What’s the beef?

At this unprecedented time, the long term impacts of COVID-19 on society and the economy are unknown,  and is expected to put an enormous squeeze on the public purse-strings, and the Government’s priorities for supporting other sectors may eventually divert monies from agriculture. There are undeniable, and significant, long-term changes coming to UK and Scottish agricultural and land management policy. Policy makers are now determined to ensure that in the future agriculture plays its role in meeting ambitious Climate Change and biodiversity targets.

In his latest Farm North East Article, Steven Thomson, Senior Agricultural Economist and Policy Advisor at SRUC, describes the work taking place at SRUC with cattle movement data to give new, unique, data insights to how Scotland’s beef sector is structured. From this, the work can also assess how well the sector is performing, including that at a business level.

To read and download the full article please follow the link below. For any comments, questions or queries please visit our contact pages, or email Steven directly on steven.thomson@sruc.ac.uk.

Whats the beef – Farm North East April 2020

This research was funded by part of the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme 2016-2021, Theme 2, Work Package 2.4 Rural Industries.

More information on the work on Scottish Beef Sector and Cattle network data can be found here  .