasing the economic, environmental and social resilience of fragile upland sheep systems across Scotland has been highlighted in newspaper articles and at a wide range of knowledge exchange events held on and off the farms through the year in association with bodies like Soil Association Scotland, SAC Consulting and the Farm Advisory Service. Other highlights included fact-finding visit to the farms by Mairi Gougeon (Minister for Rural Affairs & Natural Environment) in March 2019 and a Developing Young Workforce (DWY) Rural Skills Day -– aimed at secondary school pupils – held on the farms in May 2019. The latter was organised by SRUC and Perth & Kinross DYW and and featured 10 ‘stands’ with SRUC and external colleagues highlighting different aspects of their work. The Scottish Farmer attended and produced a very favourable write-up of their impressions of the day.
• Trade-offs case studies. Hens - two new studies began, using 9 commercial flocks: trade-offs of extra enrichments (cost, time) in free-range hens to reduce feather pecking (FP) (welfare), and trade-offs of different scratch mat designs (cost) in enriched cages to encourage foraging behaviour and reduce FP (welfare).  All scheduled data visits were completed except two (cause: low path AI).

Progress in year 2 is provided for each of the different aspects of this research. Two different sheep systems are under investigation at Kirkton & Auchtertyre upland research farms, key sustainability indicators of arable crop production and livestock scientists are being investigated the economic and environmental positives and negatives (trade-offs) associated with protein supplementation in mammals. A range of knowledge transfer events took place to raise awareness of the current relevance and importance of the research given the fragility of Scottish farming systems post-Brexit.

Trade-offs in livestock systems. Flock performance and productivity metrics were collected from lambing (April 2017) through weaning (September 2017) until the start of year 3 (pregnancy scanning in February 2018). The adverse winter weather meant that the Lleyn ewes in the flock did not scan well compared to the Blackface ewes, despite having out-performed the Blackface ewes in previous years. Initial analyses of the data from year 1 highlighted a need to think more on how best to incorporate some aspects of the data - e.g. grassland conditions scores throughout the year - more appropriately to each system in future analyses. The very wet summer had an adverse impact on data collection on pollinator occurrence. The importance of increasing the sustainability of upland sheep systems has been highlighted in newspaper articles and at a wide range of knowledge exchange events held on and off the farms through the year, e.g. National Sheep Association events (March 2017), National Farmers Union visits to the farms (June and September 2017), Defra (November 2017) and BBC Countryfile (March 2018).

Trade-offs in arable systems. Optimising crop management and Optimising cropping strategies. The crop performance database continues to be improved and the data used in the multi-attribute modelling of cropping systems in Scotland. The crop performance database has been subject to ongoing review throughout 2017-18 to refine the nature and quality of performance indicators held and to supplement the database with new data as appropriate. The Centre for Sustainable Cropping long-term experiment continues to contribute data for a range of crops under conventional and integrated management, while data on legume crops and mixed cropping available from EU funded projects are being assessed. The crop performance database has contributed to the construction and analysis of a multi-attribute decision model comparing the performance of a range of crops under alternative management scenarios.

The bioeconomic modelling enabling a detailed quantitative assessment of trade-offs is also being improved and extended with the objective of identifying the best performing (sustainable) cropping systems at a range of scales. The bioeconomic model of cropping systems constructed in 2016/17 has been tested. Using data from two sources: published literature and the CSC long-term experiment, the model has illustrated the trade-off in GHG emissions and gross-margin. The model predicts the optimal balance between these measures of economic and environmental performance achieved on the basis of the trade-off, plus the composition of crops and their management within a cropping system associated with these optima. Work continues on the inclusion of multiple performance measures (>2), the addition of a more comprehensive set of management actions and constraints, and refining the process sub-models.

Trade-offs case studies. The bioeconomic model of cropping systems constructed in 2016/17 has been tested. Using data from two sources: published literature and the CSC long-term experiment, the model has illustrated the trade-off in GHG emissions and gross-margin. The model predicts the optimal balance between these measures of economic and environmental performance achieved on the basis of the trade-off, plus the composition of crops and their management within a cropping system associated with these optima. Work continues on the inclusion of multiple performance measures (>2), the addition of a more comprehensive set of management actions and constraints, and refining the process sub-models.