Nothing stands still in farming

This year, I went to see what is, for me, the most attractive breed of all, the South Country, or Hill Cheviots, at Lockerbie.

Mostly I go 'for auld lang syne' and to meet friends of long standing. I daren't say 'old friends', although like me some have an occasional grey hair. It was good to see their sons making a good job of showing their rams, with fathers around 'keeping da fingah on da pulse!'

Numbers of sheep forward were rather less than the last time I was at the sale and the pronounced difference in prices between the picked sheep and their mates indicated that, even at their present level, supply exceeded demand.

Although I claim no expertise I often detected little difference between rams making big money and others that left little margin. Possibly some of the price disparity would, in a breed with a limited gene pool, be because progeny of an outstanding breeding ram soon saturate the market.

Even in flocks making the highest prices, several rams - and decent sheep - would die in debt. Their breeders must surely sometimes wonder how they can increase demand.

It is all too easy at present to say that the pound is strong, supermarkets are oppressive and governments unsupportive, however it has never been more important that we ourselves examine our respective operations and make necessary changes to change our destiny.

Maybe this may mean some fine tuning or maybe something more radical. In conversation recently, someone said that no farming enterprise is doing very well at present.

A well-known arable and livestock farmer replied that was so, however we had to do something with our farms. Maybe for some grain farmers 'doing something' will be doing nothing and leaving more land fallow.

After all, that was the original rationale for decoupling. If there was no profit in producing something, don't. Certainly, don't eat into your Single Farm Payment by producing at a loss.

Everyone worries, of course, that by not continuing to produce they will miss out when the market turns. For cereals, it is hard to see that being next year

For flockmasters, both hill and low ground, there are options which are proven to improve profitability yet are not being universally taken up.

I have seen huge improvements in productivity on less favoured farms 'down under' by recording and concentrating the bloodlines of the sheep which consistently bring in the heaviest lambs with minimal feed and labour input. The expense involved is small but the change of mind set for some enormous.

For those inbye, where land is expensive and more limited, improved grazing systems can raise output considerably at a modest cost.

At this year's calf sales, well-bred calves were making almost a grand at nine months of age. Others, double their age, made a mere £200 more. Calving heifers at two years of age is well accepted.

Surely it must be time to look at their brethren. Other than with our out-and-out hill breeds, with modern native and continental breed genetics it must make sense to finish our cattle as soon after their first birthday as possible.

Indeed, it must be questioned if there is enough margin in a beast for multiple ownership. Cheap feed, limited supply worldwide and the lengthy reproductive turnaround time of bovines make me reasonably confident about beef for some years to come.

Unfortunately, cheap grain helps our main competition, pigs and poultry, too. The key to their success is that for decades they have relentlessly increased liveweight gain with reduced feed and in an ever shorter timespan.

What about our own operation? Almost every breakthrough in pedigree beef cattle production during my lifetime has emanated from North America. Cowboys are heroes over there and national enthusiasm for beef has stimulated continuous enterprise and progress.

We keep a close eye on the trans-Atlantic scene, evaluate it and, if right for the UK, incorporate it into our breeding programme.

Success has always involved balancing traits which are antagonistic - low birth weight and high growth, carcase quality and adequate milk, muscularity and eating quality - so increasing use will be made of DNA analysis.

Maybe DNA knowledge will enable us to breed disease resistance, better temperaments and improved feed conversion as a bonus. Nothing stands still.

Mabel Murray's reminiscences in The Scottish Farmer a month or so ago of her life as a shepherd's wife kindled memories of my own. She mentioned the big days feeding large numbers of personel at the clippings, dippings and other days in the folds when work involved her husbands' sheep.

As soon as we were old enough to hold a gate, my father took my brother and I to all the handlings. When away from home, we ate at the shepherd's table. Their wives put their best foot forward on these occasions. Fruits of the pig, the cow and the oven made these meals to remember.

Visits to one herd's house in particular remain especially fresh in the memory. At the end of the meal our host, a tall, thin rather solemn man, put on a floor show worthy of a Casbah. He started by rotating his false teeth round his mouth, occasionally projecting them out almost to the point where they landed on the table. Then, no hand up, from deep within he let out a belch which seemed to go on forever.

The children's author, Roald Dahl, reckoned that the thing kids find funniest of all is when an adult farts. This came a very close second. Despite being warned to be on our best behaviour, we almost dissolved. I noticed that even the greybeards struggled to maintain composure.

Sometime after, my father asked his upper crust uncle, whose disdain of the tup trade I mentioned last month, if he knew the man as he had previously been employed in Eskdalemuir parish.

"Mmm," uncle Walter nodded, "rather an uncouth fellow."