Hutton innovation shortlisted for British Farming Award

"None of these innovations and achievements would have been possible without the contribution of the dedicated, hard-working farm team that I work with."

Euan Caldwell, the James Hutton Institute’s Head of Farm, Field and Glasshouses, has been shortlisted in the Arable Innovator of the Year category of the British Farming Awards, organised by AgriBriefing. The winners will be revealed at a ceremony in Birmingham on Thursday 17th October.

Now in their seventh year, the awards celebrate the creative thinking, innovation and dedication of Britain’s farmers across 14 categories including core sectors such as dairy, beef, sheep, arable and machinery, as well as the efforts of new entrants and rural businesses in tourism, textile, retail and wildlife, just to name a few.

Euan is an award-winning farm manager, previously recognised with an RSPB Nature of Scotland Award (2016) as well as accolades from the Royal Agricultural Society of England (2017) and a Scottish Business Environment VIBES Award in 2018.

He manages the Institute’s farms as commercial farms, with a crop rotation including spring barley, winter wheat, winter barley, vining peas, winter oilseed rape, field beans and ware potatoes. These farms are an integral and important part of the Institute’s science resources, vitally important for conducting experiments but also demonstrate Hutton science and carry out knowledge outreach.

Euan and his team have made a sustained contribution to farming innovation at the Institute through work on Magic Margins; the development of infrastructure for growing hops in Scotland; the protection of wildlife; the innovative use of GPS technology for plot grain drilling; and the design of a low-cost storage system for biomass, among others.

On being shortlisted, Euan commented: “I am absolutely delighted to have been shortlisted for the Arable Innovator of the Year Awards. Competition for the British Farming Awards is always very strong therefore it is a huge honour to be included and to be formally recognised by the British Farming Awards in this way.

"None of these innovations and achievements would have been possible without the contribution of the dedicated, hard-working farm team that I work with."

The categories of the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards are:

• Agricultural Student of the Year
• Arable Innovator of the Year
• Beef Innovator of the Year
• Contractor Innovator of the Year
• Dairy Innovator of the Year
• Digital Innovator of the Year
• Diversification Innovator of the Year
• Family Farming Business of the Year
• Farm Worker of the Year
• Farmers Guardian Farming Hero
• Machinery and Farm Technology of the Year
• New Entrants Award
• Outstanding Contribution to British Agriculture
• Sheep Innovator of the Year

The prizegiving ceremony will take place on Thursday, 17th October at the National Conference Centre in Birmingham. A full list of finalists in all categories is available on the British Farming Awards website.