Scottish Government funding has secured four new monitor farms for three years, which will enable farmers to come together and make decisions.

The monitor farm concept has been in place since 2010; monitor farms are commercial businesses which are backed by a monitor farm group drawn from the local community. The group meets six times a year to share advice, ideas, practical knowledge and give feedback.

The funding (£260,000 from the Scottish government, which will be supplemented with levy funding from AHDB) was awarded to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development for four farms, two covering arable (cereals/oilseeds, with potatoes in rotation) and two dairy farms. In all AHDB suggested that £450,000 will be available for the project.

AHDB's divisions for cereals and oilseeds (HGCA) and potatoes (Potato Council) will be recruiting two arable monitor farms from the Fife, Inverness and Murray Coast areas, to begin in October this year. Dairy division DairyCo has opened applications for two monitor farms in South West and Central Scotland.

AHDB Chief Executive Tom Taylor said the government funding was confirmation of the success previous schemes have met with. He commented on Monday, "Monitor farms work because they use the farm environment to bring farmers and the industry together to look at ways of developing farm business improvements over the longer term. This can provide the key to achieving production efficiencies, raising overall farm performance and boosting both profitability and sustainability.

"There is clearly a broader value to the monitor farm, in the way it shares knowledge, advice and innovation for the benefit of the local farming community and the wider industry."