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Some STEC are priority zoonotic pathogens that place a significant burden on Scottish health services, for example: the 2024 O145 outbreak and increasing human clinical non-O157 STEC cases. To augment existing knowledge about livestock reservoirs in Scotland, we’ve investigated STEC occurrence in Scottish sheep, farmed deer, and dairy cattle. We’ve contributed information to Food Standards Scotland (FSS) and Public Health Scotland’s Incident Management Teams, increased the scope of the NHS SERLs Scottish STEC genome database, and generated information that will assist FSS’s Strategy (2021-2026
Sows giving birth and suckling their piglets are kept in farrowing crates which severely restrict their movements and behavioural freedom. Momentum for change to free or flexible (i.e. temporary) farrowing systems is growing, with voluntary or legal bans coming in across EU countries, and a major debate in the UK pig industry. SRUC has a 40-year history of applied research and knowledge exchange in this area, influencing farming stakeholders, regulators and policy makers. Recent work has included discussions on regulations and policy with NGOs and industry stakeholders including QMS and AHDB
The National Soil Archive and Scottish Soils Database (Underpinning National Capacity) include georeferenced samples and data from systematic National Soil Inventory surveys (NSIS 1978-87, NSIS2 2007-9). Within the current SRP, advanced statistical and machine learning approaches are being applied to complex multivariate NSIS2 datasets of chemical, physical and biological characteristics (e.g., infrared spectra, X-ray diffraction, phospholipid profiles). This is being used to identify metrics of soil status; and improve understanding of the context-specificity of soil functions and their
As part of a multi-disciplinary biosecurity project, we have developed practical resources to help farmers prevent and manage disease transmission in livestock. Initially targeting Johne’s Disease, PRRS, and Roundworm, our work now promotes broader on-farm biosecurity practices. Outputs include discussion support tools, a sampling game, videos, animations, and AI-powered tools, designed for farmers, vets, advisors, and students. By making biosecurity engaging, accessible, and easy to embed in everyday practice, these resources encourage reflection and behaviour change. Delivered through our
The lecture will take place at Edinburgh International Conference Centre, beginning at 5pm on Wednesday 1st October with a pre-lecture exhibition. This will be followed at 6pm by Professor Raworth’s talk and a Q&A session. A post-lecture reception will also be held at 7:30pm. A SEFARI stand will be in the pre-lecture exhibition so please come and see us if you're attending. Fine out more about the event on this James Hutton Institute webpage. Tickets for this event are now sold out.
The sustainability of rural economies requires a healthy population structure and local availability of necessary skills. This can be achieved by retaining the current population and attracting new dwellers. Accordingly, the Scottish Government’s National Population Strategy aims to promote “a population [that] is more balanced and distributed across Scotland.” While often desirable from the naturalistic point of view, rural, island and remote locations are generally characterised by lower accessibility to keystone services, forcing people to make difficulttrade-offs. Therefore, we investigate
The Scotland’s Land Reform Futures project (JHI-E3-1), as well as additional policy responsive projects, have involved dataset review, integration, and novel analyses seeking to inform the development of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill (currently passing through Parliament). This has included work identifying and characterising large landholdings that may fall in scope of provisions set out in the Bill and explores the impact of spatial contiguity of large landholdings (at the request of the Land Reform Bill team). Regular meetings and correspondence with the Bill team has raised awareness of
Nutritional interventions to reduce enteric methane or ammonia emissions from cattle are applied with no consideration for trade-offs with other gaseous emissions. Lack of facilities measuring multiple gases simultaneously means there is little data to investigate trade-offs. We conducted a meta-analysis of published studies investigating enteric methane or ammonia mitigation from dairy cows where both gases were measured or one could be estimated by proxy. We found potential for win-win scenarios, particularly with ammonia mitigation strategies. Studies measuring multiple gases and
Work in the current, and previous, Strategic Research Programmes has developed a new vaccine to control louping ill, a tick-borne disease primarily affecting sheep and red grouse. Louping ill causes significant economic losses for farmers and grouse estates in Scotland and is increasing in prevalence. Working together with key industry partners, and with funding from farming and moorland stakeholders, a novel approach is now being taken to commercialise the vaccine. This will involve transferring the production process to commercial scale before performing studies to ensure the safety and
Gold-standard welfare assessments of dairy cattle, e.g., Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA), require training and are time consuming in a sector with labour constraints. Utilising existing sensors on farm for management purposes (e.g. oestrus detection) for welfare evaluation could benefit farmers and the wider industry. As with QBA, sensors enable early detection of health/welfare issues, supporting management decisions and productivity, without substantial labour demands. This study demonstrated the assessment of welfare in dairy cattle via automated animal-mounted sensor data, with