Foot and Mouth Research

HillPlan

This is a software tool designed for modelling grazing systems at the farm level and aimed at upland farms in the UK. It provides information on agricultural output from sheep and cattle and on the vegetation resource dynamics, with predictions of the longer term vegetation community dynamics and biodiversity consequences. HillPlan is therefore well suited to assessing the results of changing livestock activities in Scottish uplands, following the FMD outbreak. A demonstration example of this calculates the change in abundance of arthropod species brought about from varying sheep stocking densities on a particular test farm. The results are presented in simple graph form on the application page (click below).