Academic Advisory Panel - climate adaptation for agriculture in scotland : advisory note

Items and actions

Introduction

Developing effective climate adaptation policy requires evidence around the most appropriate and effective on-farm adaptation options. A report has been prepared summarising a set of options that farmers in Scotland could implement to improve the resilience of their farms to the impacts of climate change. Thirty three options, set out in Annex 1 (see below), categorised as arable, livestock, grassland or universal were identified and ranked in order of high to low impact (defined as the extent to which the option improves on-farm climate resilience and produces other on-farm and beyond-farm benefits) and low to high complexity (defined as the extent to which the option may be easy or difficult for farmers to implement).

The Academic Advisory Panel (AAP) was invited to provide their opinion on options most important for climate adaptation in Scotland, ease of their implementation and suitability for different climate change projections, and other options that have not been included in the list of 33. This note summarises the discussion held during the AAP meeting on 2 March 2026 and presents the results of the questionnaire that was used to collect the panel’s views.

Key Summary

Scotland’s agricultural climate adaptation policy should prioritise practical implementation of proven measures while ensuring policies remain robust under uncertain future climate conditions. The most immediate opportunity is to improve uptake of existing best-practice approaches by identifying barriers to adoption and strengthening farmer-led knowledge exchange and practical support.

Adaptation should be delivered through integrated, whole-farm systems. Key priorities include resilient crop varieties and diversified rotations in arable systems, adaptive grazing, disease prevention and precision livestock management in livestock systems, and improved soil monitoring to support locally informed land-management decisions.

Strengthening long-term resilience will also require investment in soil health enhancement and monitoring, improved livestock disease preparedness, diversification of feed sources, and greater integration of trees and landscape features such as shelterbelts and hedgerows. These measures provide multiple benefits, including improved livestock welfare, reduced runoff and erosion, enhanced biodiversity, and greater system stability under more variable weather conditions.

Finally, adaptation policy should adopt a whole-farm perspective that reflects how farms operate within the landscape as integrated systems producing food, energy, and environmental benefits. Joined-up thinking across different policy areas is paramount to align incentives, regulations, and support mechanisms, ensuring that farmers can effectively deliver adaptation, productivity, and environmental outcomes in practice.

AAP recommends to:

•  clarify climate assumptions in policy design. All adaptation measures should explicitly state the climate scenarios they rely on and be tested against a range of plausible future conditions to ensure policies remain robust under uncertainty
• close the adoption gap for existing best practice. Policy should focus on identifying barriers preventing uptake of proven practices and provide practical, accessible support to enable farmers and crofters to implement them
• strengthen farmer-led knowledge exchange and practical demonstration. Farmer-to-farmer learning, supported by case studies, economic evidence, and targeted technical advice, should be prioritised to accelerate the adoption of climate-resilient and regenerative practices
• support resilient crop systems through integrated approaches. Policies should promote diversified crop rotations, resilient crop varieties, building soil organic matter, and soil monitoring as complementary measures, while addressing both technical and supply-chain barriers to adoption
• improve soil monitoring and long-term soil data use. Farmers and crofters should be supported to collect and interpret soil appearance or data using practical field methods, alongside more consistent national soil-testing approaches and voluntary anonymised data-sharing systems
• promote adaptive and precision-based livestock management. Precision livestock farming tools should be integrated with adaptive grazing management, feed efficiency improvements, and water management to strengthen livestock resilience under changing climatic conditions
• enable flexible, place-based approaches to grazing and stocking. Stocking density policies should avoid uniform targets and instead support locally tailored strategies that reflect ecological needs, landscape conditions, and farm economic viability
• strengthen livestock system resilience through preventative health and diversified feed sources. Increased uptake of available vaccines against emerging climate-related diseases and development of alternative feed sources to reduce reliance on imported soya should be supported
• enhance farm-level landscape resilience. Expansion of shelterbelts, hedgerows, buffer strips, and integrated tree cover should be encouraged to provide shelter, improve biodiversity, reduce runoff, and strengthen overall farm resilience
• implement a whole-farm adaptation approach. Align policies across agriculture, energy, and environment to support integrated farm systems, including on-farm renewables, improved nutrient management, and landscape-scale planning

