Thorny issue of Scottish barley

Sir, – A. A. Bullions of Leven commented on the state of barley use by Scottish brewers and distillers (Letters, December 23).

If the correspondent’s postgraduate student had dug a little deeper she may have uncovered further information, which is known and detrimental to our farmers in Scotland.

I will refer them to past editions of the Farming Matters supplement of The Courier. In the September 5 2015 edition it was stated that Scottish farmers were receiving up to £20 less per tonne for wheat.

Why? Well, the distillers said Scottish wheat was of inferior quality for them and they were using GM maize.

In the January 23 2016 edition further information showed that another iconic Scottish whisky was being produced from French maize instead of Scottish wheat, again for quality reasons.

A disturbing fact emanating from all the above information is that the crops deemed better than the Scottish crops are GM grown.

It would seem we are not allowed to grow GM crops here but it is OK for others to benefit financially from growing, exporting them and then undercutting our farmers, so that we can use them for brewing, distilling and baking etc.

The Trades Description Act should be invoked if any of those producers should claim their products to be 100% Scottish. Careful wording on their bottles would have to say only, “Brewed or distilled in Scotland” or otherwise make no claim to be a 100% Scottish product.

Would that induce them to use Scottish farmers’ wheat? No doubt, they would be able to buy a way around it.

Now, before anyone says that GM crops are dangerous for us to consume, let me point out that there is no danger to human consumption. We are eating our daily bread, cakes etc made from GM flour. The objections to GM crops are because of the unknown effects that cross-pollination would have on our indigenous plant life.

Until this is resolved to everyone’s satisfaction (there will always be doubters), we will continue to spray our crops with dangerous insecticides.

Just watch our farmers in their air-conditioned cabs and wearing facemasks and ask yourself, “Would I want to breathe in this stuff?”

We have not been told how much of those insecticides we are digesting when we eat our food. Will we ever? The effects on wildlife,

especially insects, could be one contributor to the decline in our bee populations and hence the pollination of our plants. Research into selective insecticides should be a priority.

I know from laboratory work the dangers of working with insecticides and we will have to make up our minds, which is the lesser of two “evils”: GM crops or insecticides?

I am using the word “evil” reservedly!

Bill Stirling.

7 Shireway,

Alloa.