This page can be found at: www.scri.ac.uk
Skip to content¦

Sustainability

Photograph of Cathy HawesSustainability is one of three cross-cutting themes identified as part of The Scottish Government's research strategy. Here Dr Cathy Hawes, SCRI’s sustainability champion, talks about the importance of sustainability and how research at SCRI aims to prepare Scottish agriculture for the future.

 

 

Question: What is sustainability?

Sustainability is difficult to define precisely, but is often seen as the ability of a system to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is the Brundtland definition which highlights three important components of sustainability:

  • environmental sustainability
  • social sustainability
  • economic sustainability.

Most of what SCRI does comes under environmental sustainability but there are many implications for the economic side of things as well. In terms of the environment, sustainability is usually thought of as the ability of a system to maintain ecological processes; for example, plant growth, pollination and decomposition; without needing a lot of inputs from external, artificial sources, for example fertilisers.

So we are looking at new crop varieties and management practices that make better use of resources and are more resistant to pests, pathogens and weed competition. That means the farmer has the opportunity to reduce inputs and is saving money as well as benefiting the environment; so there are economic as well as environmental benefits for growing crops with these characteristics.

This is particularly important for fertilisers because inorganic nitrogen is really expensive to produce and is the main contributor to the carbon footprint of crop production. The more able we are to find crops that can make better use of available nutrients the more benefit farmers can gain in their gross margins and environmental impact.

Question: Why is it important to Scotland’s farmers and agriculture?

Photograph of a hoverfly on a Corn MarigoldAs well as the immediate economic benefits it is also important for farmers to look at longer term benefits. If they are managing their land in a sustainable way that is more ecologically sound then it is more likely to be resilient in the long term to other disturbances, such as climate change.

It is more likely to be able to cope with these sorts of variations but it takes a much longer term view than a lot of people are prepared to take. This long term approach is fine if a farm has been in a family for generations and is being handed down but where farmland is rented, for example, it may be more difficult to take the longer term view. We can perhaps approach that by offering economic incentives for sustainable farming.

Question: What are the potential consequences if agriculture doesn’t become more sustainable?

For a healthy, sustainable arable system we need a diverse range of different types of organisms to maintain basic functions and services including nutrient cycling, pest control and pollination.If we do not do something to improve environmental sustainability we will get degradation of the soil and arable habitats.. Recent biodiversity and resilience studies show carbon content of the soil is much less than we expected. Soil carbon is declining and we need to improve this otherwise it will get to the stage when we can no longer maintain crop yields.

Question: What kind of research is SCRI doing in relation to sustainability?

We are working on projects to improve resource use efficiency, for example nitrogen and phosphate. We are looking at crop varieties that are better able to take up available nutrients in the soil. This will improve sustainability by reducing the need for inputs of non-renewable resources.

We are also working on durable pest and disease resistance which is particularly important as pesticide regulations and restrictions become tighter. The best way to compensate reduced pesticide use is to develop varieties that have natural resistance and to grow those varieties in combination with natural bio control measures, for example wildflower strips on field margins to encourage natural enemies that keep pest populations down.

Photograph of Balruddery FarmThese areas of research are being done as separate small-scale, short term projects that all relate to sustainability. However, at Balruddery Farm (recently acquired by SCRI) we are setting up a long term platform for sustainability research where we can bring all of these different aspects of environmental sustainability together and test to see if they actually work in the longer term at a field scale that is closer to a commercial situation.

This experiment will be a platform where we can test performance of different varieties over the next 20-30 years. We will be able to see patterns straight away but it may take a few rotations before we see some of the trade offs between different parts of the system.

Question: What practical outputs have there been/do we expect from this research?

The next stage is that we need to make recommendations that are actually going to make a difference to farmers. This will be partly about new varieties and partly about methods of management. We will be testing varieties under different management regimes at Balruddery to see what is most effective.

Question: How is SCRI working with the other major research providers on sustainability?

Our work on sustainability is complementary as while we are looking mainly at the environmental aspect of sustainability, the Macaulay and SAC are focusing on the social and economic aspects. We all contribute to each other’s work.

Further reading