Blogs

After 18 months in which the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) – Defra’s flagship mechanism to help farmers deliver the food and nature outcomes on which this nation depends – was closed, farmers had less than six hours to submit their applications for three-year periods of funding before the door was once again slammed shut.

The first ever IGS was held in Inverness in 1978, when the group was originally sponsored by the World Pheasant Association. This this association was eventually transitioned to the Species Survival Commission (SSC) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 1993. It was the second meeting in Norway, with a 36-year gap since the last meeting in 1990.

The Deveron, Bogie & Isla Rivers Charitable Trust and partners are developing a new farmer cluster in the King Edward Burn catchment in north Aberdeenshire near Banff. Following on from a successful farmer cluster workshop held in Turriff in February, the project will bring farmers together to share knowledge, access advice and funding opportunities, and take practical steps to build more resilient and sustainable farms.

Today marks the coming into effect of the new licences to make muirburn on non-peatland and peatland respectively. This means that, as of today, it is illegal to make muirburn in Scotland unless under a valid licence issued by NatureScot.

Our gamebird experts and policy teams are currently pulling together over 25 years of data and peer-reviewed, published evidence on the management of released gamebirds, in preparation for submitting a thorough response to this call for evidence.

The transition to regenerative agriculture is an opportunity for farmers to improve soil health, strengthen resilience and reduce reliance on costly inputs. But what does that transition actually cost, and who should bear the risk?

For 35 years the Allerton Project has been at the forefront of providing the evidence base upon which the modern agri-environmental scheme stands, and we strongly believe that a well-planned and executed scheme returns multiple benefits to the farm business:

Due to this summer’s extreme weather, cereals were harvested three weeks earlier than you would normally expect. This resulted in a yield loss of around 10% to 30% on most crops. 

Over the past two years, the kestrel monitoring project led by Dr Francis Buner set out to improve our understanding of the reasons behind the decline of the species.

As the leading independent, scientific, evidence-based organisation on gamebird management, the GWCT very much looks forward to engaging with Defra over the coming weeks as part of this call for evidence.