Farming on the edge but what are the advantages?
‘Perhaps we need to sort out the supply chain’
Colin Cameron editor@argyllshireadvertiser.co.uk IT WAS a question that echoed the thoughts of every farmer and crofter in the room.
Argyll is often perceived to have many disadvantages compared to other parts of Scotland and the UK, but what are our farming advantages and how do we make the most of them?
The panellists at an NFU Scotland ‘question time’ during last month’s Argyll and the Islands regional AGM in Tarbert came from a range of different backgrounds.
But the answers they came up with boiled down to three main themes: collaboration, marketing and the environment.
First to tackle the question – posed by regional NFUS chairman John Dickson – was retail market consultant Marion MacCormick, originally from Oban. The former Aldi fresh meat marketeer told the farmers present: ‘I am no farming expert but what I do know about is taking product to market.
‘There is an interest in Scottish food, and in the provenance of Argyll food and the story you have to tell.’
Marion continued: ‘Perhaps we need to sort out the supply chain where there are complaints that money is not reaching primary producers.
‘There are opportunities, and if self-interest could be put to one side and the story was told better, we could do a good job of marketing Scottish lamb.’
Next to offer his thoughts was NFUS president Andrew McCornick.
‘We need to be supplying the market with what it wants, not simply producing a commodity and hoping someone will buy it,’ he said.
‘We also need to get the supply chain working, maybe through some form of collaboration.’
He stressed Argyll’s environmental advantages, telling members: ‘You guys are environmentalists. We need to sell that, and what we are doing for climate change.’ Self-employed farming consultant Alison Milne, from Fife, focused on the big picture. She talked about the value of community and sense of place.
‘At the moment, we are valued based on our economic output, but if you take into account our environmental and social output, we are hugely beneficial to the rest of the Scottish economy.’ John Sleigh of Farmers’ Journal Scotland, commented: ‘Farmers around here produce food where nothing else could be produced. This should be uppermost in folks’ minds when they are buying food and want to save the planet.’
He stressed the need to achieve a premium for this through effective marketing.
‘We need to tell people, for example, how much carbon is sequestered by your hill lamb in relation to lamb imported from New Zealand. When I pick up my pack of lamb I want to see saturated fat and salt levels but also carbon rating. You guys, with your lovely grass and lack of inputs, are top of the tree when it comes to saving the planet.
‘You probably won’t get more from the market by telling folk you deserve it. You’re probably going to do something for it, which will be saving the planet.
‘You’re just going to have to get better at telling folk how it happens.’