Farming

SOIL: Knowing what you've got it and making it work for you, Thankerton

A practical informative meeting with James Bretherton, Agscope, looking at the most vital asset on your farm - soil.

Discussing soil analysis, physical soil assessment, what appropriate remedial action to take & answering your soil related questions.

The event includes a Bring Your Own soil & soil analysis hands-on session.

SOIL: Knowing what you've got it and making it work for you, Glenluce

A practical informative meeting with James Bretherton, Agscope, looking at the most vital asset on your farm - soil.

Discussing soil analysis, physical soil assessment, what appropriate remedial action to take & answering your soil related questions.

The event includes a Bring Your Own soil & soil analysis hands-on session.

Booking is required, so lunch and packs can be provided. Booking form here.

The 2016 BBC Food & Farming Awards are now open for entries until 24 January.

BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme is calling on people across the UK to nominate their favourite producers, workplace cooks, local markets and food heroes for the awards.

This year, the nine award categories are:

Presentations from a European Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation systems event are now available online.

The European Commission Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) organised the two-day seminar to promote understanding of Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) and to highlight practical examples of the changes taking place in approaches to knowledge transfer, learning and innovation in the agricultural, forestry and rural development sectors.

SACCAP Potato Conference

This year's SACCAP Potato Conference runs under the theme the new six Ps: Promote Potatoes with Passion and Produce Potatoes to Perfection.

As usual the event will tackle the most relevant topics facing potato producers today with Scotland’s top experts presenting on a range of areas with a focus on how to promote potatoes to consumers as they face ever expanding choices on the supermarket shelves.

The event will also see the presentation of the prize to the SRUC Elmwood student who has invented the most innovative recipe for potatoes.

Beef Cattle Health and Production

Well known Islay farming family the Archibalds will host a free meeting for beef producers, organised at Craigens, Gruinart by SAC Consulting at 11.00 am on Wednesday 13 January.

The event which is supported by MSD Animal Health, will focus on improving technical efficiency for farmers and crofters with special attention paid to disease control.

SAOS Members' Day and Conference: shaping future agriculture through cooperation

For their 2016 conference, SAOS are continuing with the format of two morning forum workshops. They expect this year’s topics to prove popular as SAOS’ Jim Booth will be joined by Angela Tregear and Sarah Cooper of Edinburgh University Business School to discuss the results of a study of four marketing co-ops and the role co-ops play in supporting KT/learning amongst their members. The other forum, hosted by their next generation team members, with guest speakers, examines why we sometimes criticise, rather than celebrate, business expansion and success, assuming “they just got lucky”.

Over 200 people recently attended events on the new Environmental Co-operation Action Fund in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness.

The Environmental Co-operation Action Fund is a new £10 million scheme which is part of the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP).  The purpose of this new competitive fund is to encourage the development and delivery of landscape scale environmental projects by paying facilitators to initiate and enable co-ordinated environmental actions on multiple land holdings in a project area.

More than 100 young farmers gathered in Dundee recently for the second Scottish Association of Young Farmers' Clubs' Agri and Rural Affairs Conference.

Members from across the country took part in the 'Cultivating Futures' event which explored the theme of opportunties for young people.

What Future for our Farming Systems? Environmental Challenges and Integrated Solutions

Farming systems across Scotland, the UK and Europe can vary markedly from place to place. A range of factors can influence what types of production are practiced in any one place. However, climate and soil type are especially important in dictating the type and intensity of management that is possible.

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