This research uniquely employs knowledge and experiences from the global South as a fresh lens through which we review the progressive nature of community land rights as a means for achieving sustainable development in Scotland and beyond. Our research views community land rights not only as a geographically-bounded concept but as a form of land ownership and practice that has often been perceived as 'backward' within a predominantly market-driven global political economy. The project aims to generate new and critical insights into the future of agriculture and sustainable land management in Scotland and the wider UK. The research will examine contested concepts such as 'sustainable development', the land-use outcomes of the 'just transition' and questions of inclusivity within Scottish land legislation and debates. To answer these questions, the project will involve participatory action research, in-depth interviews, photo-elicitation techniques, workshops, exhibitions, and dialogues to explore alternative ideas and knowledge within the struggles for community land rights. We aim to reveal the types of knowledge embedded in community land practices. For example, photographs will uncover knowledge about land use and ownership, including human functions, quality of life, and the nature of well-being within the struggles for community land rights in Scotland. Additionally, as a novel approach to research on land reform in Scotland, we will rely on the methodological guidelines from the Popular University of Social Movements, which will involve the critical evaluation and valorisation of the wide range of knowledge and practices on community land. This process is empowering because it recognises the existence of many possible forms of knowledge that need to be made legible so that they can contribute to constructing a viable alternative to sustainable land use. Furthermore, our research approach considers community members as co-investigators and custodians of knowledge as they visualise and create self-reflective artefacts and records of their everyday realities and attachments to land. The study creates contexts and opportunities for mutual learning on questions about equitable access to and control over natural resources, including sustainable land use. The research will involve nine purposively-selected community land activists from Scotland, Tanzania, and South Africa to engage with and provide new insights into the knowledge generated from Scotland's land reform journey. We believe synergies between Scotland's community land struggles and those in the global South can be established through a shared understanding of the potential importance of equitable and sustainable land-use practices. Arguably, Scotland's struggle for community land rights is analogous to struggles for land rights waged over many decades in countries like Tanzania and South Africa. In many cases, these contestations over land rights are informed by increased awareness of a rights-based push for land reforms, sustainability, climate change and environmental protection. Through these knowledge co-production processes, our project will aim to achieve the following: (i) To progress a critical understanding of the role of community land rights as a route to sustainable development and contribute to theoretical perspectives on progressive property rights; (ii) To support a community of practice working towards sustainable land rights and strengthen North-South research cooperation; (iii) To contribute to policy development on sustainable and inclusive land policies in Scotland, the UK, and broader international contexts, and finally, (iv) To raise public awareness of land reform and community land ownership as an alternative to private property ownership models through curated physical and online exhibitions.

Understanding soil health and the effect agricultural management has in promoting the sustainability of the soil has increased in scrutiny in recent years particularly since "improving soil health" was included in the UK Government's 25 year plan for the environment. Post-Brexit farming subsidies are likely to be given for environmental improvement, therefore there is a need to develop monitoring systems now. Earthworms can be described as the emblem of a soil health, driving nutrient cycling and water infiltration processes - if there is an abundant earthworm population within the soil, the likelihood is the rest of the soil fauna will also be healthy as will the soil chemistry and soil structure. Traditionally earthworm population monitoring is laborious and can be inaccurate, due to the ability of the assessor, citizen science monitoring programs have been trialled to reduce costs, but have not been extended across the country. Utilising computer learning as a tool for high throughput identification of earthworm abundance at a field-scale could be implemented across farmland within the UK, to provide a current assessment of earthworm activity. As earthworms burrowing reduces water runoff and improves soil porosity, this method provides a low cost, fast monitoring assessment tool that would provide a "biological health assessment" that could inform and educate farmers and lead to improvements in agricultural management. This proposal aims to develop a deep learning algorithm tool to detect and count earthworm casts in-situ at high-throughput. If successful, software based on this bioimage analysis could be deployed via smartphone app or unmanned vehicle, leading to monitoring of earthworms nationally at the field-scale. To date there have been many apps developed to measure soil / soil health, but none combine computer deep-learning for object recognition with earthworm activity, this is a clear research gap, that this proposal aims to fill.

