IT’S BEEN quite a week for the interface between the farming industry, the general public and environmental lobbyists.

Almost at the same time as an escaped lynx slaughtered seven sheep in Wales, we hear the news that those behind the re-wilding of the species are planning an application on a site in the Highlands; that a young farmer from Scotland has been fined by the judiciary for using some choice words and allegedly hitting a dog with a stick as it carried out a sustained attacked on his sheep; and a well-known Northern Ireland farmer has lost much to a suspicious fire on his farm.

There’s not a lot connecting all of those, other than a distinct impression that farming does not figure very highly any more in the eyes of the mainstream public and that it is now an oppressed business that can be trodden on from a great height. While there has been outrage by the farming community at re-wilding plans for lynx and wolves – and also for the case of the fined farmer – this does not appear to be matched by others in society.

Have we become irrelevant to them? Is the industry so detached in their minds from food production that they don’t care? Or is this ‘a result’ for the darker side of the anti-farming brigade’s constant lobbying and PR effort? Whatever it is, it needs to be countered by cross-party support from politicians and civil servants, and very publicly too.
However, there remains a suspicion that politicians in some quarters would actually like to see re-wilding; that they would like to crack-down on what they perceive to be ‘fat cat’ farmers; and that food can be imported from anywhere. The irony is that this latter argument, at least, flies in the face of the very public influence that politics has had in regulating the industry to the extent that it is rightly seen as a world talisman for ‘quality assurance’ – though costly it has been. It also flies in the face of a structure which presided over the ban on hunting with hounds, but seems ever more relaxed about wolves or lynx hunting sheep. 

Worth a visit

IT WILL be down to business next week when Scotland’s premier winter agri-business show, AgriScot, provides a talking point for showmen, businessmen and agri-politicians. And there’s much to talk about.

But talk will be the cheapest thing this winter and the organisers have realised that the industry faces a hard housing period and tough times ahead due to a summer which has added nothing but cost. So, there will be plenty of opportunity to find out how to best cope with these challenging times. A visit could be your best decision of the year.