update
News from, and for, Scotland’s farmer co-ops - Winter ‘22/23
SAOS Conference 2023 Thursday 26th Jan
Navigating Through Turbulent Times of Change After a few years of disruption and enforced changes, our conference is back at Dunblane Hydro - and in January! It’s good to feel that at least some things are ‘back to normal’ when the times we’re in feel anything but that. In that vein, our programme for #SAOSConf23 will look at how we navigate through these challenging times of flux. The day is really taking shape and we hope you will join us to examine and discuss ways we can tackle some of the challenges. As usual, we’ll be focused on what we can do by #workingtogether more effectively and sustainably. This feels more relevant than ever - everyone seems keen to do something positive, but without co-ordination of that effort we’ll not make much progress and the effort will go to waste. We’ll start the day by looking at a couple of the biggest challenges we face with the help of our speakers: Mike Robinson, CEO of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, will speak on • Climate in Crisis and how this Affects Scotland Andrew Niven, Strategic Market Intelligence Manager at Scotland Food & Drink, will look at • Changing Consumer Behaviours and the Impact on Farming After a Q&A with the speakers and a coffee break, we’ll move on to discuss some possible solutions, hearing from: •
Prof Alison Hester of the James Hutton Institute - will give us an overview of the JHI HydroGlen project, outlining its potential to help farming and rural communities reduce their carbon footprint. • Adam Christie, MD, Scottish Agronomy - who will talk about developing crop resilience to adapt to climate change As we go to press we have additional details/possible speakers to firm up on, covering more positives including adaptation and resilience measures. Full programme details will be available very soon. There will be more time for questions and some audience polling before lunch. After lunch we’ll split for our two forums (which will run twice). Forum 1: Exploring technology and sensing - how it’s already helping prepare farming for change and discussing further possibilities. Forum 2: We lit the blue touch paper with our AgriScot seminar (see overleaf) so we’ll be exploring New Skills and Upskilling - how do we adapt to change and help to grow tomorrow’s workforce? After reconvening, we’ll wrap up with forum outputs and have a final chance for Huge thanks to questions. Our drinks reception and dinner, as always, will be a great chance to NFU Mutual network with new contacts and catch up with old ones. Please join us if you can! for their support Book now at: https://saosconference2023.eventbee.com