This research will critically assess the potential impact on UK agriculture of cultured meat, a technology with possibly profound and uncertain implications for the future of food and farming. Also known as 'clean', 'cell-based' and 'cultivated' meat, cultured meat is engineered animal tissue intended for people to eat. It is a type of alternative protein. Alternative proteins are strategically important to UK and global food systems because they can use less land and water than livestock products, lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, cut antibiotic use and the risk of new zoonotic diseases, and help promote animal welfare. Early data suggest that cultured meats could yield such benefits, but may struggle to compete with other meat alternatives on energy efficiency and cost. They are important because they could substitute more directly for livestock meat than other alternatives, and are at an earlier stage of development, so more open to influence by policy-makers and investors. While cultured meat is potentially transformative, its benefits therefore remain speculative. It also brings risks in nutrition, food fraud and food safety. Technical, regulatory, market and cultural uncertainties mean that the sector may not develop in the UK commercially, or may develop but fail to deliver public benefits. This project focuses on how cultured meat could affect farming in the UK. This is relevant to its environmental, economic and animal welfare impact, and to public and political attitudes that will shape how it gets regulated. Cultured meat is commonly assumed to be a threat to farmers, producing food in ways that could put some out of business. However, nobody has actually looked into this in-depth, or explored these issues with farmers in the UK. In practice, the different ways that cultured meat might develop could bring diverse risks and opportunities for farmers. The technology may create demands for new agricultural products, such as cells (donor herds for cell harvesting), feedstock for growth media (arable, forage, sugar beet), feedstock for edible scaffolds (cellulose, pea, bean, soya) and current waste streams (glucose, cellulose). In some scenarios, cultured meat might even be produced on farms, in facilities owned and operated by farmers, or could complement campaigns for 'less and better' meat. Alternatively, it may not reduce livestock meat consumption at all, or it may compete directly with high-welfare meat production. This research is designed to influence how this potentially transformative technology affects the UK food system. We will work with farmers and other people who may be affected by the technology to investigate whether they can see responsible ways of developing cultured meat. We will examine what farmers currently think of cultured meat, and explore different ways the technology could develop. We will work with farmers in a wide range of different situations to model how their businesses could get involved in or be affected by cultured meat production, and assess the environmental, social and economic consequences. We aim to answer the following questions: 1. How do UK farmers currently perceive cultured meat? 2. What threats and opportunities does the development of cultured meat pose to UK farm businesses in different scenarios? 3. Under what conditions, if any, would on-farm production of cultured meat be practical, economically viable and desirable in the UK? In answering these questions, we will consider not only the direct effects of cultured meat on farm businesses and livelihoods, but also wider ecological, nutritional, cultural and ethical implications, and how cultured meat might complement or conflict with the ways land use and diets in the UK could change to become sustainable.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a multifaceted, wicked problem. Evolution of resistant microbes can arise anywhere along agrifood chains, leading to diseases that cannot be treated by currently used medicines. Human, animal, plant and environmental health are interconnected; actions such as antimicrobial use (AMU) in one sector, may influence AMR arising in another. National and global movements of people, animals and goods therefore creates a web of factors that influence AMR, necessitating systems-based approaches to effectively tackle problems. AMR transcends disciplinary boundaries, requiring collaboration amongst human and veterinary healthcare professionals, researchers from multiple disciplines, policymakers, regulators and the agriculture sector. The benefit of the AMAST (AMr in Agrifood Systems Transdisciplinary) Network is that it brings together, for the first time, actors from diverse backgrounds across agrifood systems to co-develop solutions to AMR challenges through collaboration, dialogue and action. Our aims are to CREATE a transdisciplinary community that bridges the range of research expertise, working together and directly with industry and policymakers, to collectively consider complex configurations in agrifood systems. We will HARNESS the collective strength of experience and expertise of our members to fully understand the challenges and opportunities to mitigate AMR in agrifood including across production systems, such as crop, livestock and aquaculture. From this understanding, and the collaborative resolve established amongst the AMAST membership, we will PREPAREnew systems-level frameworks for transdisciplinary research and partnership that acknowledge the dynamic interactions between actors within those agrifood systems. These frameworks will be used to guide understanding on (new) interventions on AMU and other AMR-promoting practices, that will lead to reductions in AMR in targeted agrifood subsystems, whilst minimising unintended consequences in others to achieve holistically beneficial outcomes. AMAST has been initiated by researcher coalition and partners from across the United Kingdom, representing agrifood-related trade and farming associations, agrifood research and innovation institutes, business development consultants, food-sector networks, government-led AMR surveillance initiatives, and other AMR-focussed networks. The formation and progression of AMAST will be guided by an expert panel, sharing their perspectives on AMR and connections related to infectious disease, aquaculture, livestock, food systems, food safety and transdisciplinary research partnering approaches. Core activities encompassed in 11 objectives at the outset of AMAST will be driven by meaningful engagement between industry, policy and academic researchers in a series of directed-events to understand varying perspectives, expertise and accompanying evidence on current food production processes that exacerbate AMR; and the challenges of moving away from current practices to mitigate AMR without compromising yield, quality and welfare. These events will include stakeholder interviews, workshops, and horizon-scanning activities, knowledge synthesis and authentically focused knowledge-exchange outputs such as perspective ('white') papers. These activities will inform subsequent programming to be developed within AMAST, including use of AMAST Flexible Funds supporting collaborative activities such as targeted researcher and industry short-term-scientific-missions, an AMAST Fellowship training that is authentic to AMR challenges, and further knowledge synthesis activities. Visibility of AMAST outputs and capacity building within and outside the network will occur using a tailored communication strategy and creative multimedia.