SAOS Conference 2021 "SAOS's A-Z for a Bright Future"

SAOS are embracing embracing technology and running their 2021 Conference event online, which gives a great opportunity to reach out to more of you than ever, and share their work and ideas. If you’ve not made it along in person to their conference before, now is the perfect time, there's no travel required and your ticket is free!

Although 2021 will bring more change and challenges, they’re determined that there is a bright future ahead - in at least 26 ways! You'll also hear from James Withers, CEO of Scotland Food & Drink. SAOS will also be launching their campaign to get rural Scotland better connected.

Once again, they are delighted to have NFU Mutual supporting the event.

As the conference is free this year, they are asking attendees to contribute whatever they can to help the SAOS Team to support RSABI. Throughout January they are ‘virtually walking to Dunblane' from each of their houses - that's 1495 miles in total!

Schedule for the conference 

2.00 The conference venue will be open for browsing, orientation and networking  

2.15 (1)  Welcome – Mark Clark, Chairman, SAOS 

2.20 (2) Stage Intro – Vision – Tim Bailey, CEO, SAOS

• There are many positive drivers for our industry and it’s about capitalising them. 

2.25 (3) Stage Session:   Opportunities – James Withers, CEO, Scotland Food & Drink 

• James will showcase the latest work on profitable and new opportunities in Scotland and beyond for the farming sector and how these contribute to COVID Recovery plans.

• Q&A

2.45pm Expo/Networking 

2.50pm (4) Stage Session: Net Zero and Data – Anna Robertson and George Noble of SAOS 

• How data can help us address Climate Change and the challenges of meeting Net Zero. (And how we defend the role of farming/promote farmers as custodians of the land.) 

• Q&A 

3.10 (5) Session: Connectivity – Bob Yuill, SAOS/ScotEID 

• Bob will outline what our latest research shows, what new solutions are being tested and how we can get traction to get rural Scotland better connected. 

• Q&A

 3.30 Tea break/Expo/Networking – Sponsored by Ledingham Chalmers

3.50 (6) Session: Added value – Claire Dyce and Mark Clark of Grampian Growers 

• Adding value to primary products is a key to unlock new markets and improve farmer profitability. Grampian Growers will outline what they have successfully done and how a similar approach could be adopted by others.

4.05– Expo/Networking 

4.10 (7) Session: Working together – Jim Booth and Alan Stevenson of SAOS 

• Working together more effectively – where’s that got us?  

• We’ll show great,real-life examples of where working together effectively has provided business benefits for our members and in our supply chain work 

• Q&A  

4.30 Expo/networking

4.35 (8) Session: Policy – Tim 

• Supportive policy is the key to all the above. We have no doubt that the future can be bright, but we need to work together, and we need Government support for this. 

4.45 (9) Panel Q&A   - Thanks to Ross ‘Monty’ Montague from Scene and Herd PR for running our Q&A sessions.

5pm – Close  

5-6pm Meet in the ‘virtual bar’ for a catch up - BYO Local tipple or tea.  Networking/expo booths still open until 6pm.