Over £340,000 is to be spent through the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF) to drive forward innovation in farming and food production. The Scottish Government’s spending plans are aimed at helping businesses shift to a low carbon climate-resistant economy.

Newly approved projects

Pleurisy Reduction in Scottish Pigs - Wholesome Pigs - £47,300

This project aims to better understand the environmental, health and management conditions that affect the incidence and severity of pleurisy, and to share experiences with the entire Scottish pig sector.

It will include investigations and interventions to improve environment and health on 12 farms and disseminate the resulting information through meetings, written material and three video case studies.

Grass Roots – SRUC - £53,073

The aim of this project is to deploy novel participatory and crowdsourcing methods to close the gap described by farmers between them and grass breeders. They hope this will better inform and drive innovation in the variety and seed mixes sector, and in the management systems the farmers deploy. The project expects to target 2,000 farmers and link them in a virtual group so that peer-to-peer experiences can be shared, and data on preferences and performance gathered.

Scottish Organic CANola – SRUC - £29,982

A group which is developing a reliable system of organic canola production in Scotland to fulfil an as-yet untapped market. It wishes to demonstrate the viability of growing organic canola under Scottish conditions in order to open up a new potentially lucrative source of income and provide alternative, locally produced livestock feed or supplement, as well as the potential for supplying human markets.

Digital Farms – Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS) - £54,675

This project uses a form of low power, wireless communication to allow whole farms to be digitally connected. This offers a simple, low-cost way for farmers to collect data. SmartRural, SNH and RSABI are also involved.

The project aims to equip farmers with the data and insights required to tackle the key challenges the industry faces, issues such as: improving productivity, inefficiency and waste, improving environmental management, dealing with a shrinking labour force and extreme weather events, meeting climate change targets, and the lack of profitability.

Scotch Beef Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) Traceability and Performance – Quality Meat Scotland - £94,800

This project is designed to prove several concepts around the use of DNA analysis for meat traceability and integrity and cattle performance development. The potential footprint of this project is around 12,000 cattle holdings in Scotland. The wide reach of this project offers to deliver value for money, potential return on investment and securing the confidence of the consumer and the farmer by providing full DNA traceability to the Scotch beef brand.

Keeping Cow with Calf – SRUC - £60,412

At Rainton Farm in Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway, dairy cows and their calves are kept together for five months (cow with calf system).

Standard modern dairy farm practice involves separating the cow and calf within 24 hours of birth.

The project aims to use “ethical dairy” as a model to characterise the cow with calf system and on-farm rearing. Its purpose is to improve environmental and social aspects of farming.

Ethical dairy would be used as a model with the intention of extending this to innovative farmers, making Scotland a leader in ethical dairy farming.