Food production all set to take centre stage

But who will replace him? Firstly, you are not going to find anyone from the present Cabinet putting their hat in the ring. When did you get turkeys voting for Christmas?

Just remember, there is no one who cannot be replaced. As soon as it is confirmed that Johnston is going, there will be a scramble to replace him. I still favour Liz Truss as the most likely candidate.

But what of his U-turn lately – which he is unlikely to implement – to stop all re-wilding and start to feed the nation from our own resources? That is what he said on TV a week ago.

At least England had the sense to abandon set-a-side last year, unlike our Holyrood administration. A few weeks ago, I was on a farm with 137 acres of set-a-side – what a disgrace it was.

Ireland has told its farmers to put every bit of available land into grain, yet in Scotland we still have set-a-side on good arable land and half the world is starving because of Putin. Who was to blame for this crazy decision in Scotland? Two unelected Greens, who now seem to be in control of all the decisions made at Holyrood.

I am told they are also behind the call for a second independence referendum which, with them on board, she has no chance of winning. What we need in the UK is federalism, which, for Scotland, would effectively mean Devo-Max, a breaking up of England into five regions and abolishing the House of Lords.

My colleague, Jim Walker, sure hit the nail on the head with his last column on June 4, fresh from a trip to Australia, and he certainly made more friends than enemies. Like me, he has a passion for our beef industry, which is Scotland’s largest sector and is equally frustrated about the lack of progress to change our EUROP beef grading system.

I am reliably informed that it is the SNP Government that is holding back change. The reason being it thinks it will win the referendum, we'll then get back into Europe and thus stick with the EUROP system. If that is the case, then I am afraid we are going to have inconsistent quality of beef for a long time.

By then, we will be importing consistently quality beef, not only from Australia and New Zealand, but also the US and Canada, because the consistency of their product, is well ahead of ours.

I have been attending a few one day shows which have been equally enjoyable, none more so than Ayr, which had a record turn-out, helped by sunny weather. There were many discussions relating to the future of farming by the next generation.

There are really only three routes into farming – either you are born into it, you marry into it, or you acquire an enormous amount of money to buy your self into it, especially with this tree planting frenzy taking place right now. There were six of us in this discussion, ranging from 45 to our 70s, and being in Ayr, the farms were mainly livestock, with dairy, beef or sheep, so we were noting all the changes over the past 60 to 70 years.

One constant was the need to grow bigger to survive, causing a number of family farms to disappear. The next area of concern was the difficulty in finding staff, especially since Brexit. The sector in most difficulty was milking cows, and the conclusion reached was that it was going to become worse, despite robots, which also seem to have challenges.

The next most demanding sector was keeping suckler cows. One of the group had several hundred beef cows and after hearing his views, one has to be brave to tackle sucklers. The unanimous conclusion was, that farming has had its margins squeezed to such an extent that there was little pleasure left in the job of producing food.

The final question was – where will farming be in the next 60 years in the West of Scotland? None of us had a clue, with the youngest maintaining there would still be farmers, but fewer of them, which probably means a continuation of the previous 60 years!

By the time you read this column, the longest day will have passed and it is downhill again, but I noticed my colleague, Doug Niven has had 7.2-inches of rain for the first five months of 2022. I have had nearly double that, at 13.75-inches for the same period, which I guess is normal.

Silage making has been a little catchy, though we were lucky with four lovely days at the end of May into June, with the pit full to capacity, plus having some 500 tonnes left from last year. It is unlikely we will need a second cut, which is comforting to know.

We can't complain about the weather on this all-grass farm. Slurry has been applied to silage aftermaths followed by half an inch of rain, resulting in a good regrowth for both cattle and sheep. Beef values are creeping up in the right direction, albeit, slowly.

Unfortunately, this 20% of what I call super-inflation, is making the margins wafer thin – in some cases zero, or negative. Store cattle, as always at this time of year, become short, which is nothing new. I am still of the opinion that food is going to become scarce.

Even the other day, Jesme found there was no blue-topped milk on the super-market shelf, only semi-skimmed! She has also noticed a few shelves empty of products, with sirloin and rib-eye the same cost as they were 10 years ago!

She keeps lecturing me to drink water which I detest, even flavoured, but I do enjoy tonic water to prevent cramp. It has risen by 25% in six months, which is away beyond Government inflation of 10%.

One thing I am observing on my travels is the farms where fertiliser use is being cut back, particularly on grassland. It was particularly noticeable as we drove down the A 9 from Inverness a few days ago, having travelled up the East side of the country to Laurencekirk to celebrate an 80th birthday.

It is certainly one of the best times of the year to see Scotland, in all it’s glory, with the trees in full bloom and the countryside looking so fresh and clean. How lucky we are to live in this lovely wee country!

Last week, the massive drop in pollution was announced by Government during lock-down, which was somewhere between 12% and 20%, and what was the reason? Fewer vehicles on the road, planes grounded and less shipping.

Without question, the most significant factor in this drop in pollution came from the transport sector in all it’s forms. Absolutely nothing to do with cattle. Their numbers had not changed during the pandemic.

Now, with traffic back to pre-Covid levels, planes flying in all directions and all the ships that were moored up around the world, again burning fossil fuel, pollution will be back to where it was before lock-down. Our cow numbers have not changed!

At the beginning of this climate change debate, I maintained that affluence was the primary cause of pollution. As an example, back in 1955 the farm we rent lost about 20 acres to a new housing development, to replace the pre-fabs that were erected as temporary homes after the second World War to house the people from Clydebank, blitzed by Germany.

This new street, which is almost a mile long, was named after the farm that had lost the ground (Ryden Mains). These were all council houses until Mrs. Thatcher put in place, the right to buy programme, when she was Prime Minister. Today, the street is almost 100% owner occupied.

The building of it was completed in 1956. My father, who ran a mixed farm at that time (as did most Lanarkshire farmers) bought a Bedford van, we dug Epicure potatoes at the end of June, when I began hawking (selling) our own eggs and potatoes on that street in the village, on a Friday night after school, with three school pals.

We chapped every door, all 160 of them, and we ran out of tatties before the end of the street, so, we had to dig more, after milking, to deliver on Saturday afternoon. What was the reasoning for this? It was affluence, in just a small sector of the country.

In 1957, my memory tells me there would only be a handful of cars parked on that one-mile stretch, so we counted them this morning and there was an average of just over two cars per household, parked in front of these houses. Some may even be away to work, but it almost makes Ryden Mains Road a one-way street.

Nowhere around did I see an electric charging point. Now that is just one example of what is causing this so-called climate change, which is being replicated across the world, not just in tiny Scotland. We cannot stop the rise in living standards which, even in my lifetime, has been incredible.

So, will hyper inflation slow down the affluence we have witnessed? One thing is for sure, food is not going to become cheaper and the reason is simple. For far too long, the primary producers have had the margins squeezed to such an extent, that they will struggle to survive, which is the reason why we are witnessing shortages and unless there is a change for the better, it will only get worse.