Bleak countryside - and prospects!

The frost, albeit only just below zero, for the past two weeks, has certainly taken the thoughts of spring to the back of our minds, because the countryside is looking more bleak now than it has been all winter.

However, on the assumption that we are heading towards spring, it has not been a bad winter with no snow and no real frosty conditions that have caused any real hassle.

We even managed to umbilical slurry on a fair acreage of grazing land just the other day, which borders on to half our local village. Fortunately, we had a slight shower of rain that night and a breeze which blew the slurry odours away from the urban dwellers, so we had no phone calls about the awful country smells which we were creating.

The next acreage to be covered with about 3000 gallons per acre is around the church and cemetery from which we are unlikely to receive any complaints!

With a little luck and with slurry now on in the middle of March, we should be grazing somewhere around the end of April, but that is on the assumption the temperatures rise and we have some nice dry, drouthy winds in the next few weeks!

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a panel at the auctioneers conference, held only a few minutes from home, in Cumbernauld's upmarket Westerwood Hotel. My colleagues were Ian Campbell, from Glenrath, and Murray Hardy, from Scotbeef, so we covered many varying subjects over two hours.

We even turned the tables on the auctioneers and asked them questions. All three of us were concerned about the future of the auction markets, particularly in light of the reduced number of farmers. The reality was that the ones left farming were becoming larger, and as a result there was less and less time for the next generation to attend the auction markets.

We were also concerned about the mixed messages coming from the markets with most of them having staff on the road doing what seems to be an ever increasing number of deals from farmer to farmer, with the livestock never near a mart! Is that not a conflict of interest?

As previously said, all three of us are strong mart supporters, with Ian, Colin and John Campbell selling large numbers of suckled calves and sheep through the marts and Murray Hardy and I at marts several times every week buying stock.

I have serious concerns for some marts as to how they look after buyers and their comforts. Maybe some of my gripes come with age, but I, for the life of me, cannot understand why in some marts the heaters are located right up in the ceiling, especially when heat naturally rises. Why they cannot be located at the entrances where the cattle enter from the pens which is where the freezing cold air comes from, beggars belief!

Seating in some is another bone of contention, as is starting time and a real bug-bear with me is how bad some marts are at getting cattle into the ring, one lot after the other.

Speaking of lots, here is another area where vast efficiency could reduce time wasted. With so much computer technology today surely it is not beyond the realms of possibility for the staff to operate a tapered commission charge on 'lot' sizes particularly at store stock sales.

So much time is wasted selling singles when, on many occasions, vendors' stock could be grouped in larger numbers. Charging less commission on larger lots going through the rings would soon change attitudes on how cattle are sold and make the job much more efficient.

Right now, the livestock sector is on its knees, so what I am suggesting to the marts is - and some are worse than others - you need to become even more efficient at what you do or you will be on your knees just like the sector you serve! I want the marts to survive, but if some auctioneers do not stop relying on the 'sparrows in the rafters' and conduct an honest auction, their future must be questioned.

I am afraid that the sector in our industry that was fairing the best - ie beef - is now heading into the depths of doom and gloom. Shortly, it could be that prime beef will be at a low, last seen way back in August, 2011, when deadweight was 330 p/kg. The peak was after 'horsegate', when prices came close to 420p in November, 2013!

The drop on a 360kg carcase from then until this week is around £324 or, for a decker load of 34 prime cattle, £11,016. For a 2000-head /year finisher unit, this equates to a gross income drop of around £648,000.

That gives you some indication of how much less cash is coming into Scotland's beef sector.

As of this week, Scotch beef is no longer the most expensive in the world. You can now get more in England for prime cattle than here in Scotland. The so-called Scotch Premium is gone, but hopefully not on a permanent basis.

Having said that, the payment spec' with some abattoirs will mean that the beef is so lean that in effect, 'Scotch quality beef' no longer exists!

Last Friday, along with hundreds of others, I attended Dunblane Cathedral for a memorial service to pay our last respects and celebrate the life of one of Scotland's beef icons, Ian Galloway. I often categorise the population into various sectors and, in my opinion, Ian was in the top 5% of the human race.

He had that entrepreneurial gift and vision to be ahead of the majority of his fellow man, a brain with foresight that few could match. Occasionally he could upset some by his dogged determination to put his vision into practice, which invariably succeeded.

Without doubt, he was a much respected pioneer in the beef industry and will be sadly missed. His love of Scotland was obvious by the music that was played both before and after the service which reminded me of the iconic view he and Avril have enjoyed for many years from their large lounge window that portrays Scotland's beauty in all its splendour.

Back to some better news. On February 25 we received the BPS into our bank account and the amount was almost exactly what I expected after hearing about the reformed CAP announced about two years ago - and which has turned out to be the shambles I predicted.

Do not blame the Scottish Government, or Richard Lochhead. This shambles all started back in Brussels by politicians and bureaucrats who supposedly have a pile of brains, but little common sense, so what else could you expect? The cause of all the frustration has been a machine, for which I have little love, but I do admit I admire what computers can do when they work!

My only real computer experience was away back in my milk board days when we installed a new updated version at Underwood Road, but I can recall that it cost nearly double the budget and frustrated the operators, so I do have some sympathy with the CabSec. I believe everything has to be checked manually, so draft in more people - job done!

If it had been left to Westminster politicians, we would not be getting any cash, as their stance 10 years ago was to have farming support all phased out by now, so we should be grateful for small mercies.

As expected, our BPS is half of what it was last year and now down to a third of what it was when the SFP was introduced 10 years ago - and, by 2020, it will be a quarter or maybe less.

This means we are heading into unsupported food production on this farm which I am sure will be the case on many others. So, how many will survive?

We have five years to think about it, by which time Westminster will have achieved its goal of turning Scotland into a wildlife park. In order to help this situation, these London politicians need to come up with a redundancy programme for all livestock farms that pays them to plant them in trees and pay a respectable salary for looking after them, because it will no longer be viable to keep livestock!