We provide here access to briefing notes and technical reports created by the project; where they are not a project Deliverable. Some of these have been generated through collaboration across multiple projects rather than being wholly attributable to this one.
Large Scale Modelling: The Rippling Effects of Interrupted Imports on Scottish Farming. By BJJ McCormick, L Giuliani, N Roxburgh, J Macdiarmid & G Polhill. April 2025.
We have found that interruption to the supply of wholly, or mostly imported agricultural inputs would have negative rippling effects across the whole farming system. Creating a network of inputs to and outputs from different farm activities allows us to see how interconnected they are, and how sensitive they are to changes in the availability of resources.
Large Scale Modelling: Farm Activities in Scotland. By B. J. J. McCormick, L. Giuliani, N. Roxburgh, J. Macdiarmid and G. Polhill. November 2024.
Using the SRUC Farm Management Handbook, we describe Scottish farming as a network of resources and farm enterprises, with resources move between enterprises as inputs and outputs. The network is fragile to the removal of resources, but some resources, such a labour and land, are more important as they are shared between more enterprises. The farming system constrains changes between enterprise. Changing from one business enterprise to another is likely to be easier the more shared resources there are between them.
Large Scale Modelling: Government Influence On The Rural Social-environmental System. By B. J. J. McCormick, N. Roxburgh, J. Macdiarmid and G. Polhill. November 2024.
Briefly describes the model we are building of the Scottish farming system and the objectives of the work. November 2024.
Assessing the socio-economic impacts of soil degradation on Scotland's water environment. By N Baggaley, F Fraser, P Hallett, A Lilly, M Jabloun, K Loades, T Parker, M Rivington, A Sharififar, Z Zhang & M Roberts. June 2024.
Scotland’s various policies to protect its soils from degradation create economic benefits. Compacted soils can cost farmers £15 to £209 per ha in extra fuel use. The annual combined impact on crop yields and fuel use across Scotland is likely to cost between £25 million and £75 million. The compaction of soils and sealing by infrastructure could lead to a 1% increase in flooding, with insurance claims of between £57,000 and £76,000 per property flood event.