Farmers will use digital tools to aid business

Bid to ‘meet challenge of becoming more productive and profitable’

Newport-on-Tay farmers Russell and Hilary Brown have been selected to join a new digital farm project to explore how capturing data via low-cost sensors might help them make better business decisions.

The Browns’ Inverdovat Farm, an intensive arable enterprise focusing on cereals and potatoes, is one of three units recruited to the one-year project.

The other focus farmers are Neil and Debbie McGowan, Incheoch Farm in Alyth, who keep suckler cows and breeding ewes, and Peter and Elaine Robertson, Ednie Farm, St Fergus, whose mixed farming operation includes a large area of woodland, mixed habitats and a major renewable energy business.

The three units will be used to look at how low-cost sensor technologies can be applied across different farm types. Run by co-operative organisation SAOS, the objective of the project is to assess how capturing data can help farmers to improve business decision making while also providing solutions to typical on-farm challenges, such as health and safety and the management of the natural environment.

“Farmers are facing a future in which agricultural subsidies are likely to decrease and for there to be a greater emphasis on rewarding practices that protect and enhance the natural environment,” said Jim Booth, project

“Farmers are facing a future in which agricultural subsidies are likely to decrease. JIM BOOTH

lead and head of Co-op Development at SAOS.

“Parallel to this is a growing interest, at a consumer level, in knowing that the food they consume is of high quality, known provenance and has been produced in a manner that is respectful of the environment. It is imperative that Scottish farmers avail themselves of new technologies that allow them to meet the challenge of becoming more productive and profitable, while at the same time preserving and enhancing Scotland’s natural capital.”

Project partner SmartRural has installed LoRaWAN networks on the three farms, with a bespoke package of sensors to capture a wide range of data representing the starting point.