Key discussion points

• assumptions about future climatic conditions in Scotland should be clearly stated when selecting climate adaptation measures. Many proposals assume a warmer climate and changing rainfall distribution, but other outcomes are possible, including cooler weather linked to ocean current changes. Policy design should therefore make its assumptions explicit and ensure measures remain robust across a range of plausible future conditions
• prioritise understanding why established best-practice approaches are not widely adopted. Many options listed in Annex I already reflect existing best practice. Identifying barriers to uptake and determining the most effective forms of support will likely have greater impact than further refinement of individual measures. Future policy should therefore focus on mapping practices to the existing agricultural support mechanisms, diagnosing adoption gaps and enabling practical pathways for farmers to implement proven practices. Cross-policy thinking is also required to ensure coherence between agricultural, environmental, climate, and rural development objectives, and to avoid unintended trade-offs while maximising co-benefits
• policy design must also account for the social and demographic factors influencing adoption. With an ageing farming population and only around half of farmers reporting identified successors, support measures should be tailored to different demographic groups. Policies should also better recognise and enable the contributions of women and young people, who often drive innovation but may be overlooked by narrowly targeted schemes
• climate-adaptation proposals should be grounded in the most robust climate projections while acknowledging remaining uncertainties. These uncertainties should be communicated clearly to ministers without distracting from priority actions or fragmenting research efforts. Analytical models should remain flexible so policies can be adjusted as new evidence emerges
• adoption of climate-resilient and regenerative practices can be strengthened through farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange supported by location specific practical examples and demonstrations, economic evidence, and case studies. Advisory services remain important, but uptake tends to increase when farmers can participate in co-design and innovation. International evidence should also be used more actively, for example by assessing crop varieties and livestock species and breeds already performing well in comparable climates and considering their introduction. Evidence from global research on beef and sheep resilience to heat stress should inform readiness planning. Modelling tools can help identify where changes in livestock production or grazing systems may become necessary, enabling proactive adaptation

Options for:

1. Arable

Top actions identified by the panel are use of more resistant crop varieties, soil monitoring including building soil organic matter, and diversified crop rotations including novel crop introduction.

• adaptation measures should be framed as integrated system-level actions. Crop diversification, alternative cropping, and diversified rotations should be implemented together rather than treated separately. Effective implementation will also require engagement across supply chains, which currently favour familiar high-yield varieties and can slow the uptake of more resilient crops. Policy should therefore support the development and market acceptance of crops and varieties that prioritise resilience as well as productivity
• policy should distinguish between technical barriers and market barriers affecting the adoption of resilient crop varieties. Where technical challenges limit uptake, targeted support and innovation funding should help overcome them in the interests of national food and environmental security. Where barriers arise primarily from market preferences, industry actors should lead the response
• crop development should prioritise resilience across a wide range of environmental and economic conditions, including tolerance to nutrient constraints and other external shocks that affect them. Nutrient-related resilience should therefore be an explicit objective of future measures
• farm-level soil monitoring should be strengthened by supporting farmers and crofters to collect, record, and interpret soil data over time. Practical tools such as Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS) assessments, earthworm counts and colour assessments can help track trends in soil structure, biology, and organic matter respectively. Because soil management is highly site-specific, this approach enables land managers to tailor decisions to local conditions. At the same time, soil-testing schemes should adopt consistent, standardised data collection and enable secure, anonymised data sharing where farmers choose to participate. Together these measures would generate valuable long-term data and improve decision-making at both farm and catchment scales

2. Livestock

Top actions identified by the panel are alternative grazing regimes, adjusting stocking rates, precision livestock farming, and improving feed efficiency and water management.

• alternative grazing regimes should be embedded within broader precision livestock farming systems. Grazing strategies are inherently dynamic because rising temperatures may accelerate parasite and pathogen life cycles and distribution. Integrating grazing management with real-time monitoring tools allows farmers to adjust strategies continually as biological pressures change
• caution is needed before promoting systems such as mob grazing or tall-grass grazing at scale. Evidence for their benefits for carbon, nitrogen, soil structure, and soil biology remains limited and are often derived from environments dissimilar to those in Scotland. Further scientific evaluation is required to assess their suitability under Scottish conditions
• stocking-density measures should avoid blanket prescriptions and instead reflect the diversity of Scottish farming systems. Some landscapes require more grazing to maintain biodiversity or reduce fire risk, while others may require adjustments in livestock type or density. Policy should therefore support locally tailored approaches rather than uniform targets. Economic realities must also be recognised; farmers will continue to prioritise financially viable enterprises, and small policy payments have limited influence when beef and sheep prices are high
• development and adoption of alternative animal-feed sources should be encouraged to reduce reliance on imported soya and strengthen food-system resilience and security. Options such as insect-based proteins and alternative home-grown feed crops could diversify winter feed supplies and reduce exposure to global supply disruptions

