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Poster, presented at the 98th Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society.

Rathnayaka, S. D., Giha, C. L. R., & de Roos, B. (2024). Assessing Scotland’s self-sufficiency of major food commodities. Poster session presented at 98th Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

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.

SEFARI Gateway is delighted to provide support for a new Fellowship in collaboration with NatureScot. We are seeking an individual researcher or small team of researchers to undertake a first stage mapping of the evidence base for land use change in a changing climate.

Background

There is increasing awareness of the need for actions to build resilience in land use for an increasingly chaotic climate within and across years, and hunger for evidence-based solutions. Traditional business cases and economic valuations typically compare the costs of action (the intervention) with the status quo or ‘do nothing’ option. In a rapidly changing climate, this is likely to be problematic if the status quo or do nothing options assume a largely stable and predictable climate. This assumption has been taken for granted over the last 50-70 years.

Fellowship

We are seeking a pilot rapid mapping/ scoping exercise to assess the available evidence for:

• Nature-based solutions (NbS) that can help to build resilience towards the risks associated with a warming and more chaotic climate both within and across years, including extreme events and unusual patterns of weather.
• Risks and resilience associated with mainstream land management policy and practice in a warming and more chaotic climate both within and across years, including extreme events and unusual patterns of weather. This will mainly include mainstream for-profit farming and forestry practices. This includes both the risk to production activities (food, feed/fibre) and to other ecosystem services both directly and indirectly (e.g. for neighbouring land or downstream).
• The evidence base to support management interventions and the risks associated with maintaining the status quo or ‘do nothing’ option.

Put another way, the mapping should cover the evidence for ‘what works’, ‘what doesn’t’ and how level the evidence playing field is.

The mapping exercise should be restricted to Scotland or findings that could be applied to Scotland. As well as the risks/resilience associated with the land (farm, forest) itself, we are interested in the risks/resilience arising from that land to surrounding land (e.g. neighbouring land or downstream etc.) – and hence not only how well aggregate costs and benefits have been captured, but also the distribution of them. While not requiring a full cost-benefit analysis, we expect the Fellow(s) to extract evidence on how well the aggregate costs and benefits have been captured, as well as their distribution. The time required to build resilience in biological systems should also be taken into account and where possible, gather information on the costs and benefits of early action or delaying it.

The mapping should clarify the maturity of the evidence, knowledge or technology, including uncertainties such as climate risks. Where possible outputs should comment on the alignment between policy and practice, e.g. regulatory/planning alignment, and relationships to deliver meaningful change for resilience.

A key audience for the work will be Scottish Government’s next Environment Natural Resources and Agriculture (ENRA) Strategic Research Programme. Including, for example, whether new research needs to be directed at the efficacy of NbS or the risks/resilience presented by mainstream farming and forestry practices, (or both), and approaches, such as adaptive learning.  Associated with this, a primary audience is for policy makers, but we recognise that good policy has a practical edge: it must be deliverable.

Five questions might be used to guide the Fellowship. Considering the loss of any asset, including natural capital and nature:

• How bad could this be (under a full range of emission pathways, extreme events and patterns of unusual events)?
• How much does that matter, including who or what does it effect?
• What can we do about it and how much would that cost?
• Have unintended outcomes been considered and who pays when it all goes wrong?
• Is that fair/just?

At this stage the focus is mainly on the amount of evidence that is available and how it is distributed across nature-based solutions and mainstream land management.

Approach

A SEFARI individual Fellow or Fellowship Team would map out the evidence base to support management interventions and the risks associated with maintaining the status quo or ‘do nothing’ option – as outlined above. The successful applicant(s) will iterate an approach to an evidence assessment in agreement with NatureScot, Scottish Government (RESAS) and SEFARI Gateway. Depending on what emerges, some changes to the scope and approach may be required during the project. Outputs would then be sense-checked in a workshop environment, bringing together policy leads, researchers and some practitioners, before completing the final report.

Required Outputs:

• An initial online workshop to bring together key researchers in the Centres of Expertise and Main Research Providers to tap collective knowledge about the evidence base.
• A draft report illustrating the evidence base, covering the issues outlined above. This should include some brief qualitative comments covering the areas highlighted in bold above.
• The draft report will form the basis for an in person (or hybrid) workshop bringing together policy leads and other researchers to sense-check the findings and recommend next steps and approaches, including the potential for adaptive learning (opportunities and barriers).
• A final report.
• A case study for the SEFARI Gateway website.

Duration and Time:

• The deadline for final report from the Fellowship is 28^th February, 2025.
• The distribution of time on the project will be jointly agreed by the Fellow(s), NatureScot and SEFARI Gateway.

Practicalities

The details of the final Fellowship work plan will be iterated and agreed with the successful Fellow(s).

The Fellow(s) should expect to spend the equivalent of up to 28 days (to a maximum total funding of £18,000 for time) on the project, although the exact number of days, their timing, and their pattern through the working week will depend on personal circumstances. We anticipate the Fellowship running for a maximum of ~4 months.

Please note that costs should be submitted net of VAT recovered by the applicant. Applicants should seek advice on appropriate VAT treatment of proposed funding. Travel and subsistence and to support any workshop costs will be agreed and funded separate to the FTE costs, and up to a maximum of £5,000.

Further Details

The central focus of this Fellowship is to the ENRA Portfolio. The Fellowship is open to applicants from staff:

• from any SEFARI Organisation
• ENRA Portfolio Centres of Expertise
• Staff within any UK Higher Education Institution (or Research Institute)
• Please note, you do not need to have been previously funded by Scottish Government via the Portfolio to qualify for SEFARI Gateway funding
• Applicants must have the support of their organisation. Sign-off should be at the level deemed appropriate for each organisation (please talk to your line manager), but Directors/Chief Executives of your Institute (or University school as appropriate) should be made aware.
• The taking of such an opportunity should not result in a candidate going beyond the end of any agreed contract they may have with their employer.
• It is recognised that individual circumstances are different and support levels will vary depending on salary, distance from the opportunity and so on – the support level will be kept under review to try and maintain a fair and equitable competition and process. The organisation of the successful fellow(s) should not expect to meet any costs beyond that paid for by SEFARI Gateway.
• The successful candidate(s) will be expected to contribute to relevant meetings or outputs for the project partners as the Fellowship progresses and to generate knowledge exchange related content for SEFARI Gateway (support will be offered on this).

Applications

Applications should be made to: info@sefari.scot and should include a cover letter (two pages of detail on your suitability or that of the team) and a two-page CV (or up to 6 pages for a team). Decisions on who to Interview will be based solely on this letter and CV(s).

The cover letter should include:

• Why are you interested in this opportunity and what you would hope to get from it?
• What skills and experience would you bring to this role?
• How would you use your current work to underpin the project?
• What would you do to take the learning back into your organisation?

Team-based applications should demonstrate how they propose to manage individual contributions to satisfy the degree of multi-disciplinary integration required and clearly identify a Fellowship Team Lead.

The deadline for applications is 5pm on 1^st November 2024 with interviews to be held within two weeks following from that date.

If you have any questions on this, or any general aspect of the SEFARI Fellowship scheme, please contact Michelle Wilson Chalmers, Manager, SEFARI Gateway at: michelle.wilson@sefari.scot