Scottish grants awarded to help tackle climate change

The Scottish government has allocated more than £170,000 of funding for projects to help mitigate climate change in agriculture and food production.

The chosen projects are focused on resource efficiency, cutting emissions, environmental performance and farm sustainability, and have been selected as part of the latest round of the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF).

See also: Ag training fund expanded for Scots women and teenagers

Rural affairs secretary Mairi Gougeon said: “It is clear that we all need to work together to reach our climate goals.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how the successful projects will help us do that. That’s why investing and supporting knowledge transfer and innovation within our agricultural sector has never been more important.”

The new projects

There are five new projects that will receive government cash, allocated from the rural budget:

• £19,000 has been made available to an agroforestry project led by Soil Association Scotland, to provide farmers, crofters and land managers with resources and information on the opportunities for agroforestry in Scotland
• £70,000 for a soil health project led by farmer-owned livestock co-operative Farm Stock Scotland to investigate how Scottish agriculture can improve efficiency through better management of soil health
• £4,374 for a project to create a video series of farmer case studies to show how the industry is reducing its emissions. Composting company Forth Resource Management will facilitate the project
• £43,575 to food policy charity Nourish Scotland, to widen understanding of agroecology by linking farmers and crofters across Scotland who are using sustainable practices
• £35,100 for a carbon audit project run by Wholesome Pigs Scotland, researching measurement tools, to minimise the work involved on farm to complete carbon audits.

For this last project, at least three different pig farm carbon calculators will be tested, to provide the project team with an understanding of the specific data input requirements for each calculator.

The experience of farms that have undertaken a carbon audit within the past 12 months will also be drawn upon.

Fifteen farms will provide the data, and carbon footprints will then be produced using the database to test the system, covering a cross-section of unit size, geography and production system.