Climate change, both projected and realised, impacts on livestock production – and livestock impacts on climate change, both here in Scotland and globally. Changing weather patterns can affect livestock directly, in terms of heat and cold stress, availability of food and water, and dictates what can be raised where and when. Climatic change also affects the prevalence, seasonality and geographic spread of livestock diseases.
Beef production is very important for Scotland's economy (economic output of £851 million in 2017) and for providing the high quality and iconic, ‘Scotch Beef’ brand. Feed for livestock represents 70-80% of the variable costs of beef production and an improvement of feed conversion efficiency is needed to keep the beef industry economically viable.
You may be wondering what we can do to help? Well, at the Centre for Sustainable Cropping (CSC) near Dundee, we’re aiming to develop a cropping system that can produce high quality food, whilst still maintaining a healthy environment. This means using what we understand about ecology to work with the environment to improve the health and physical structure of the soil, minimise the losses of nutrients and chemicals from cultivated fields, and support a rich variety of farmland wildlife.
Leaving the European Union could have major repercussions on a wide range of environmental and land use concerns within Scotland, and across the whole of the UK. Whilst some of these issues may seem complex, it is increasingly recognised that SEFARI contains a wealth of expertise which can contribute to such discussions. Of course our place is not to delve into the politics, but to use our research and expertise to provide an evidence-led platform for discussion.
I am an environmental scientist interested in agricultural land-use chan
Research Interests
Paul is a grassland researcher at SRUC in Future Farming Systems - Dairy Research and Innovation Centre, with research interests in soil structure and compaction, greenhouse gas emissions/atmospheric chemistry from grassland production, and agroecology.
Mark is a plant scientist at the James Hutton Institute in ecological sciences and his current research interests include monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Centre for Sustainable Cropping at Balruddery, Examination of machine learning and datamining techniques for data analyses and examination of nitrogen budgets within crop systems incorporating legumes.
Gemma is a post doctoral scientist at SRUC working on precision livestock farming research activities, as well as supporting the capacity in greenhouse gas emissions from livestock systems.
Bob is head of Carbon Management at SRUC, and a professor in Agriculture and Climate Change, with research that focuses on greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient cycling.