Key trends where size doesn’t matter
t would be as helpful in standard English as it is in Lowland Scots, but the Border Union Agricultural Society’s slogan for its annual crops and livestock competition is intended to encourage: “It’s no whit ye hae, it’s whit ye dae wi’ whit ye hae”.
That is, it’s possible to make an impact and a living with small farms or on difficult land if you’re enthusiastic, skilled and know what you’re doing. The unwritten corollary, of course, is it is possible to make a much better living on a big area of good land when capitalising on technical and management skills.
For example, tomorrow night members of the Merse Agricultural Discussion Society visit Kelloe Mains, Duns, for a close-quarters inspection of Robert Mcdonald’s dairy herd.
In the past five years he has increased herd size from 400 cows to 740, averaging 11,000 litres of milk per lactation. Impressive, but not even the biggest dairy herd in the Borders. The Kelloe Mains business is also not alone in, as well as the dairy herd, managing several thousand acres with a mix of tenanted, contract farmed and owned land.
Like the Mcgregor family’s management of about 10,000 acres from their Coldstream Mains base, the skills and management ability needed are high to produce crops and livestock on such a scale. There are at least half a dozen such multi-thousand acre managing businesses in the Borders and the pattern can be seen in every other area of Scotland.
Indeed, the move to bigger and fewer farms and greater specialisation can be seen throughout the UK and Europe. While arguments will continue about whether this is good or bad, the trend seems irreversible, not least as farming techniques and scientific developments move from mind-stretching to mind-boggling.
That might be hard to believe watching livestock being judged on good looks alone at a succession of summer shows as they have been for centuries, but farming has moved on dramatically in the past 30 years.
Keeping up with what really matters is not easy, but then it never was. Farmers have never been short of advice or information, as a farmer noted at a conference years ago. After an intense session on how to improve beef production, he began his question by saying: “The trouble is, I’m only farming half as well as I know already.”
He had summed up the problem of putting knowledge into practice and the noticeable fact about the best farmers is that they are supremely good at doing that. Also at being financially astute, forward thinking and spotting gaps in the market and adept at the many other factors that separate the successful from the moderate achievers and no-hopers regardless of whatever government support system is in plac.
And yet, as a friend pointed out when we were discussing this, the same urge for knowledge and its application could and should apply equally to small businesses. He accepted the fewer and bigger trend, but in defence of the Border Union’s crops and livestock competition slogan he pointed to a recent report from Scotland’s Rural College.
This report, The Future Demand for Smallholdings in Scotland, analysed agricultural census data that indicated that in 2018 there were more than 20,000 non-croft smallholdings in Scotland generating a turnover of about £175 million, about six per cent of Scottish agricultural output.
Researcher Steven Thomson, said: “Instead of using the conventional definition of smallholdings, which excludes many intensive horticulture, pig and poultry businesses, this analysis demonstrates that, when smallholdings are simply defined by the amount of land they have access to, then some are making significant economic contributions.”
Smallholding activities were more likely to concentrate on conventional livestock, poultry, artisan food, farm shops, tourism and renewable energy, but with a wide range of other activities such as horse livery.
The report concluded: “Many of these opportunities do not need large areas of land, but require a unique selling point, access to their target market and to be marketed and run with a degree of entrepreneurial flair.”
As do big farming businesses. Could there indeed be room for all in an uncertain farming future? I might have to change my mind.