Rural Economy | SEFARI

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Is the demographic tide turning for some Island Communities?

In recent months population trends in remote and Sparsely Populated Areas (SPA) of Scotland have become a political issue, not least due to fears about the likely impact of post-Brexit migration policy. However, this is just a new facet of a longstanding matter of concern which seems to touch a nerve in the national consciousness. Whilst more accessible rural areas have growing populations, the SPA continues to decline, and if recent trends continue, seem to face a bleak future.

Dr Shailesh Shrestha

Shailesh is is an agricultural policy analyst at SRUC. His research interest lies in impact assessment of changes that directly and indirectly affect agricultural farms such as changes in policies, market and climate. He is also keen on looking at the farm’s responses to such changes, and specialises in farm level modelling and farm system analysis.

Shailesh Shrestha

Scotland’s Rural College

Peter Wilson Building, The King's Buildings

West Mains Road

Edinburgh

EH9 3JG

Professor Andrew Barnes

Andrew is team leader in Innovation and Behavioural Change, Professor or Rural Resource Economics, and department head of Rural Economy, Environment and Society at SRUC. His research focuses on capturing the impacts of policy change and farmer behaviour at the farm catchment level. Work has been conducted on a variety of topics within this area, particularly in terms of understanding attitudes, motivations and perceptions of farmers toward environmental issues and uptake of new technologies.

Andrew Barnes

Scotland’s Rural College

Peter Wilson Building, The King's Buildings

West Mains Road

Edinburgh

EH9 3JG

Professor Deborah Roberts

Deb is Director of Science at the James Hutton Institute, and her research experience includes agricultural economics and regional science, with a nuber of inter-related areas. relation to rural and regional development she focuses on understanding how and why rural economies are unique, the key drivers for change, and reasons for regional disparities. Second, in relation to the policy, she has focussed on modelling the economy-wide impacts of changes in farm, forestry and structural policies using social accounting methods and general equilibrium models.

Deborah Roberts

James Hutton Institute

Errol Road

Dundee

Scotland

DD2 5DA

Dr Keith Matthews

Dr Matthews is a senior research scientist with 19 years experience of working in and leading, inter-disciplinary research across social, natural and computational sciences. He is Work Package Coordinator for Rural Industries. His work for SEFARI also includes how rural economies can adapt to external drivers, and the environmental sustainability and circularity of the rural economy.

Keith Matthews

The James Hutton Institute
Craigiebuckler
Aberdeen AB15 8QH
Scotland UK

Common Interest Groups: Helping smaller businesses to succeed through partnership

The food and drink supply chain is dominated by small and micro businesses. In Scotland more than 95% of businesses in the sector employ less than 12 people. Many of these smaller companies have a common desire to grow and succeed but this can be is hampered by their size. They often lack the human, technical and financial resources of larger companies to invest in New Product Development (NPD) or to optimise their market position and business processes.

The Demographic Challenges Facing Scotland's Sparsely Populated Areas

This case study summarises ongoing work exploring how changes in the population of remote and rural areas in Scotland affect the social, economic and ecological resilience of these areas. The Sparsely Populated Areas (SPA) of Scotland have a demographic legacy which, in the absence of intervention, will result in decades of population decline, and shrinkage of its working-age population, on a scale which implies serious challenges for economic development, and consequences for its landscape and ecology which are poorly understood.

How might our farmers adapt to a public money for public goods regime?

There is still a lot of water to flow under the bridge before the scale and shape of future public funding to farmers and other land managers becomes clearer. But with Brexit rapidly approaching – and with each new model of theoretical scenarios suggesting that major changes to current support levels are inevitable – then one major topic of debate revolves around the suggestion that future support for land management will primarily be targeted at the provision of public goods.

The economic cost of animal disease: Winners and losers from Johne’s disease

SEFARI scientists, in collaboration with other research partners, provide evidence which informs the Scottish Government about the economic consequences of animal diseases. Our multi-disciplinary approach uses a mathematical and economic model to explore the winners and losers of Johne’s disease in the Scottish dairy herd. Our results indicate the extent to which both farmers of dairy herds infected with Johne’s and milk consumers, lose out as a result of the disease, while farmers of uninfected herds benefit.

Thomson, S., Et al. (2018) Farm Workers in Scottish Agriculture: Case Studies in the International Seasonal Migrant Labour Market

This report presents key findings from a project which aimed to provide a better understanding of the use of seasonal workers of non-UK origin in Scottish agriculture. Evidence was collected from a range of sources including Scottish Government administrative data, surveys of farmers and seasonal migrant workers, farmer and wider stakeholder interviews, and group interviews with seasonal migrant workers.

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