Search

The Scottish Government has set ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Scottish agriculture; in 2018 these emissions represented 16% of the nation’s total. As part of a commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2045, the Climate Change Plan update requires the equivalent of a 31% reduction in agricultural emissions by 2032 from 2018 levels. However, between 1990 and 2019 Scottish agriculture’s emissions decreased by only 13%. Various options have been proposed for reducing GHG emissions in Scottish agriculture. The sector is characterised by a large array of farming systems; it is not yet clear how emissions are distributed within the farm population, for example, across different types of livestock and arable farms. We need a better understanding of how GHG emissions vary across farms to help us understand the scope for emission reductions and the potential impacts on farm incomes. Generating metrics can support our understanding by providing baselines and accommodating wider goals for future Scottish agricultural policy development, monitoring and evaluation. This report explores how data on emissions and nitrogen from the Scottish Farm Business Survey, using Agrecalc, can be used to help design policies aimed at reducing emissions in a sustainable way. Agrecalc is a farm carbon calculator developed by SRUC and used widely within Scotland.

This deliverable D7.6 of the LIFT project is the final scientific deliverable of the project that was carried out during four years from May 2018 till April 2022. The deliverable summarises the methodologies used and the key results for the main research activities that were carried out in LIFT: definition of ecological agriculture; adoption of ecological approaches; farm performance of ecological agriculture; territorial sustainability of ecological agriculture; trade-offs and synergies across sustainability dimensions and scales; impact of policies; role of stakeholders. Recommendations in terms of policies, data and research needs, are then provided.

In light of the ambitions of the European Union (EU) to achieve an ecological transition of its agricultural sector it is crucial to assess and continuously monitor (i) the uptake of main ecological approaches by farms and (ii) associated effects on farm performance, considering all sustainability dimensions (economic, environmental, social) jointly. Given these needs, in the present deliverable D5.1 of the LIFT project, we develop a novel indicator system, which combines the LIFT farm typology and farm performance data, covering all sustainability dimensions. The approach compares performance of farms in five ecological groups (referred to as ecological farming approaches or ecological farming systems) from the LIFT farm typology (Conservation Agriculture, Low-Input farming, Integrated/Circular farming, Organic farming, Agroecology) as well as possible combinations of these groups with a less ecological group, referred to as Standard farming. This allows us to depict whether ecological farms perform differently or have different trade-offs and synergies than standard farms. Based on this system, we carry out a farm sustainability performance assessment with the two main data sources in the LIFT project, namely Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) data and data from the LIFT large-scale farmer survey, covering main farm types present in the European Union (EU) in several case study regions/countries. Additionally, we present in-depth analyses of further specific aspects, namely (i) the extension of the developed indicator framework to bio-economic models, (ii) the integration of the consumption and provision of ecosystem services into the developed indicator system through composite agri-environmental performance (AEP) indicators, derived from the body of secondary literature and region-specific stakeholder input, and (iii) working conditions and employment on farms in the context of an ecological transition. Overall, our results show the importance of considering trade-offs and synergies both within and between farm sustainability dimensions, in the assessment of farm level sustainability performance of ecological farming approaches. Our results also highlight that in many cases the effects of an increasing uptake of ecological approaches are heterogenous and need to be investigated further. We clearly point out the assumptions associated with our approach as well as its limitations. Given these limitations, the LIFT farm sustainability performance assessment developed here is nevertheless well suited for large-scale and long-term monitoring. This is based on readily available FADN data and, in the near future, could be based on Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN) data, providing an in-depth exploratory view for policy makers and researchers regarding farm level sustainability performance of ecological approaches in the EU farming sector. We outline several possible avenues for further research, namely (i) the inclusion of other data sources, (ii) the usage of econometric methods to facilitate causal inference, (iii) the broader usage of the developed composite AEP indicators, and (iv) further in-depth studies regarding the social sustainability dimension. Finally, in terms of policy recommendations we point out the importance of (i) flexible policy measures, able to properly address region-specific needs of farms, (ii) sound data as a basis for evidence-based policy, and (iii) investigating the ecological transition of the EU farming sector in more detail also at regional level, e.g. via living labs.

Additional file 1. Table A1. Calibrated elasticities - Group rural. Table A2. Calibrated elasticities - Group urban-lower quintiles. Table A3. Calibrated elasticities - Group urban-upper quintiles. Table A4. Food composition (based on 100 grams).

Early adoption of ecological management practices by farmers is a potential route to achieving sustainable and greener goals for agriculture. This briefing note outlines an economic assessment of four different ecological practiceson Scottish livestock farms. The ecological practices used are; ecological area, reducing farm inputs, organic adoption and agro-forestry. The results suggest that ecological area and reduced farm inputs have potential financial benefits on farms and can be easily adopted by farmers. The organic and agro-forestry systems, however, require capital investment to establish and hence provide a challenging prospect of adoption without a provision of financial support

Addressing both climate and biodiversity emergencies requires support for transitions to more ecological and climate friendly farming practices. Key to this will be the practices already adopted by Scottish farmers but also the incentives we offer to support change in our current farming practice. Key to this will be the underlying attitudes and perspective of farmers towards adopting ecological approaches. This briefing note outlines the results of a survey of Scottish farmers on their attitudes and perspectives towards ecological practices. It is part of the EU funded LIFT project looking at farming across Europe. We compare Scottish farmer perceptions to those of counterpart farmers in mainland Europe. This allows us to identify whether there are stronger or weaker levels of agreement towards these statements and whether they are significantly different from a mainland European perspective. We find that Scottish farmers have higher levels of agreement in a number of areas towards positive external influence, namely supply chain acceptability of ecological approaches and social acceptance of ecological approaches. Conversely, we find lower levels of agreement to more internal influences such as farmer outlooks towards ecological approaches and some farming goals. This suggests they identify less as an ecological farmer compared to those on mainland Europe. Nevertheless, agreement is still high with Scottish farmers towards some of these statements. Overall, the surveyed Scottish farmer perspectives are positive towards ecological approaches, when compared against other European farmers. Raising favourable outlook outlooks towards these practices may be enabled by a policy direction which embeds these approaches within a replacement to the CAP as a means to promote more mainstreaming of practices.

This plan formalises specific operations (meetings and agendas), at Work Package (WP) and sub-WP level for the following 12 months. The output will be formalised via the private workspace, and associated project management software. The plan will identify and facilitate the necessary Coordination to help ensure the timely delivery and success of linked project activities and meetings or workshops. This plan will also help inform the framework of the Data Management Plan.&nbsp

The series of decision models produced in this Deliverable (D8.2) will be integrated into a model for the assessment of overall sustainability of legume systems, with respect to the identification of key legume-based system indicators for the three pillars of sustainability. The decision model will be then used for evaluation of the relative sustainability of transition pathways to more effective scenarios.&nbsp