Missing options:

• greater uptake of best-practice livestock vaccination should be supported wherever effective vaccines exist. This would be a low complexity, high impact measure. Proactive vaccination will become increasingly important as climate change raises the risk of vector-borne diseases. Current uptake of measures such as vaccination against Bluetongue Virus serotype 3 (BTV-3) remains low in spite of vaccine availability and high risk, indicating the need for improved incentives, guidance, knowledge exchange and raising awareness
• integration of trees across farmland such as shelterbelts, hedgerows, and scattered trees should be encouraged. These features protect livestock and soils from wind and heavy rainfall while improving overall system resilience. However, there may be a research gap regarding potential unintended impacts on livestock health. Some evidence suggests farms near woodland or silvopasture may face higher vector-borne disease risks, and further research is needed to understand these interactions

3. Grassland

Top action identified by the panel is the diversification of pasture composition.

• pasture diversification should be supported through locally tailored mixtures rather than uniform prescriptions. Species performance varies depending on soil health, competition, and grazing systems. Practical on-farm experimentation will help identify mixtures that genuinely improve resilience and productivity under Scottish conditions
• cultivation of marginal land should not proceed without full assessment of climate and environmental impacts. Converting grassland or high-carbon soils to cropland can release substantial greenhouse-gas emissions and create unintended environmental consequences. Any proposals should therefore be evidence-based and carefully evaluated to avoid repeating past land-use mistakes

4. Universal

Top actions identified by the panel are shelterbelts and the introduction of ley pastures into cropping systems / mixing cropping with livestock.

• a nationwide network of buffer strips, shelterbelts, and hedgerows across farmland should be supported. These features deliver multiple environmental benefits, including improved habitat connectivity, reduced runoff, shelter for livestock, and enhanced biodiversity
• shelterbelts also provide a practical entry point for farm tree planting. Farmers who begin with low-risk, clearly beneficial tree-integration measures are more likely to expand tree planting over time. Supporting these early actions can therefore stimulate wider environmental improvements
• on-farm renewable energy and agrivoltaic systems should be considered within agricultural adaptation policy. Farms operate as integrated systems producing food, energy, and habitats simultaneously, and renewable energy can strengthen farm resilience by improving energy security. Policy should therefore adopt a holistic farm-system perspective rather than excluding measures because they fall within another departmental remit
• nutrient-management requirements for slurry and manure application should reflect increasingly wet winters and more intense rainfall. Slurry should not be applied to waterlogged soils due to the risk of soil damage and nutrient runoff. Application should also include assessment of nutrient content and contaminant risks to ensure materials applied to land are environmentally safe. Improved guidance, incentives, and enforcement will be needed to ensure better timing and management of applications and to protect soil and water quality as rainfall patterns become more extreme

Annex 1

The tables below list 33 options categorised as arable, livestock, grassland or universal ranked in order of high to low impact (defined as the extent to which the option improves on-farm climate resilience and produces other on-farm and beyond-farm benefits) and low to high complexity (defined as the extent to which the option may be easy or difficult for farmers to implement).

Arable options:

1. Diversified crop rotations       
2. Alternative tillage techniques 
3. Controlled traffic farming (CTF)
4. Cover crops
5. Crop mixtures through intercropping / polycropping
6. Soil monitoring
7. Alteration of sowing and harvesting dates of crops
8. Crop introductions and diversifications
9. Habitat provision for crop pest predators
10. Use of oils and mulches as pesticide alternatives
11. Crop monitoring tools, technologies and decision support systems
12. Precision chemical weed management
13. Use of more resistant crop varieties
14. Trap crops

Livestock options:

1. Adjusting or reducing stocking rates
2.  Alternative grazing regimes
3. Livestock diversification/mixed livestock
4.  (Re)introduction of 'native' locally adapted grazing livestock
5. Adjusted housing design for livestock
6. Improving feed efficiency and water management strategies for livestock
7.  Precision Livestock Farming (PLF)
8.  Virtual fencing technology
9.  Introducing new livestock
10. Early sheep shearing and monitoring performance using body condition scoring (BCS)

Grassland options:

1. Provision of reserve pastures
2. Diversifying pasture composition
3. Cultivation of invasive plants as alternative protein resources
4. Enhanced production on marginal land

Universal options:

1. Buffer strips
2. Introduction of ley pastures into cropping systems/mixing cropping with livestock
3. Shelterbelts
4. Agrivoltaics
5. Improved field drainage systems