IF I told you that one way to improve the low business research and development spend and low productivity in the south-west of Scotland was a “digitally twinned dairy”, you might raise an eyebrow.
However, if I then added that this project will drive decarbonisation, support investment in R&D innovation, attract talent and develop a more entrepreneurial and skilled workforce, you’d hopefully want to know more.
Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) is leading an innovative new venture with academic, industry and civic partners collaborating on what is formally titled the Digital Dairy Value-Chain for South-West Scotland and Cumbria. Awarded more than £21m from UK Research and Innovation’s Strength in Places fund, this venture is designed to achieve nothing less than a transformation of Scotland’s dairy industry.
This region, home to SRUC’s award-winning Langhill dairy herd, has an outsize 13% share of the UK's overall dairy herd, making it the nation’s second largest production area. It produces 1.6bn litres of milk annually with an estimated “farm-gate value” – namely the market value of a product minus its selling costs – of £477 million. This is impressive, but we can do better.
Particularly exciting for us is how this enterprise can meet the aspirations laid out in the Scottish Government’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation. It will foster entrepreneurship, create new market opportunities, add new skills to the workforce and lay the foundations for more productive regions, all whilst making the critical journey towards net zero. The recent strategy made clear the responsibility of educational institutions to help drive this change.
So what does the project do? Put simply, it utilises innovative digital technologies such as sensors, the Internet of Things, 5G communications and blockchain, complemented by advanced manufacturing processes, all to create an integrated and digitally connected dairy value chain.
Working with local and national businesses, this new endeavour will transform the region’s dairy production systems and establish it as a global leader in advanced, sustainable and high-value dairy manufacturing.
We will institute a commercial-scale demonstration of a digitally connected supply chain – one that can link sensing and data solutions in farms, transport networks and factories. High-quality sensors can monitor cow welfare whilst optimising low-carbon milk logistics. In addition, CENSIS, Scotland’s Innovation Centre for Sensing, Imaging and Internet of Things, will support sensor technology companies to develop a series of applications from farm to factory.
Most crucially, we will foster a talent pipeline that creates STEM opportunities in what we term digital-smart agriculture. Advancing prospects for young people and women, who are under-represented in agriculture, STEM occupations and business innovation is a critical part of our work. We have an ambition to create more than 600 jobs as a result.
Ultimately, we know from existing data – such as the Index of Multiple Deprivation – that there is significant untapped human capital in the region. In a post-Covid environment, the creation of an entrepreneurial culture, alongside the establishment of new, skilled employment opportunities will be especially important for everyone, and that is exactly what this work will achieve.
Wayne Powell is principal of Scotland’s Rural College
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here