Farm Resilience Programme Launch in Cairngorms and Lanarkshire

Livestock farmers in Lanarkshire and the Cairngorms will have the opportunity to benefit from free business support via The Royal Countryside Fund’s (RCF) Farm Resilience Programme which gets underway again this autumn.

The RCF will again be working in partnership with RSABI to deliver the 2024/25 series of workshops, providing around £2000 worth of free business training skills, and one-to-one support to each farming family involved.

Livestock producers in both areas can register now to take part in the programme which is open to dairy and livestock family farm businesses and crofters and takes a whole-farm and whole-family approach.

A free online information event for farmers and crofters interested in taking part will take place on September 23 at 7.30pm and those interested is asked to sign up via EventBrite or visit www.rsabi.org.uk for more information.

Since 2016 the Farm Resilience Programme has supported over 1500 farming families to improve their business performance and make real changes on farm.

Those who take part will gain insight into their own businesses and benefit from a wide range of expert consultants, brought in to deliver the workshops. The value of the programme was again emphasised by positive feedback from last year’s participants.

As part of the partnership agreement, the RCF is awarding a £15,000 grant to RSABI to assist the work the charity does to support people in Scottish agriculture.

Keith Halstead, Executive Director of The Royal Countryside Fund, said: 

“The RCF is pleased to be working in partnership with RSABI to deliver the Farm Resilience Programme in Scotland in 2024/25.

“The workshops cover areas such as benchmarking and improving on-farm efficiencies to reduce costs, as well as succession planning, integrating environmental management and business planning.

“The programme has shown to increase the confidence of farming families in their decision-making which enables their farm enterprises to become more adaptable and helps build their resilience to change.”

Carol McLaren, Chief Executive of RSABI, said the charity was looking forward to working with the RCF again this year.

“This free-of-charge programme offers farming families a very valuable opportunity to really focus on their businesses and identify where savings can be made and profitability improved. A wider benefit is that the programme pulls farmers together to benefit from sharing experiences and suggestions.”

Those interested in finding out more about the programme but unable to attend the online meeting, can also contact group coordinators, Doug Bell (Lanarkshire) via crofthill@outlook.com or on 07803 222376 or Kerry MacLennan (Cairngorms) via kerrysdalefarm@gmail.com or 07375428261.

You can also find further information and sign up to the programme on The Royal Countryside Fund’s website: www.royalcountrysidefund.org.uk. 

Pictured: Group coordinators Kerry MacLennan and Doug Bell.