Strategic Programme Workshop on Sustainable Intensification

Scottish Government Pavilion, Royal Highland Show, Ingliston, Edinburgh, 19 June 2014

A strategic approach to delivering novel and more environmentally sustainable food production offers enormous potential to enhance food security.

Scotland is contributing to this globally important issue through world leading research from within its Strategic Research Programme (SRP), delivered through collaboration between the Main Research Providers (the Scottish Research Institutes - Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland, The James Hutton Institute, Moredun Research Institute, Rowett Institute of Nutrition & Health, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Scotland’s Rural College).

The SRP workshop was opened by Professor Iain Gordon as Chair of the MRPs’ Directors Executive Committee. The key note address was delivered by Mr Paul Wheelhouse, Minister for Environment and Climate Change, who then discussed individual research areas with some of the programme’s scientists and delegates.

The workshop highlighted some of the key aspects of the programme’s research for innovation and improved practices relevant to sustainable intensification. Six areas (zones) provide commentaries: innovation in crop and livestock breeding, livestock and crop disease, the mitigation of GHG emissions from agriculture, innovations in soil management, nutrition-sensitive agriculture and approaches to integrate these research areas into a framework in which the best balance of outcomes can be achieved.

For enquiries on the Strategic Programme’s research please contact Lorna Dawson, Environmental Change Programme Advisor lorna.dawson@hutton.ac.uk or Charles S. Bestwick, Food Land & People Programme Advisor c.bestwick@abdn.ac.uk.

For further information download a copy of the Strategic Programme Workshop Posters (pdf, 3MB).

Published on 07 July 2014