Agriculture is central to the economy, culture and heritage in Orkney and the successful adoption of new research and technology may bring significant benefits to the islands. Key challenges to the industry are to increase the efficiency of food production while protecting and enhancing the natural environment. The Orcadians have a strong history of being successful innovators and are also aware of the unique opportunities available within Orkney's landscapes and communities. Improving connectivity and trust between researchers and islanders will help to maximise the benefits from new research and increase uptake of useful technologies. This report summarisies recent (2015-2025) agricultural research projects relevant to Orkney in a research directory that can be used to help collate and raise awareness of current research projects. A workshop was held on Orkney with local stakeholders to discuss their views on future research directions, knowledge gaps, how to improve local involvement and input and the potential for setting up a "Living Lab" on Orkney. Recommendations to move forward are to establish a Research Hub on Orkney to help coordinate research activity, communicate outputs and encourage collaborations and new funding streams. Establishing key links with the SEFARI Research Institutes is a timely opportunity as the new Scottish Government Strategic Research Programme is currently out for consultation and there are opportunities for researchers and stakeholders to co-design agriculture research questions relevant and useful for Orkney. To help support moving research into practice, demonstration fields, farms or specific managment practices could be tried out using UHI facilities to de-risk the testing of new technologies. The project also identified new opportunities for education, both secondary and tertiary, and training to encourage more people to take up careers in agriculture and to create new skilled jobs and opportunities on the isands.
Achieving food security has gained prominence in the present policy agenda to increase resilience to adverse events. Using a novel method, we estimated the food balance sheets of Scotland, and assessed the self-sufficiency of major food commodities for the first time. We found that Scotland can produce enough cereal, potatoes, lamb, beef, dairy, and eggs to meet its own needs, but it still depends on imports of poultry and pork. Wheat and dairy from Scotland are especially important, as they significantly contribute to the nation's overall energy, protein, and fat intake.
Foods high in protein (Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya, Unsplash)
We are delighted to share with you the latest copy of the ELPEG Bulletin. The bulletins are produced every six months and summarise the biodiversity research that is happening within the Strategic Research Programme. The bulletins aim to provide a policy relevant summary of the research.
The October 2024 bulletin can be access here.
Ecosystem and Land use Stakeholder Engagement group
This group is open to all stakeholders interested in the biodiversity work conducted within the Strategic Research Programme. We hold in person meetings once a year (usually in January) which provide an overview of the work conducted.
If you would like to know more or wish to be added to the ELPEG bulletin and/or the ELSEG meeting mailing list, please contact Holli.Hunter@hutton.ac.uk.
October 2024 ELPEG Bulletin which summarises the latest Scottish Government funded Strategic Research Programme biodiversity research.
Ruth is a barley geneticist with the International Barley Hub based at the James Hutton Institute. Ruth is interested in improving the long-term sustainability of barley. Her current work focuses on developing barley material with improved genetic diversity.
She is working on the R-evolve project (funded by UKRI and linking into the RESAS programme), that aims to rapidly re-domesticate wild barley. The R-evolve project takes a novel approach to improving barley genetic diversity. Instead of transferring exotic genes into an elite genetic background, this project does the opposite, transferring the key domestication genes from the elite into a wild background. This rapidly increases the available genetic diversity by replicating the domestication process. The populations that have been developed also underpin part of a large EU Horizons project Cousin (Cousin Project | Crop Cousins, promise for the future) which is investigating the value of crop wild relatives and future breeding of sustainable climate resilient crops.
A final briefing, by Benjamin JJ McCormick (a SEFARI Gateway Fellow), on he's work on ‘estimating the nutrient value of agricultural products’
Final Fellowship project slides 'estimating the nutrient value of agricultural products' - Benjamin JJ McCormick
Posters, showcasing research across the ENRA Portfolio, submitted to and Presented at this year's ENRA Science, Evidence and Policy conference. More details about the event and links to separate posters can be found in our blog post: Climate Change Adaptation: 2nd Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture (ENRA) Science, Evidence and Policy Conference.
A SEFARI Gateway Innovative Knowledge Exchange (IKE) Report on 'Developing Dialogues on Land Use Decision Making for Natural Capital' by Naomi Beingessner, Lin Batten, Bryony Nelson, Acacia Marshall and Umar Farooq.
The key aim of this project was to support community involvement in land use decision-making in contexts of natural capital/green land investment in rural Scotland.