Adoption of sustainable and regenerative farming measures in Scotland with a focus on livestock and grassland management

Executive Summary

Scotland’s climate, biodiversity and agricultural goals rely on a shift towards more sustainable farming practices. Ruminant livestock production, being the largest sub-sector of agriculture in Scotland regarding land area, economic impact, and environmental externalities, is in the focus of this change. Through its Agricultural Reform Programme, Scottish Government explores options for supporting the uptake of sustainable and regenerative farming measures. This report, funded by the Scottish Government’s Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture (ENRA) Strategic Research Programme, addresses a crucial need: identifying priority areas for support in enhanced payment schemes for grassland-based systems.

The work considered eleven measures, which can improve the biodiversity outcomes of grassland-based systems and/or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Through a survey of a sample of 2,197 farmers (1,671 complete responses), the study gathered information on three important aspects: current adoption level of measures, perceived fit of the measures for the farm business, and joint adoption intention of the measures under varying levels of payments. Additionally, farmers were also asked about their views on priority areas for improving agri-environmental payment scheme characteristics.

Key findings reveal that farmers both recognise potential value in many measures while perceiving constraints in their implementation. Measures linked closely to core production and soil management show the strongest alignment with farm systems. This includes maintaining optimal soil pH, legume grass mixes, and improved sheep and beef breeding. Extensive species rich grassland, nitrification inhibitors and multi paddock grazing show lower fit to farm businesses, while habitat and biodiversity measures (grass tussocks, flower strips and wader scrapes) are the least widely applicable to farms. A similar difference could be observed between measures regarding current adoption: maintaining optimal soil pH, reducing soil compaction, improved beef and sheep breeding and legume grass mixes show the highest levels of current adoption that has been sustained over time. Each measure was dis-adopted by 2-7% of the farmers, citing financial, managerial and operational constraints as reasons for stopping the to implement the measures.
In a series of six hypothetical payment schemes, respondents were asked to select the measures they were willing to adopt out of all 11 measures. Across the hypothetical payment schemes, payment rates and thus overall payments farmers were projected to receive varied. Across the six tasks, farmers selected on average 4.4 measures. Willingness to adopt was, as expected, increasing with payment levels. Further, likely reflecting lower learning and implementation costs, those farmers who currently adopt a measure showed a considerably higher likelihood of selecting a measure than non-adopters.

Farmers considered some measures to be more suitable for joint adoption than others, possibly due to synergies regarding farm operations. The highest interactions could be observed between legume-grass mix and maintaining optimal pH, maintaining optimal pH and reducing soil compaction, extensive species-rich grassland and flower blocks/strips and grassland tussocks and flower blocks/strips. Overall, the questions on joint adoption of measures within payment schemes reveal that ignoring joint adoption of measures can impact on the efficiency of payment schemes. The findings also highlight the importance of understanding current adoption, which affects additionality and thus overall scheme efficiency.

Regarding priority area for further development of agri-environmental payment schemes, farmers considered it most important that payment levels reflect realities on the farm. The second most important priority area was simplification of the application and award process, and ensuring a long-term commitment to a scheme and related payments.