SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½

A pair of nationwide campaigns have put farming in the spotlight today – and SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ staff and students have been at the heart of both.

Farmers Guardian’s #Farm24 has returned for another year – showing a day in the life of British Agriculture.

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

Farm 24 has been complemented this year across the BBC, both locally and nationally, with the corporation’s Farmwatch campaign – and a series of Harper Adams experts have been talking about their research, sharing more about their work at the University, their research - and the many ways in which they are helping to transform the future of farming.

Professor David Rose spoke with the BBC about the important work he has been doing to help ensure farmers can be mentally resilient.

He said: "If you can support farmers and their families and workers with their wellbeing, it puts them in a better position to be able to plan for change - it's really hard to be able to have the head space and sit down and plan to adapt your business if you are struggling with stress or anxiety or depression.

"We try and look for ways that you can provide support to farmers where they are- so any advisor going down the farm track might be Mental Health First Aid trained, so if they encounter a farmer in distress, they know what to do and can support them a bit better.

"We try and work with government to improve access to, and availability of, support for well-being in rural areas."

Another aspect of Professor Rose's work is in helping to ensure that new technologies work for farmers - and he added SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ and Shropshire's role at the cutting edge of agriculture had proved a huge asset.

He said: "We're here surrounded by lots of technology and innovation, and we've had Harper here for 125 years, nearly - I think I think that is a key part of it.

"But then there's other players also here, the Agritech Centre over the road or the entrepreneurs and businesses throughout Shropshire, really, pushing the boundaries in terms of innovation.

"I think that's what we really want to see, but we want to be able to take farmers with us and include farmers in the design of those innovations for the future. Technology is only one part of the solution to all our problems, but I think it could be a keeper - if farmers are given the right support."

Talking about the University's role in helping farmers make this technology work for them, he added: "We have some flexibility here in terms of being able to try out new things - so we can get research funding to try out new technologies, see if they work, see if they don't work, speak to the to the farm manager and the farm workers and gain their experiences - 'Is this worthwhile? Isn't it worthwhile? What tips could you provide to farmers?'

"We can bring other farmers in, agritech industry groups and policy makers aim to say - 'We've tried this, it worked, that could be rolled out more widely. We've tried this, maybe didn't work so well - so maybe move away from that.

"I think that's the key thing, to foster that peer-to-peer and research-led learning with the farmers who have always been a key part of the university."

Meanwhile, Dr Holly Vickery spoke with the BBC's interviewers about her research into new wearable technologies for dairy goats - and about some of the unexpected problems which this had thrown up.

The project uses ear tags, which track movements and behaviour through an accelerometer - and provide lots of data about the goats' welfare as a result. It builds upon technology already widely in use in dairy cattle - including the herd on the Harper Adams Future Farm - and aims to apply the same principles to goats.

Dr Vickery said: "With the really clever tech people, that I stay away from and get them to do the work for me, what they are doing is looking at how that accelerometer movement data correlates with different behaviours.”

Holly explained how this precision technology is currently being used with the Harper Adams Dairy herd – and how it is boosting welfare.

When the technology is used on goats, she added: “The broad behaviours that we are looking at are pretty much the same.

“We are working with dairy goats at the minute, so we are interested in things like lying time, rumination, eating behaviours, activity – but we’re finding some differences with the goats – which is what I expected, the goats still throw something up.

“At the minute, I’ve got my tech team and they are working really hard on figuring out why the tags keep resetting – which we actually think is because they might be headbutting each other!

“This is causing an impact with the tags resetting, which is draining the battery – so it has thrown up some new issues we didn’t know about!”

Finally, Harper Adams Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Lee spoke with Radio Shropshire about the changing face of farming and agriculture m- and how the University was helping keep food and farming at the cutting edge.

He said: “As a distinctive and specialist University, we really pride ourselves on our work with industry to provide those solutions and it is a changing sector, it’s an exciting, sexy sector.

“We here to really debunk and demystify some of the myths around food production – it is the most technological, advancing sector, and it is the most data-rich sector in terms of delivering these solutions – and it is the biggest challenge which is facing humankind on planet earth: how do we feed a growing population and protect the planet?

“That is the most challenging and important question that we have ever been posed, and here at Harper Adams, we are delivering the skillsets for our young graduates to deliver the future of an agri-food sector that delivers high-quality nutrition while protecting the environment.”

He discussed how farming could change in the coming decades, as climate change began to affect the industry, and how regenerative agriculture would play a growing role in the future.

Turning to the future of the industry itself – and the work Harper Adams is doing to increase awareness of agriculture among young people – he added: “We did some work within our School of Sustainable Food and Farming, speaking to children in cities – this was actually in London.

“We asked the question: ‘how many of you considered a life, or a job, in agri-food?’ – and I think only one person out of 200 children put their hands up.

“We then took them on a course, here at Harper Adams, showed them actually what it meant to be in the agri-food sector, the type of technologies […] and the opportunities and realisation of what can be achieved – and after that discussion, 64 per cent said that they would consider a job in agri-food.

“So it is about education, it is about talking to schoolchildren to understand what agriculture is – and be proud, an spend time on Open Farm Sundays going to see different production systems, coming to Harper Adams and seeing what we do and understanding it – and asking a question: ‘Actually, could agri-food be my career, because I really want to make a difference?'”