Changing farm policy to ensure a viable future in an era of reduced prices for all types of livestock coupled with ever declining financial support is a scary prospect, but it can be achieved and successfully at that in both the beef and the sheep sectors.

That was the positive news from upland beef and sheep farmer, John Ritchie, speaking at the Quality Meat Scotland Rising To The Challenges Conference in Airth, on Tuesday.

Admitting his 650-acre unit at Montalt, Perthshire, had suffered reduced profit margins over the past five years, and would be unsustainable without the Single Farm Payment, Mr Ritchie said he had completely altered his cattle breeding enterprise to maximise production with reduced input costs.

"Subsidy payments are unlikely to increase and are more likely to fall or disappear completely, so we had to turn the farm around to make it sustainable," said Mr Richie.

"In previous years we were running 75 big Simmental cross cows to a Charolais bull, but we were having problems calving with just 85% of calves sold, and we were also having to make huge amounts of silage to feed them."

But, by introducing a Salers bull, John and his wife Alix, who assists on the farm, profit margins have been turned around with cattle revenues up 11% on the year and rising.

"Salers have made a massive difference. Our vet bill has gone done from £1800 to £260 and we have more calves to sell purely because Salers cross calves are so easy to calve and they are quick to get to their feet and suckle.

"Salers cross stores are worth £50-£100 less than our continental cross calves were, but, we have more live calves and more to sell. We are also able to keep our own heifers for replacements and having used Salers for a number of years now, also have heifers to sell for breeding.

"Salers cross cows, are smaller in size at 600-650kg compared to our old Simmental crosses, and as a result, they required less forage, which in turn should allow us to expand our sheep flock from 650 ewes to 750."

Mr Ritchie also pointed out that his Salers cross cows can also be wintered cheaper at a cost of 85p per day, on straw and pot ale syrup.

The farm's ewe flock is also in the process of being turned around to a bid to source a low maintenance, hardy, prolific ewe which will allow the business which is farmed in partnership with John's parents, George and Karen Ritchie, to carry more stock and therefore finish more lambs quicker off young grass.

Previously, Scotch Mule replacement females were bought in as ewe lambs at a cost of £90 per head, but by retaining the Texel cross female from them, input costs have been cut. However, with Texel cross Mules weighing in at 80kg, they proved too big for this upland unit with the result Mr Ritchie has lambed some Texel cross Blackface. His five-year average scan is 191% cent, with 165% sold.

He is also in the process of culling any with lambing, milk or feet problems, and triplet born lambs are lifted and reared on a milking machine, which not only reduced labour requirements and lamb mortality but also improved the overall health of the remaining flock. Last year, 100 pets were reared this way and left a margin of £15 per head.

And, by relying on easier lambing types of sheep, the couple aim to produce more live lambs and breed functional sheep which require little if any intervention at lambing.

All lambs are finished and sold at an average 19.5kg deadweight to Scotbeef with 70% sold off grass by the end of November and the rest finished on swedes by mid-February.

At present about a third of lambs are E and U grades but Mr Ritchie said: "The minimum supermarket requirement is an R grade, so I would rather forfeit the small premium I get for Es and Us for a flock of ewes which require less assistance and rear more lambs."

Mr Ritchie feels good grass is the key to efficiency, and despite the farm being situated between 900 and 1000ft above sea level on shallow, rock-based soil, he continues to rotate the grass every six years with a forage crop to keep it fresh. He soil tests and applies lime regularly as well as keeping up with drainage and fencing.

"You have to look at the potential of your own farm and ask yourself if every acre is producing to its potential before renting grass elsewhere. Young grass is the best investment you can make on a livestock farm as it has far more carrying capacity than older grass.

"I think farmers find it hard to understand dry matter and how much is needed on a farm to keep stock. We have a short grazing season up here but we extend it with the use of forage crops such as swedes - 45 tonnes fresh weight of swedes yields four tonnes of dry matter which can be used over the winter months.

"Neeps are fundamental to the profitability of our business, which costing £90 per acre to grow, provide valuable feed for the ewes late February to May - we got all our ewes through the spring on no supplementary feeding at all this year."

A member of the Perthshire Grazing group run by QMS, and also a member of West Fife and Kinross Business Improvement Group, Mr Ritchie is open to new ideas and he finds the open sharing of information and benchmarking which comes from these meetings, invaluable.

"The biggest asset to the business is the farmer himself and the more knowledge and skills he can apply to improve the business, the better," he said.

"Just because you work 24 hours a day seven days a week on the farm, doesn't mean you'll make money. Farmers need to get away and see other farms and other businesses and they need to share information," he concluded.