Should we graze the uplands of Scotland?

The continued grazing of the uplands is contentious as the goals of rewilding and farming/crofting often appear in conflict. Any changes to land use will result in cascading impacts through ecosystems, and decisions about land-use need to be informed by data to show that benefits will exceed the disbenefits. Our unique, long-term, large-scale grazing experiment at Glen Finglas provides some key pieces of the evidence on the ecological trade-offs that occur when management is changed.

Five SEFARI Research Farms - take a tour from your sofa

Across the globe the COVID-19 pandemic has changed how people work, communicate, socialise and learn. As an active person who is always out and about doing things, I personally have found this a great challenge. I am missing the simple things in life that I have always taken for granted. Popping into my mum’s for a tea and a chat, meeting friends for coffee (or wine!), or finding a new hill to climb. During the week I am now confined to a little desk in the corner of my kitchen, it is a nice kitchen, but that desk is become tiresome.

Arable Scotland 2021

Arable Scotland 2021: expertise and knowledge for the arable industry

NEW DATE: TUESDAY 29 JUNE 2021, 10:00 AM BST

Scotland's newest arable event is taking place online, with webinars, live Q&As and a virtual site to tour.

Keep up to date with developments at: Arable Scotland.

SEFARI is an event supporter and sponsor.

Sorry, this event has already happened. Have a look at our upcoming events.

Protecting water catchments from zoonotic Cryptosporidium parasites

The Cryptosporidium oocysts have a tough outer waxy shell, composed of lipids and glycoproteins that enables the parasite to survive in the environment over a wide temperature range (-220C -600C) for several months. As a result, Cryptosporidium parasites are a real problem for the water industry as the parasite survives extremely well in water and is resistant to chlorination.

A sustainable future for Scottish barley

James Hutton Institute researchers produced a podcast summarising the key messages from an event (held in February 2020) funded by SEFARI and SSCR where stakeholders in the barley industry were invited to learn about and discuss barley research. The aim was to understand the main issues that industry stakeholders face, particularly in terms of priorities for future sustainability of the industry, and to explore how barley research can address these needs.

SEFARI Gateway Update - January 2021

Before we discuss our new projects we must express our delight that in November one of the first projects we funded, namely ‘Conserving Genetic Diversity’, won the Innovation category at the Nature of Scotland Awards. This multi collaborative project established a world-first method to help understand and conserve genetic diversity in some of Scotland's most iconic wild species. Congratulations to all.