Davy McCracken
Davy McCracken joined SRUC 27 years ago and has been Head of SRUC’s Hill & Mountain Research Centre, at Kirkton & Auchtertyre farms near Crianlarich, for nine years and Head of SRUC’s wider Integrated Land Management Department for four years. Davy studies farming and wildlife interactions and has been working on agricultural and agri-environmental policy at a national and international level for over 30 years. He was one of the founders of the High Nature Value farming concept and much of his own research over the years has been into the challenges and opportunities facing High Nature Value farming systems across Europe. The farms at Crianlarich are a Linking Environment & Farming (LEAF) Innovation Centre and a member of the Global Farm Platform initiative, and consequently the research and demonstration activities of the Centre focus on how precision livestock farming approaches and associated technologies can be used to address agricultural and environmental challenges in the uplands. Achieving Net-Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 will be a major challenge for upland land managers over the coming years. This will not only require greater emphasis on applying nutrients more effectively to inbye grasslands and tracking and monitoring livestock performance, location and health but will also require managing Scotland’s uplands in ways that mitigate or prevent flooding further downstream in water catchments. This will require land managers to have access to real-time data to aid management decision-making. Given that much of Scotland is remote and challenging topographically, the use of sensors together with improved connectivity and processing power to collect, transmit and process such data will be essential. SRUC established the first remote, upland IoT (Internet of Things) low-power wide area radio network in the UK on the farms four years ago and is deploying sensors and associated technologies to assess and demonstrate the benefits to be gained from having access to such otherwise difficult to collect data streams. More information on the work at the farms is available here.
Semi Hakim
Nigel Edwards
Marc Cooper
Alireza Ehsani
Richard Griffiths
Richard Griffiths has been with the British Poultry Council for over fourteen years, first as Policy Director and latterly as Chief Executive. In that time, he has covered welfare, campylobacter, antibiotics, meat inspection, avian influenza, and is responsible for raising the profile of the UK poultry meat sector. Leaving the EU has introduced new challenges in the form of the cost of trade and access to labour.
Richard has a background in mining engineering and began his working life with British Coal in underground mines, and then spent eight years with the Quarry Products Association before moving to the poultry sector.
Patrick Holden
Patrick Holden is the founder and chief executive of the Sustainable Food Trust. Prior to this he was director of the Soil Association (until 2010). His farming experience spans nearly 50 years - Holden Farm Dairy, now the longest established organic dairy farm in West Wales, where he produces Hafod cheese from the milk of his 80 Ayrshire cows.
Katinka de Balogh
Katinka de Balogh graduate as veterinarian from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Germany and holds a doctorate in tropical parasitology and specializations in tropical animal production and health and veterinary public health. She worked as District Veterinary Officer in rural Zambia and held positions at the WHO and at veterinary faculties in Zambia, Mozambique and the Netherlands. Since 2002, she works for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and presently at the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific as Senior Animal Health and Production Officer, secretary of the FAO Animal Production and Health Commission for Asia and the Pacific and focal point for antimicrobial resistance and FAO/OIE/WHO Tripartite collaboration in the region.
Ian McConnel
