Retailers, NGOs and assurance scheme providers often demand changes to production standards without a tangible benefit to welfare. As farmers we often know what would benefit our animals as we work alongside them every day and monitor behavioural changes etc. How can farmers influence academic research priorities to provide the data we need to ensure changes to production systems are evidence based and deliver a true welfare benefit to the livestock we keep?

To what extent do you think that nutrient stripping technology will help farmers with environmental compliance and is the current inertia in deliverable on farm technology in this area due to finance or product development?

Farm productivity is falling. The UK does not have an extension service for R&D in agriculture and horticulture. The Innovate UK route to Farming Innovation Programme funding is unwieldy and bureaucratic. What are you both doing to re-design the R&D system in the UK to prioritise applied on farm/in business research?