Pasture-based beef, sheep and dairy farmers across the UK will get access to postgraduate-level training designed to help them cut costs and environmental damage while keeping food production reliable. This Advanced Training Partnership addresses a specific bottleneck: the UK’s extensive ruminant sector is large and fragmented, making it hard to spread new techniques. Currently, technical information flows mainly through farm managers, vets, and retailer supply chains. The project creates a flexible, accredited training system—blending short workshops, e-learning modules, and secondments—so that people in full-time farming jobs can build skills without leaving work. If the partnership succeeds, it could reshape how the UK’s pasture-based livestock sector responds to climate change, food security pressures, and shifting consumer expectations. The training covers four interlocking themes: sustainable beef, sheep and dairy production; forage and feed; optimising land use; and wider issues such as supply-chain resilience. Trainees can accumulate CPD credits or work toward an MSc or Professional Doctorate over time. The project is not fundamental science; it is a delivery mechanism for research-led training. Its impact will be measured by how many businesses adopt more efficient, lower-impact practices as a result of the skills their staff gain.
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This Advanced Training Partnership (ATP) is a vehicle for research-led training focused on responding to the needs of industry. Feedback from stakeholders has been instrumental in determining its themes, subject areas and delivery mechanisms. Our goal is to increase the sustainability and efficiency of Pasture-Based Agriculture in the UK. This ATP will provide an accessible training base to allow relevant businesses meet the very real challenges of: -Living with the effects of climate change -Food security and securing the supply chain -Societal demands and meeting consumer expectations This ATP focuses on the overlap between the expertise of the delivery partners and the needs of industry. Thus, it will centre on increasing efficiency and reducing environmental impact within the extensive beef, sheep and dairy sector. We will deliver in four interlocking themes: -Sustainable Beef, Sheep and Dairy -Forage and Feed -Optimising Landuse -Complementary and Wider Issues The extensive ruminant sector is large and diverse; and this provides challenges in introducing innovation. Currently, the flow of technical information is largely the province of farm managers, agricultural suppliers' technical teams, vets, advisors for environmental schemes and supply chains attached to large retailers. Regular canvassing of this audience will allow responsive development within these themes. Our ATP has identified eight training pathways for development in the first year and anticipates development of new material to continue throughout its life. Our ATP comprises Delivery Partners [Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University (IBERS), College of Natural Sciences, Bangor University (BU) and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB)]; and Management Partners [Lantra, Waitrose, The Bioscience Knowledge Transfer Network, Castell Howell Foods Ltd, BioTal Ltd, XL Vets and British Seed Houses]. In addition, we will work closely with Lantra Awards in developing CPD accreditation. Each partner brings a unique specialism to the mix: IBERS -Enhancing production -Sustainable farming systems -Sustainable animal production -Feed and forage crop improvement -Managing our natural environment Bangor -Plant Biochemistry & Biophysics -Conservation and Land Management -Silvo-pastoral Production Systems NIABTAG -Feed Crop Production -Soil Science The pooled expertise of these partners provides a compelling technology platform for sustainability pasture-based systems. Accessible Training All of the training will be at post-graduate level simultaneously accredited by a University; AND Lantra Awards (at level 7). This means that trainees can either utilise only the training components most pertinent to them and accumulate CPD credits along the way OR utilise the additional e-learning elements to pass complete university modules and use them to work, over time, towards an MSc, postgraduate certificate or diploma; or Professional Doctorate. We have developed a flexible model which will maximise accessibility and minimise impact on the working day. This consists of a form of 'blended-learning'. For example, each 20-credit pathway can be delivered as one 2-credit workshop and three 6-credit e-learning units, or combinations thereof. -Workshops will act as module entry and/or exit points, be for a maximum of two days; and focus on practical aspects of the learning pathway. -E-learning programmes, will play an important role in the consolidation and extension of the learning obtained in the workshops, that is accessible to those in full time employment. Delivery will include podcast lectures, e-group projects and discussion forums as well as the standard assignments and tutorials. -Secondments will be encouraged amongst those participating. These could be of particular benefit to those undertaking a research project for an MSc or Professional Doctorates.
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