Research brings latest tech into sheep farming
Scottish scientists will head up a new £5 million international research initiative which aims to revolutionise the use of precision technology in sheep and goat farming.
The project, which will utilise wearable sensors and virtual fencing, will be led by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), and will focus on improving management of welfare as well as performance of stock.
The four-year project, which involves nine nations and has received European funding, will assess the usefulness of different precision livestock farming (PLF) approaches for the 98 million sheep and goats in Europe.
The high-tech equipment will be tested on demonstration farms in Scotland – including SRUC’S Hill and Mountain Research Centre near Loch Lomond – and in other partner countries before being deployed on commercial farms, with the ultimate aim of developing welfare alerting systems which would be of practical use to sheep and goat farmers around the world.
The researchers said that as well as animal welfare experts an deco nomists from SRUC, farmers, haul age companies and abattoirs – along with consumers and welfare organisations – would all be involved at the early stages to give practical ideas and advice.
Project leader Dr Claire Morgan-Davies said: “Many of the c hall enges to the welfare of sheep and goat sin Scotland and Europe – including a lack of sup er vision, pro - vision of feed, risk of pre - dation, and long-distance transport to slaughter– arise from the constraints imposed by the harsh climatic and geographic conditions in which they are often reared.
“How ever, aprecisi on livestock farming approach could help to improve welfare management and so mitigate the impact of these wel - fare risks for the benefit of sheep and goat farmers around the world.”
Meanwhile, the National Sheep Association (NSA) has hit back at claims made in a separate study carried out by the University of Sheffield which claimed that sheep should be replaced by trees in the hills.
The research suggested that farmers would be better removing their sheep and allowing forest to regenerate naturally. However, expressing strong disagreement with the rec - ommendations, NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said there were fundamental flaws in the theory:
“The report assumes all sheep farmers are still receiving the old style of subsidy but the reality is that farmers don’t get subsidies anymore. They were withdrawn over 10 years ago with the transition to the basic payment scheme from previous production support.
He said support was now paid for keeping land in good environmental and agricultural condition, and for doing specific environmental works – the provision of “public goods”.
Stock er added that the research also ignored the need to look at land management on a multi- functional basis, rather than focusing solely on the metric of carbon sequestration:
“I appreciate trees as much as anyone but sheep farming and our grasslands are some of our most benign land uses, with so many positive attributes, and to think that we should create policies to destroy these by creating forests is short sighted in the least.”