Davy McCracken | Kisaco Research

 

Davy McCracken joined SRUC 27 years ago and has been Head of SRUC’s Hill & Mountain Research Centre, at Kirkton & Auchtertyre farms near Crianlarich, for nine years and Head of SRUC’s wider Integrated Land Management Department for four years. Davy studies farming and wildlife interactions and has been working on agricultural and agri-environmental policy at a national and international level for over 30 years. He was one of the founders of the High Nature Value farming concept and much of his own research over the years has been into the challenges and opportunities facing High Nature Value farming systems across Europe. The farms at Crianlarich are a Linking Environment & Farming (LEAF) Innovation Centre and a member of the Global Farm Platform initiative, and consequently the research and demonstration activities of the Centre focus on how precision livestock farming approaches and associated technologies can be used to address agricultural and environmental challenges in the uplands. Achieving Net-Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 will be a major challenge for upland land managers over the coming years. This will not only require greater emphasis on applying nutrients more effectively to inbye grasslands and tracking and monitoring livestock performance, location and health but will also require managing Scotland’s uplands in ways that mitigate or prevent flooding further downstream in water catchments. This will require land managers to have access to real-time data to aid management decision-making. Given that much of Scotland is remote and challenging topographically, the use of sensors together with improved connectivity and processing power to collect, transmit and process such data will be essential.  SRUC established the first remote, upland IoT (Internet of Things) low-power wide area radio network in the UK on the farms four years ago and is deploying sensors and associated technologies to assess and demonstrate the benefits to be gained from having access to such otherwise difficult to collect data streams. More information on the work at the farms is available here.

 

Job Title: 
Head of Integrated Land Management Department
Company: 
SRUC