A project which aims to keep calves with their mothers for longer has been awarded over £60,000 to make Scotland a leader in high animal-welfare dairy.
Farmers David and Wilma Finlay have ambitions to turn the high welfare dairy system into a successful, commercial operation.
At Rainton Farm, in Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway, dairy cows and their calves are kept together for five months.
Standard modern practices involve separating the cow and calf within 24 hours of birth.
But the Finlays' 'cow with calf' project aims to use the 'ethical dairy' as a model to characterise the cow with calf system and on-farm rearing.
The project's overall purpose is to improve environmental and social aspects of farming.
Their farm will now be used as a model with the intention of extending this to farmers wishing to make Scotland a leader in ethical dairying.
The Finlays have been awarded through the Scottish government's Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF).
Colleen McCulloch of Soil Association Scotland helped set up the Rural Innovation Support Service (RISS) group that brought the project together.
She said: “Keeping calves with their mother has benefits beyond welfare, for example for rose veal and beef supply, as well as grassland management and biodiversity, but is commercially challenging.
“The KTIF funding will allow Dr Marie Haskell of Scotland’s Rural College to run a year’s pilot project to track the progress of the Finlays’ operation and trial it on several other farms, with the aim of establishing a blueprint that could be adopted by any interested farm.”
The KTIF is delivered through the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) 2014-20. The scheme will fund eligible innovation projects under the European Innovation Partnership.
Other newly approved projects
Pleurisy Reduction in Scottish Pigs - Wholesome Pigs - £47,300
This project aims to better understand the environmental, health and management conditions that impact on the incidence and severity of pleurisy, and to share experiences with the entire Scottish pig sector.
It includes investigations and interventions to improve environment and health on 12 farms and disseminate the information through meetings, written material and three video case studies.
Grass Roots – Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) - £53,073.18
The aim of this project is to deploy novel participatory and crowd-sourcing methods to close the gap described by farmers between them and grass breeders.
They hope this will better inform and drive innovation in the variety and seed mixes sector, and in the management systems the farmers deploy.
The project expects to target 2,000 farmers and link them in a virtual group so that peer-to-peer experiences can be shared, data on preferences and performance gathered.
Scottish Organic CANola – SRUC - £29,982.99
A group which is developing a reliable system of organic canola production in Scotland to fulfil an as-yet untapped market.
They wish to demonstrate the viability of growing organic canola under Scottish conditions in order to open up a new potentially lucrative source of income and provide alternative, locally produced livestock feed or feed supplement, as well as the potential for supplying even more valuable human markets.
Digital Farms – Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS) - £54,675
This project uses is using a form of low power, wireless communication to allow whole farms to be digitally connected.
This offers a simple, low cost way for farmers to collect data. SmartRural, SNH and RSABI are also involved.
The project aims to equip farmers with the data and insights required to tackle the key challenges the industry face, issues such as: improving productivity, inefficiency and waste, improving environmental management, dealing with a shrinking labour force and extreme weather events, meeting climate change targets, and the lack of profitability.
Scotch Beef Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) Traceability and Performance – Quality Meat Scotland - £94,800
This project is designed to prove several concepts around the use of DNA analysis for meat traceability and integrity and cattle performance development.
The potential impact of this project is around 12,000 cattle holdings in Scotland. The wide reach of this project offers to deliver value for money, potential return on investment and securing the confidence of the consumer and the farmer by providing full DNA traceability to the Scotch beef brand.
