learning exchanges Leading

Knowledge Exchange is a major focus of my teams work at SRUC’s Kirkton & Auchtertyre upland research and demonstration farms, near Crianlarich. And it has been great to get back to holding in-person meetings over the last 12 months.

Student engagement is especially important to us. Earlier this year we were delighted to host visits by two groups of students to the farms.

The first was a group of final year agriculture students from Harper Adams University who undertake a tour of Scotland every February. On their one-day visit to us we highlighted how technology and sensors can also be used in remote, upland situations to monitor livestock health and welfare.

The second group were students from the wildlife and conservation management Master of Science programme that my SRUC colleagues deliver for the University of Glasgow. These students undertake most of their studies by distance-learning but spend three days with us each March to see, discuss and learn from our experience of integrating biodiversity into hill farming systems.

In December 2022, colleagues from Scotland’s Farm Advisory Service (FAS) filmed a piece for FAS TV on the range of biodiversity research we are conducting on the farms and why it is of relevance to the development of Scotland’s new programme of agricultural support.

In January this year, Ewen Campbell, our farm manager, and myself were interviewed for a piece on BBC Alba’s An La evening news programme.

This highlighted how our research has developed over the past 10 years and why the use of technology will continue to be a major focus for us in the future.

Our research also has international relevance. For example, in November 2022, Claire Morgan-Davies and Ann McLaren took a small group of UK sheep farmers to an international workshop in Turkey, involving several farm visits. This was organised as part of the EuroSheep project, which focuses on exchanging knowledge between farmers on best practice approaches to improve flock health and nutrition and hence farm profitability.

And this January, Claire and Ann attended a workshop in New Zealand as part of the EU-funded Sm@RT project, which aims to increase uptake and awareness of new technology in European sheep and goat systems.

They spent five days of their tour on the South Island visiting research centres and technology providers in Dunedin and Lincoln, discussing the main technological challenges and solutions facing extensive sheep systems.

In early February, we welcomed a group of progressive hill, upland and lowland sheep farmers from Northern Ireland to the farms. They are looking to improve the efficiency and profitability of their own systems through the Northern Ireland Sheep Programme, and were particularly keen to quiz us over what we are doing and why?

Looking ahead, a group of farmers from the Dartmoor Hill Farm project will spend a full day with us in late May and we have suggested other farms they could visit on their three-day fact-finding tour of Scotland.

I have learned over the years not to assume that someone looking at the same farm, or discussing the same issue, will see or perceive things exactly as you do.

Get in touch

davy.mccracken@sruc.ac.uk