Scottish agriculture needs to adapt and manage the risks associated with climate change and to make its contribution to mitigation in a range of ways. Our research programmes address several of these policy issues raised in the following:

• Changing Our Ways: Scotland’s Climate Change Programme (Scottish Government, 2006)
• Climate Change and Scottish Agriculture: Report and Recommendations of the Agriculture and Climate Change Stakeholder Group (ACCSG) (Scottish Government, 2008)
• A Forward Strategy for Scottish Agriculture: Next steps (Scottish Government, 2006).

These acknowledge the contribution that Scottish agriculture makes to changing the world’s climate and identifies the main challenges facing Scottish agriculture as flooding and drought, pests and diseases, and changes in natural habitats and wildlife.

SCRI’s expertise in arable soils will contribute to the development of the Scottish Soil Strategy that will provide a framework for soil and wider environmental protection. However, environmental change also includes biogeochemical (including plant nutrients and wastes), water, soils, and biodiversity changes induced by human activities which are the subject of multiple policy directives and objectives.

Substantial elements of SCRI’s current research activity are directed towards these multiple policy objectives, recognising that trade-offs are necessary to achieve the range of goods and services demanded of Scotland’s rural landscape.

The opportunities to reduce gaseous emissions through better fertiliser management, conserve organic matter in soils, and enhance the soil as a sink for carbon are outlined in Changing Our Ways: Scotland’s Climate Change Programme and the Climate Change and Scottish Agriculture: Report and Recommendations of the Agriculture and Climate Change Stakeholder Group (ACCSG) where the need for ongoing research is clearly reinforced.