I visited the James Hutton Institute outside of the city of Aberdeen. The scientists I met work in the field of environmental microbiology and study human and animals pathogens. Most of their work focuses on E.Coli, soil structure/type, and pathogen transport pathways.
We visited one of the institute's research farms. They farm red deer, cattle, sheep and cereal grains. The farm covers thousands of acres of different land types - high production, marginal and low quality hill land. Much of the research focuses on multi-species grazing for high efficiency use of low quality land.
Blue-Grey cattle originate from western Scotland.
Scottish Blackface sheep.
Our next stop was a farm that raises 100% Aberdeen Angus beef. Most of the beef is sold directly to a butcher in Aberdeen. 60% of the meat on a carcass is ground because many Scottish recipes call for mince meat.
This pole barn, feeders and handling system pictured below were designed by the farmer after visiting cattle farms in Texas.