The impact of novel crops and farming practices on the Scottish agricultural landscape

Challenges

Scottish agriculture is facing significant challenges associated with changing policy and markets, environment, and technology. The sector needs to maintain and increase profitability by responding to changing market conditions while simultaneously contributing to Scottish Government commitments on greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity. These objectives must be achieved in an evolving natural environment in which risks, and opportunities.

Technology advances are enabling proactive, preventative and resource use and efficient crop management. Combined with new production technologies, these are opportunities to boost performance and profitability whilst maximising opportunities to support ecosystem services and reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture. Underpinning these changes is a need to exploit genetic diversity and accelerate the efficient breeding of crop cultivars adapted to new growing technologies and environments.

This period of rapid change will have a profound impact on Scottish agriculture, affecting how we grow crops and what we grow. It will also affect how we use our land to deliver public goods, such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration. The sector covers a vast range of activity from small croft holdings to large arable and mixed farms with varying land and climate characteristics, capacity for innovation and access to capital. Farmers need to adapt to their specific growing environment, market need, capability, and capacity. Different actors will have different solutions and government policy will have different impacts across the sector. It is vital, therefore, that we understand the factors driving change in farming practice across scales and environments and identify the barriers preventing innovation.

Questions

Solutions

The project explores the factors driving change in farming practice across scales and environments and identifies the barriers preventing innovation, specifically the social and economic pressures on innovation in crops and novel production systems. This scope is on multiple levels to characterise technological lock-ins to the introduction of novel crops and cropping systems in Scottish agriculture.

Barriers and drivers for innovation in novel crops and production systems

We are investigating opportunities for change in Scottish agriculture with a focus on the drivers of current farming systems, and the barriers to the development of new ones. Adopting a multi-level perspective with a focus on co-evolution processes, the research seeks to characterise technological lock-ins to the introduction of novel crops and cropping systems in Scottish agriculture. The research comprises a desk-based study of the evolution of Scottish agriculture complemented by interviews with key stakeholders. Quantitative, longitudinal analysis of data sets provides insights into the evolutionary trends of Scottish agriculture. Research focuses on examining how the ‘niche’ - where novel crops and farming systems emerge – manages current barriers imposed at the landscape level.   

Tools and technologies to accelerate novel crop development and production systems

We are developing exemplar projects to deliver practical insights into novel crop and technology development appropriate to Scottish agricultural systems. Heritage cereal varieties can provide environmentally adapted, high-value crops for specific Scottish farming communities. Barley (including bere), oat and rye landraces, are being distributed across our crofter network to examine germplasm responses to specific environments. This information is identifying genetically adapted genotypes to support revitalised cereal growing in Scottish crofting communities promoting the diversification of value chains.

Controlled environment agriculture has the potential to play a significant role in the Scottish agricultural landscape by exploiting an abundance of renewable energy. Working with vertical farming (VF) providers we examine mechanisms to improve production efficiency and enhance the nutritional and sensory quality of existing VF crops to reduce costs and improve returns. We explore integration with current cropping systems by testing the feasibility of VF for crop propagule production to reduce imports and bolster local production providing new opportunities in Scotland’s rural communities. Another project is establishing the baseline energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and inputs/outputs for VF and comparing them to alternative and established production systems.

Tools and technologies to advance breeding for novel crop use for Scotland’s farming future

We are exploring the efficiency of advanced breeding methods for rapidly repurposing under-researched crops from a Scottish perspective, to support future farming systems and evolving markets. We focus on perennial ryegrass and winter wheat as these varieties are rare despite being specifically adapted for Scottish production and have limited genetic diversity deployed for current and novel uses. For both crops, our objectives are local environmental adaptation and lower input production, to support diversity, climate resilience, production efficiency and sustainability.

Impact of novel crops and systems on rural economies and wider society

Lastly, we look to understand how novel crops and systems impact rural economies and wider society. This includes the acceptability and impact of novel crops and farming systems on local supply chains, communities, and social relations. We investigate consumers’ acceptance of novel foods within a specific territory and develop exploratory scenarios to assess the impacts of novel crops and farming systems on the territory and along supply chains, allowing evaluation of market potential and informing market interventions and policy decisions.