Job title: Farming with Nature Knowledge Exchange Manager Grade: E Salary: £46,228
Hours: Full-time (35), fixed term – to end of March 2025 Location: Edinburgh is the
preferred location, but other locations in Scotland including homeworking will be considered
Closing date: Midday, 25 July 2024 Internal candidate interviews: 8 August 2024 External
candidate interviews: 21 August 2024
Job Purpose Summary
Help us tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change and enable Scotland to
become a global leader in sustainable and regenerative agriculture by supporting knowledge
sharing among farmers and crofters on how to work with nature; and by improving understanding
of land management issues among NatureScot colleagues.
This is a temporary, full-time role within NatureScot’s Natural Resource Management team.
Externally, the post-holder will work with land management stakeholders to facilitate the
sharing of sustainable farming and crofting practices. Internally, they will work with
colleagues to coordinate the development and delivery of a learning programme on agriculture
transformation and linked areas of land management internally within NatureScot.
Externally, the role will involve engaging with land management stakeholders and with land
managers to facilitate the sharing of knowledge on farming and crofting practices that are
positive for nature and for the climate – especially through peer-to-peer learning; and to
promote the tools developed by NatureScot to help farmers and crofters manage the natural
capital assets on their land holdings. This will involve working with advisory bodies such as
SRUC, Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT);
representative organisations such as National Farmers Union of Scotland (NFUS), Scottish
Crofting Federation (SCF) and Scottish Land & Estates (SLE); and academic institutes such
as the James Hutton Institute. In addition, the post-holder will work closely with Scottish
Government staff managing the Farm Advisory Service programme; and with the NatureScot Farming
with Nature Communications Officer.
Internally, the post-holder will work with colleagues in NatureScot’s Natural Resource
Management team, colleagues in other policy areas and with NatureScot’s People and
Organisational Development team on the development of a learning programme on policy and land
management changes needed to help deliver nature restoration and climate outcomes. This will
enable NatureScot staff to engage effectively on these issues in their day-to-day work with
farmers, crofters and other land managers. The focus of this post will be to make connections
across NatureScot teams, with the delivery role shared with colleagues in Natural Resource
Management and other Activity Teams. The post-holder will work closely with others delivering
the overall NatureScot Learning Framework.
Context
The Scottish Government’s Vision for Scottish Agriculture outlines the ambition for Scotland to
become a global leader in sustainable and regenerative agriculture, and sets out the support
for farming and food production to help achieve this. Scotland will have a support framework
that delivers nature restoration alongside food and climate outcomes – and land management will
change as Scotland tackles the twin biodiversity and climate crises.
In order to help farmers and crofters evolve their land management, they need to understand the
route the new rural support framework is likely to take – this framework is being developed by
the Scottish Government’s Agricultural Reform Programme. Many farmers and crofters have already
adopted agricultural practices that combine profitable food production with management for
nature and for climate outcomes – it is important that this knowledge and experience is shared
more widely among land managers.
NatureScot’s Farming with Nature Programme is developing a suite of tools to help farmers and
crofters manage their land for nature and climate. These include the Biodiversity Audit and
Farm Biodiversity Scotland App, and the landscape-scale Natural Capital Tool. In order to
further test and refine these tools, and promote their adoption, NatureScot is working with
partner bodies and with land managers directly.
The post-holder is expected to have a good understanding of farming and crofting practices in
Scotland and the effects – positive and negative – that these can have on nature and the
climate. They should have an understanding of the ways in which rural support is likely to
change over the coming years. The post-holder should have an awareness of the Scottish
Government’s policies and targets for biodiversity and for climate change – especially how they
relate to agriculture. They should have experience in planning and delivering knowledge
transfer and capacity-building. The post holder will need to travel around Scotland as part of
their work.
Key Responsibilities
Role Requirements (please refer to these in your Supporting Statement)
Prerequisites Required
NatureScot’s Net Zero commitment
Whether working at home or in an office, or travelling to meetings and site visits, as a
NatureScot you will contribute to our Net Zero plan, for example through carbon-positive travel
choices.
Nature is vital to all of us, so it is vital that we are an organisation for all of Scotland.
The more diverse NatureScot is, the better we will be in connecting everyone with nature. We
particularly encourage applications from people from Minority Ethnic (ME) backgrounds and
people with a disability.
Find out more & apply
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