| Livestock
Happy 1st Birthday to Monitor Farm Scotland!
Optimising farming systems has emerged as the stand out theme of the first year of the Monitor Farm Scotland
programme.
ach and every one
of the nine farms
in the programme
is working hard to
ensure they have
the right systems
in place for their farm, and are then
reviewing elements with their
farmer business groups to ensure
they are as efficient as possible.
Nine monitor farms have been
established in Scotland last year
as part of a joint initiative by
Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and
AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds with
funding from the Scottish
Government. Monitor farms can be
found in Nithsdale, Scottish
Borders, North Ayrshire, Lothians,
Angus, Lochaber, Morayshire,
Sutherland and Shetland.
“It’s really heartening to see all
our farms are making the most of
this opportunity to ensure their
enterprises are sustainable in the
long-term,” said Gavin Dick, AHDB
Cereals & Oilseeds Knowledge
Exchange Manager.
He added: “Across the entire
programme we are seeing
practices reviewed and tightened
up, both in arable and livestock,
and all the farms have business
groups which are benchmarking
so they can compare both where
they are performing strongly and
also where they might be lagging
behind.”
Many of the farms have focused
on grass management, both in
terms of grass quality and in the
use of rotational grazing for both
cattle and sheep. Sutherland
Monitor Farm is one of the farms
which has tested the nutritional
quality of the grass itself, rather
than focusing solely on the soil.
E
Monitor farmer Victoria
Ballantyne explains: “We are so
reliant on our grass to provide
almost everything our cattle and
sheep need, we run a low input
system with animal performance
coming almost entirely from forage
so we need our grass to be high
quality. Soil testing is important,
but we wanted to better
understand what the animals were
actually eating and how we could
improve it.”
Like grassland, soils have also
been an important element for all
nine farms with many carrying out
work to improve the structure and
nutrients in both pasture and
arable soils, and many trying out
the popular #soilmyundies
experiment, burying cotton
underpants and digging them up
eight weeks later with more the
degraded underpants indicating
healthier soils.
Livestock management has also
featured heavily this year with
many farms assessing diet and
nutrition, handling facilities, health,
weaning and fertility.
The Angus Monitor Farm is
currently considering fairly major
changes to its herd and has been
reviewing its breed, calving
system, selling store or fat and the
benefits of AI versus natural
service.
Monitor Farmer Rob Stodart
says: “I think 2018 will see
changes to how we farm here at
The Mill. We need to ensure we
are working as efficiently as
possible and we’re really open to
new ideas and hearing other
farmers’ experiences to help us
decide the future of the herd.”
With such a plethora of farming
issues up for debate and
discussion it’s no surprise that the
programme has attracted plenty of
local interest; on average there are
53 attendees at each meeting with
some farmers travelling up to two
hours to be there.
QMS Head of Industry
Development Doug Bell says he
believes that programmes like
22 | Farming Monthly | January 2018
these provide vital support to
farmers and growers building
sustainable and productive
businesses.
“Sharing information and best
practice is at the heart of the
programme. There is no doubt
that the most effective knowledge
exchange takes pl