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Australia and Romania, for SAC Pair - Courtesy of The Farmers Club
Dr Alistair Hamilton (opens in new window)
Nicola Penford of the Environment Teaching Group in Aberdeen (opens in new window)
Two members of SAC Learning, Dr Alistair Hamilton and Nicola Penford, have received Farmers Club travel scholarships allowing them to expand their knowledge in their specialist fields.
Kings Buildings based lecturer Alistair Hamilton, an SAC expert in Muirburn, will go to Australia to assess alternative approaches to vegetation management by fire. Nicola Penford of the Environment Teaching Group in Aberdeen, will visit Romania to take a closer look at High Nature Value Farming. Both visits come as part of a £22,000 investment being made by The Farmers Club of London in 2011.
The Farmers Club post-graduate award helps those employed in agricultural education, aged 22 to 50, to widen and develop their own technical expertise outside the UK. In 30 years The Trust, which celebrated its thirtieth anniversary last year, has invested over £500,000 in more than 120 travel bursaries supporting a wide range of subjects. The grants awarded are for short-term study tours, normally overseas and rarely exceeding six weeks.
According to Alistair Hamilton, while fire has been used as a land management tool in the UK for centuries, the use of fire has changed very little compared with other management techniques. His study will investigate the modelling of weather and fuel conditions to predict fire behaviour and how land managers and agencies co-ordinate to provide fire management, planning, control and site remediation.
Nicola Penford believes High Nature Value farming generates significant income for farms in less favoured areas, both through EU support and by adding value to farm produce through their green credentials. Her study of systems in Romania will consider the scope for maximising such income in the UK.
The closing date for applicants is mid-February each year. The lucky SAC pair joined a group of applicants who attended a selection day in mid-March. Their proposals were scrutinised by a panel chaired by Professor Ian Crute, chief scientist at the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, together with FCCT chairman and Suffolk arable farmer Mr Kerr, Farmers Club chairman and Devon dairy farmer Richard Holland, former chief executive of LANDEX the UK body for land-based colleges Vic Croxson, and Farmers Club member and Essex farmer James Cross.