Provision of Climate Smart Cattle Farming Systems Research (SCF0219)

About

Defra Network eTendering Portal awarded a contract to Scottish Rural University College for the CSCFarming Project, which aims to develop climate smart cattle farming systems that reduce greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions while maintaining the socio-economic outlook of farm businesses.

The project focuses on innovative housing and manure handling systems, including composted bedding material, separation of faeces and urine, artificial floor constructions, manure cleaning robots, cow toilets, virtual fencing, and ICT data collection techniques, as well as precision crop fertilization.

It also examines promising feeding, breeding, and grassland mitigation practices.

The contractor will assess the environmental performance of a network of study field farms in eight EU countries using NPC balance tools and simple emission measurement methods, with researcher-farmer interaction to improve performance.

Expert groups in each country will evaluate outcomes and select practices for further experimental examination.

Promising practices will be screened for socio-economic robustness and political implications, and farm systems will be built and tested on pilot and experimental farms.

The project consortium includes nine leading research institutes plus stakeholders across Europe, serving as ambassadors for climate innovative efficient farming, with the potential to reduce emissions by an additional 30% in 3-4 years through awareness raising and application of new techniques.

The contract value is AUD 250,000.