Less Favoured Area (LFA) farmers and crofters - sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices: report

Executive Summary

The Scottish Government has commissioned this research to assess the opportunities and motivations for the uptake of specific sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices amongst Less Favoured Area (LFA) farmers and crofters. The research is expected to inform Scottish Government’s design of a new support programme to replace those implemented under the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy.

Four specific groups of practices were identified for assessment:

• Carbon emissions reduction measures (including carbon audits, soil testing, and livestock efficiency measures)
• Peatland restoration
• Tree planting and woodland natural regeneration
• Biodiversity measures (including permanent and temporary management practices)

To date, there has been limited evaluation of the uptake of these practices amongst LFA farmers and crofters. Researchers undertook: a literature review, interviews with 9 key informants and 13 opinion leaders, 3 in situ workshops in different regions of Scotland, and 4 online focus groups, engaging over 120 participants in total.

Main findings and key messages

• Practices associated with grazing management (especially with periods of no/low intensity grazing), water management, and woodland natural regeneration have the potential to deliver multiple outcomes.
• Peatland restoration was the least common activity, due in part to novelty and lack of familiarity with management options.
• Climate change adaptation, the desire to farm and croft differently and to ensure business viability were primary motivators for participants who had taken up these practices.
• Farmers and crofters are more likely to implement specific actions when they can observe the economic and environmental benefits.
• What represents a barrier for some could be an enabler for others.
• security of land tenure
• challenges of implementing changes to common grazing management
• the small scale of holdings
• labour shortages
• capital investment
• market pressures
• access to appropriate advice
• remoteness; distance from processing infrastructure, markets and advice
• environmental conditions
• cultural resistance
• Knowledge of managing native grass species and rotation times is improving and this has benefits for biodiversity and farm economics.
• There is some misalignment in objectives and priorities for regenerative and sustainable agriculture amongst the organisations promoting regenerative and sustainable agriculture, leading to contradictory advice.
• The targeted alignment of agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS, e.g. online learning, advisory services, knowledge exchange) could offset knowledge losses (due to depopulation) if it is tailored to farmers’ and crofters’ needs and requests.
• Participants were keen to point out that indirect supports to enable relocalisation of food systems (e.g. supports for local abattoirs and markets) could help to reduce emissions at regional level and stimulate production diversification.
• Environmental conditions and remoteness were seen as barriers for production. However, for those who overcame these difficulties and managed to establish a viable system, they saw these as strengths, as they had created a production system that was resilient in these conditions.

Preferred Characteristics of Support Schemes in LFA

• LFA areas are diverse. Participants suggested that the potential of these areas for producing under LFA characteristics and delivering outputs beyond production might be more readily realised by refining the current definition of LFA (e.g. into subcategories). In terms of support scheme characteristics, participants preferred approaches which reflect the small-scale and often remote location of LFA holdings:
• Flexible schemes, in terms of duration, activities and timing for implementing activities. Less prescriptive, with more freedom to tailor practices to each holding.
• Schemes tailored to small-scale holdings (e.g. lower acreage thresholds, straightforward applications not requiring payment for professional advice).
• Facilitation of collective applications, particularly in regions where there are numerous small-scale holdings.
• Supports for activities that are beneficial for both food production and biodiversity (e.g. small-scale woodlands for livestock shelter).
• Increased access to training, individual and collective advice and peer-to-peer learning.
• Support for transitioning to lower input farming and crofting e.g. product labelling, short food supply chains, local food networks.

Participants were keen that schemes recognise sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices where these have already been carried out (i.e. not only incentivising new actions of first-time adopters). Focusing rewards on new actions creates an incentive for farmers and crofters to wait for support measures to be in place before taking action. Although additionality is reduced in farms and crofts already implementing practices there is a higher likelihood that they will continue these practices after the end of the support.