Land Economy & Environment

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Research Interests

Cath’s interests focus on farm management and the integration of science and economics.  Following completion of a degree in Agriculture, experience working in British livestock farming and gaining a PG diploma in Farm Management Cath joined SAC in 1988 as a general farm advisor. 

She transferred from the farm consultancy team to the Economics Dept. of SAC Aberdeen in 1997, completed her PhD in 2004 on the economics of sheep ectoparasite control and is now based in the Land Economy and Environment Research Group, SAC Edinburgh. Cath combines her academic background in agricultural science and economics with extensive practical experience to ensure sound research that offers practical solutions at farm and policy level. Her work recognises that farm management problems typically require holistic evaluations and choices may be tightly constrained by technical or regulatory details. 

Cath has four synergistic core areas of research interest, these are:

• Farmer decision making. 
• Profitable, multifunctional farming systems. 
• Animal health economics 
• Animal welfare

Research Projects

Currently, Cath is closely involved in the development of decision support information and tools for farm animal disease control within the RERAD-funded research programme ‘Profitable and Sustainable Agriculture – Animals’ under the sub strand ‘Modeling sheep and cattle diseases to assess farm business options’.