Seven of HGCA’s new English arable monitor farmers travelled to Scotland last week to take part in a cross-sector Monitor Farm conference on widening the impact of each individual project.

The monitor farmers from Crediton, Leamington Spa, Hereford, Driffield and Doncaster (a pilot Monitor Farm) met with HGCA’s Scottish host monitor farmers from Black Isle, Fife, Aberdeen and Borders, as well as farmers and facilitators from the red meat, dairy, potato and agritourism industries.

Communicating key messages from the Monitor Farm projects to the wider industry was the main topic of the 24-hour conference in Dunkeld.

The delegates took part in discussions on take-home messages, the psychology of business change, with master classes on communication channels led by HGCA and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and a plenary session on producing videos led by former Landward producer and film-maker Rob Bryce.

Richard Laverick, HGCA Head of Regional Development, said: “It was really exciting to see the momentum behind the Monitor Farm programme in Scotland, and a fantastic opportunity to work cross-sector and across the UK to share best practice.”

While the focus was communicating messages from the Monitor Farms to widen their positive impact, the meetings also touched on the heart of the Monitor Farm programme itself.

Peter Chapman, chairman of HGCA’s Aberdeen arable Monitor Farm and a member of the associated Arable Business Group, said: “Farmer to farmer learning is so powerful. We had a benchmarking group committed to learning from each other, which I’d advise other Monitor Farms to do – make full use of benchmarking tools to quantify your business discussions. I’d encourage anyone involved in a Monitor Farm to benchmark.”

The conference was chaired by Iain Riddell, facilitator of the first Scottish Monitor Farm, in October 2003. During his opening speech he said: “Are Monitor Farms relevant? Yes. This is one very powerful way of working on businesses. It just works – it’s practical and it’s local.”

For more information about HGCA’s arable Monitor Farms, visit hgca.com/monitorfarm.

This national Monitor Farm Programme Workshop was supported by QMS, DairyCo, HGCA, the Scottish Organic Producers Association (SOPA), NFU Scotland, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government.