Agriculture, Biodiversity and Climate Change Network brings farmers together for the climate

A new Agriculture, Biodiversity and Climate Change Network (ABCCN) to help Scottish farmers and crofters share climate mitigation best practice has been launched.

The joint initiative between the Scottish government and industry will be hosted on the Scottish government’s Farming for a Better Climate website and enable those in the Scottish farming community to share information in the form of pictures, videos and more that document how they have addressed the myriad of challenges presented by climate change.

Launching the peer-to-peer network Rural Affairs secretary, Mairi Gougeon, said: “We know there are farmers and crofters who are already doing some fantastic work to help reach these goals.

“We wanted to create something that would allow them to share their work so that others can take action to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as increasing biodiversity.”

Describing the potential impact of the network once it is fully operational Gougeon continued:

“This will allow us to get advice and support from farmers and crofters in every area of Scotland and help inspire others to take action now.”

Organisations involved in the network include farming union NFU Scotland, SAC Consulting – a business advisory service supporting and advising land-based businesses in the rural economy –, organic farming body Soil Association Scotland and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), which promotes the red meat sector.

Soil Association Scotland’s senior farming programmes manager Colleen McCulloch added: “We are delighted to be part of this new network, and to be able to showcase the crucial role farmers and crofters can play to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and increase biodiversity.

"We believe that sharing the brilliant work being developed on the ground by these fantastic innovators across Scotland will inspire others, providing ideas and starting points to adopt new practices, and be a key part of driving a climate and nature-positive revolution.”

A study conducted by the Met Office earlier this year examining climate change and its impact on the UK dairy and potato farming sectors over the next thirty to fifty years, made a number of dire predictions. This includes forecasts that heat stress in dairy cattle is set to see a significant increase in key dairy regions of the UK over the aformentioned period.

Explaining further study author Dr Freya Garry said: “Projections show potential for major climate change impacts on UK farming. Our study found that future dairy cattle in parts of the South East may be exposed to heat stress for an extra two months per year. At the moment, cattle in the South East experience around a week per year of these stressful conditions.”

The paper Future climate risk to UK agriculture from compound events also outlined that late blight (a disease affecting potato crops which occurs in warm, humid weather) is likely to occur more frequently across the UK, with the sharpest increases in western and northern regions.

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