Stock numbers threat to meat trade

THE continuing threat to the meat industry from a serious decline in stock numbers, was highlighted in a speech by Frank Clark, president of the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers (SAMW) at its annual conference in Glasgow. 
He told delegates: “The continuing decline in numbers in Scotland is having an increasingly crippling impact on our industry.
“Livestock numbers have fallen steadily over the past decade, with the latest figures suggesting that 2018 will merely produce more of the same – or actually less of the same in terms of the number of livestock on-farm. We simply cannot let this damaging decline continue. 
“If we’re going to get out of today’s livestock supply mess – and there’s no other word for it – we’re all going to have to get involved,” said Mr Clark.
While processors could become more efficient and the retail trade fine-tune their profit margins, government could help by properly funding the whole red meat supply chain ‘in such a way that the post-Brexit export successes we’ve been promised become a government-driven reality, rather than an industry-based responsibility’, he said.
He also singled out how better farm husbandry could help: “Perhaps that means farmers becoming more efficient and effective at keeping the calves which are born, alive and productive, rather than accepting losses to disease and illness which could be avoided.
“Finding a solution to the numbers decline has to be an all-industry effort with no pinning of blame for the decline on some other part of the chain,” said Mr Clark.
On ‘the brave new world of post-Brexit’, he said: “For some businesses, 12 more months of talking followed by 21 months of transition will sound okay. For everyone involved in the production of red meat, however, it’s hardly enough to cover the production cycle of our raw material and it definitely doesn’t accommodate the planning and investment process which lies behind the farm-to-plate timescale of the industry. 
“That’s why we need better Brexit answers than we’ve been given to date, more far-reaching solutions than we’re heard from the politicians siting in Edinburgh, London and Brussels, and genuine evidence that those in charge of the whole process understand that March 29, 2019, and December 31, 2020, are starting points not end points.” 
He said there was enormous post-Brexit potential, but it was ‘not going to just happen’. 
“We’re going to be entering a much more competitive global marketplace than we’ve been in for the last 45 years. We’re not at all worried about that. 
“On the contrary, we believe we can gain more than we lose, export more than we import and grow as an industry. But it won’t just happen on its own – what we need now is certainty.
“That means certainty about the nuts and bolts of the transition deal, and certainty about the level of farm and business support available in the following three, four, or five years.”
A fact-finding tour to New Zealand was an eye-opener, he said, and he gained a first-hand view of NZ’s farm supply chain and how it achieved its presence across a wide range of international markets. 
“I’m sure we can reach a point of working in post-Brexit harmony with NZ within the UK market, just as we’ve done over the last 40 plus years, but it would be a mistake to expect anything other than tough competition from NZ’s exporters and many other exporting countries,” he said. 
“Nobody is going to give up hard won market share just because we turn up waving a Union Jack or the Saltire.”
The reality, he said, was that livestock farming in Scotland is not currently ready to face the unrelenting pressure of international competition. “Our farmers need a helping hand from government to knock the sector into better shape,” he argued.
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