Policy Support

The LADSS team has recently been working on the following policy support projects related to CAP Reform 2015:

Voluntary Coupled Support - report of analysis on the effects of using voluntary coupled support for beef-calf rearing in Scotland.
French Redistribution - report on the effects of using the Redistributive Payments option to increase rates for the first 54 hectare of eligible land by up to 65%.
Phase 2 Scenario Analysis 1 - modelling the consequences of using a €50 per hectare rate for the rough grazing land type in a future Basic Payment Scheme in Scotland.
Phase 2 Scenario Analysis 2 - modelling the consequences of using payment rates modelled on those used by the current English SFPS regions.
New Areas Analysis - report of the additional land areas that could be eligible for inclusion within a future Basic Payment Scheme on the basis of land use. This paper also assesses the likely effectiveness of a stocking-rate based minimum activity criterion.
Designated and Historic Areas Analysis - report of the consequences of the Phase 1 Modelling scenarios for the land with environmental designations and historic sites.
Phase 2 Modelling – Land Type Farm Level Scenarios - A comparison of three different implementations of the Land Type Farm Level model with variations in payment rates.
Phase 1 Modelling – CAP Conference Presentation – Modelling of scenarios for the regionalisation of the Basic Payment Scheme in Scotland.
Phase 1 Modelling – Scenarios Analysis Change Maps – Mapped examples of the outcomes of all 30 scenarios modelled in the phase 1 analysis.
Phase 1 Modelling – Scenarios Analysis Summaries – Summary document detailing all 30 scenarios modelled in the phase 1 analysis.

Future CAP Stakeholder Group

This work contributes to the wider body of work shared via the Future CAP Stakeholder Group on which members of the research team sit. Details of the Future CAP Stakeholder Group, including papers presented at stakeholder meetings, may be found on the Common Agricultural Policy - Future CAP Stakeholder Group website.

Past projects in which the LADSS team has been involved:

Areas of Natural Constraint Working Group
- Estimating the stocking rates for areas with environmental designations in Scotland
CAP Regionalisation Workstream

Stocking Rates of Land Capability for Agriculture Classes
- Estimating the stocking rate characteristics of groupings of Macaulay LCA classes in the regions of Scotland.
- Supplementary analysis of the stocking rate characteristics of the Phase 3 land defined by the WEAG-GIS project.
Redistributing Single Farm Payment: Options and Consequences - presentation at Knowledge Scotland event “A bright future for Scottish agriculture after CAP reform?” in Edinburgh on Friday 24 February. During the event, the James Hutton Institute team took the opportunity to display the following posters highlighting current research activities: poster 1, poster 2, poster 3
Future CAP Payments - estimating the area potentially eligible for Single Farm Payment
Pack Inquiry Support - testing the LCA and LFA as a basis for Pillar I CAP payments
Estimating GHG Emissions – testing the feasibility of making annual estimates of GHG emissions from the land use change/forestry sector data from the Integrated Accounting and Control System
Analysis of SAF & JAC - using data from the Single Application Form to derive data to be used in the June Agricultural Census with colleagues from REAS-Statistics

A key development for the team has been participating in the EU FP7 project SMILE (Synergies in Multi-scale Inter-Linkages of Eco-Social Systems). Here we are applying Social Metabolism Approaches (SMA) to assess sustainability. SMA provides a rigorous, consistent and holistic overview of system performance underpinned by detailed indicators of the extent and intensity of resource use.