AIC Scotland News and Briefings

AIC Scotland Meeting Notice

Scottish Government Programme For Government

Organisations with 10 or more employees can sign up for asymptomatic workplace testing in a drive to identify emerging covid-19 cases and break chains of transmission. Organisations can adopt a Lateral Flow Device collection model to distribute among workers or implement an asymptomatic test site in the workplace.

Scottish Government intend to provisionally open the next funding round in early September 2021, with applications submitted and assessed by the end of September. Further details on the exact dates will be provided on the Rural Payments website Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (ruralpayments.org)

Following the annual pre harvest meeting between NFUS and AIC Scotland, both organisations are encouraging Scottish growers to speak to their grain buyers and discuss any concerns they may have especially with regard to grain haulage/storage this harvest. This follows on from reported lorry driver shortages in the wider economy.

Scottish Government have made their biosecurity e-learning packages publicly available. You can access this resource using the link below.

Grant funding is currently available to help businesses install EV charging infrastructure on their premises. The funding is available for charge points which will only be used for occupiers, staff and visitors.

From Monday the 9 th of August most remaining restrictions will be lifted in Scotland including limits on number of people who can meet up and social distancing rules in most settings. Please note a number of mitigations will remain in place including;

Following widespread concern from the Scottish seed sector about the implementation of OECD seed scheme rules, AIC Scotland, Scottish Seed committee members and AIC Seed sector Head Catherine Barrett have been successful in working with SASA and Scottish Government to find a solution for the printing of OECD labels. Agreed changes will enable Scottish members to compete on a level playing field with counterparts in other parts of the UK whilst remaining compliant with OECD seed scheme rules and regulations.

Member briefing CP21-021, referred to the new IPM assessment plans being available, however the link to the Scottish IPM assessment plan was omitted.

This week, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) have confirmed that they will become the sole competent authority on 1 April 2021. Feed businesses are reminded that FSS should be the first point of contact for all animal feed related matters ( [email protected] ) from this date.

Call for industry partners – Barley related projects | James Brosnan (CEO of the Scotch Whisky Research Institute) recently announced a BBSRC Collaborative Training Partnership initiative which will provide funding for PhD students working on International Barley Hub or other barley related projects.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) have published updated guidance aimed at livestock farmers entitled "On-farm Incidents - How to protect your livestock and Scotland's Food Chain". The leaflet is available to download here and includes information and guidance relating to lead poisoning, copper poisoning in sheep and correct use of veterinary medicines.

  | Dear AIC Scotland Members

AIC Scotland will be holding our spring meetings on 29th of April via microsoft teams.