QMS chief ’s battle for red meat tags
Later this month, major Scottish red meat exporters will tout their prime cuts and all the other bits of cattle, sheep and pig carcases they are selling at the massive SIAL food fair in Paris. Alongside the salesmen and women, Kate Rowell, recently appointed chair of Quality Meat Scotland, will undertake her first official overseas appointment as head of the meat promotional body.
So far, the agricultural press have not met her but she comes well qualified for the job with a background both in farming and in the veterinary profession.
There is no doubt that she and her QMS colleagues will have an almighty fight on their hands in the coming months in trying to hold on to the protected geographical indicator (PGI) status bestowed on Scotch Beef and Scotch Lamb by the EU.
That tag has helped Scottish meat exporters keep a multi-million-pound red meat foothold in Europe but, with Brexit coming along in six months’ time, there is no guarantee it will remain.
Some of the free-market ideologues in the UK Government see the PGI status as a barrier to trade and would like to see it disappear. Other politicians do not recognise its importance in economic terms and would happily dismiss it as a pawn during trade talks.
The PGI battle is but one issue in a myriad of unsolved problems arising from Brexit for the Scottish red meat industry and the uncertainty surrounding the country’s departure from Europe is a concern for an industry that requires long-term planning.
It is just over 50 years
since Scottish farmers decided to promote sales of their lamb. To do so they set up the Scottish Quality Lamb Association and paid a levy of one old penny a lamb to fund it.
Before the SQLA’S establishment, there had been little or no lamb exported to Europe but within a few years one in three lambs born in Scotland ended up on the shelves of European butchers although, with live exports, an unknown percentage was being sold as French lamb.
During the early years of Scottish lamb – note that it had not yet achieved PGI status – appearing in the French market there were riots and blockades by French sheep farmers who saw their home market undermined.
Under political pressure, these battles faded in the 1980s, leaving a quiet acceptance that the imports were not a major threat to French sheep farming.
However, no self-respecting leader of French farmers is going to miss an opportunity to close the door on imported lamb after Brexit and that will put an added edge to trade.
So it is in at the deep end for Rowell.
However, one battle she and her colleagues will not face in the coming months threatens a levy board to which Scottish cereal, potato, milk and vegetable producers contribute.
The Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) has been in existence for a number of years but there
is now a consultation on its future.
The individual sectors such as milk, potatoes and cereals used to have their own organisations and they also used to be allowed to promote their produce far more than is the case. Think back to successful advertising campaigns such as Drinka Pinta Milka Day and Go to Work on an Egg.
Nowadays a large percentage of the £58 million AHDB annual budget goes on market analysis, knowledge transfer and research. These are important areas for farmers but there is a temptation for producers to think only of the subtraction of the levy when they look at their cheques for milk, cereals or horticultural goods.
In themselves, the levies are not financially significant but for farmers being squeezed on their margins, the temptation in this current consultation is to respond by stating that the industry could do without the AHDB.
In order to produce its response to the consultation, NFU Scotland is asking its membership if the AHDB is working as well as it can for levy payers and in which areas it could improve.
This is a risky time for the AHDB as there will be many producers who see only the levy being deducted from their cheques and not the advantages from it being there.
It is also a significant phase in the life of QMS as it will have to fight mightily to hold onto hard-won successes.