For the 46th time I have penned my New Year thoughts, when I usually look in to my ‘crystal ball’, to try and predict what might happen in the year ahead.

Sometimes my predictions materialise, but I am afraid I am not going to chance it this year, because anything could happen in our industry in the months to come.

I do have a few wishes. The first one is that history does not repeat itself, and that Putin, unlike Hitler, does not take us into World War 111! Right now, we must be close to what Hitler did some 80 plus years ago and I am afraid the only way to prevent it is by giving support to Ukraine.

Another positive point to start the year is that it appears that we have a Prime Minister and a Chancellor that have some common sense and understanding of how business works. I still do not fancy any of their jobs, because, there is no doubt that the country is in a mess, thanks to Cameron, Johnston and Truss!

Related Articles:

Another positive is we seem to have two good world leaders in Biden and Macron. Before I leave politics, I do support Gordon Brown’s thinking to do away with the House of Lords, but must go farther with federalism plus 'Devo-Max' for the devolved governments which would kill dead any further thoughts for independence.

Due to a notable birthday of my better half, we have had several occasions to put the world to rights, accompanied by a few glasses of Prosecco. Dominating the chat was the failing support for Ms Gougeon, because of the lack of policies being decided and Nicola’s support almost non-existent, especially after the announcement that the number of staff at the agri-department had risen by 171, at a cost of around £8.2m, in a short space of time.

The number of farmers is reducing, the financial support less, livestock numbers in every sector crashing downwards, farm output about to drop dramatically, which begs the question, ‘Why do we need all those extra people for a declining industry'. One ‘wag’ commented it was to count the number of trees being planted!

One outfit that always causes much debate is QMS, which has hived off responsibility for Farm Assurance. I would need a full page to rhyme off all the stories about the new regulations.

For example, an inspector asked an 80-year-old farmer if he had written down his farm plan for the year ahead! Apart from saying ’It’s all in my ‘heid’, I dare not print any more of his response! I think they should put into print, in this publication, the names and telephone numbers of all the people who are on this Standard Setting Committee and let them hear first-hand, all the ‘flack’ from the farming fraternity.

The next topic for comment came from a meat industry stalwart who was at the world-renowned food fair, SIAL, in Paris. His question to me, having read the report in The SF of the December 17 about £14m of new business being acquired, was, where is this beef going, because he did not think that Scotland could do that much business, let alone have £14m in extra sales!

Another factor is: Who is benefitting from the price of tallow, which has, in a short space of time, rocketed from £50 per tonne, to almost £2000 per tonne! I would imagine my colleague, Jim Walker, will be more able to answer, having been in that industry for some time?

For the first time, two friends had a health and safety inspection. How many of you have a plan of where all your electric overhead cables go across your land? How high are they above the ground? You have been warned!

Next, is my constant gripe about auction markets' seating and heating, particularly in the Central Belt, which I attend up to four days a week. I think three of them want their customers to have pneumonia.

Only Jim Craig, at Ayr, looks after his clients with adequate seating and heating. The others have their heaters in the wrong place – up in the ceiling in two of them and too small in the third. Also, one of the markets has turned it’s web-cam off, the reason being given that they wanted to encourage people back to the market. Believe that if you want to!

There are many who cannot attend marts due to ill-health or disability, even though it is a very social meeting place for country folks to have a chat. Lanark's web-cam is the easiest to access for those of us in the older generation, but Thainstone has the best information. In my opinion, all markets should have web-cams for every sale. This is 2023, not the dark ages!

Several times I mentioned fertiliser last year and the effect it has on food production. The reality is that the price has escalated during my lifetime.

When I was about 10, we had four horses in the stable and a two-seater David-Brown tractor. One of the first jobs I remember was with a horse and cart, pulling dung from the midden down into open potato drills.

This field had top soil of three feet deep and not a drain in it. After the dung was hawked out of the cart on to the bottom of the drill, four women followed with the seed potatoes to plant on to the dung after which the soil was pulled over to cover them, forming a drill. That was before granular fertilizer was available.

My memory tells me that my father felt that if he procured eight tonnes to the acre, he had a good crop at that time in the 1950s. Today, with prilled fertiliser, plus various sprays, more than 20 tonnes per acre is expected – a similar improvement is in place for every crop we grow.

Because of fertiliser, production has increased to such an extent that without it, world famine would be a real possibility and not caused by climate change. At £800-plus for fertiliser, producing food is uneconomical. Hence the reason we are on the brink of a food shortage.

It is already happening, with the most basic foods. With beef, values are soaring to unprecedented levels world-wide. Tiny wee Scotland’s beef farmers, for a long time, used to receive the third highest price in the world, after Japan and Iceland. Today, we might be 10th!

Why? Because we have the highest density of supermarkets per head of population in the world. We may have some of the best beef in Europe, but certainly not in the world and I don't need to remind readers of why.

After the first 10 days of the New Year, £5 per kg will not see some of the cattle sold through store rings out of jail – leaving much of a margin. If beef finishers are trying to budget for the year ahead, it'll be tricky. Pray that all goes well!

It could all change. Fertiliser may come back to £200 per tonne, fuel 50ppl, barley £100 per tonne, and then we will all be bust! Of course, nothing like that will happen, but it looks like a tough year ahead.

Surprisingly, my total rainfall for last year was 38-inches – exactly the same as my 30- year average and I hope that will continue again every year. Two friends who also measure rainfall, the farthest in the South-east at Mindrum, registered 23-inches and up in Forfar it was 41-inches – the first time that part of Scotland has had more rainfall than my area, near Glasgow.

In this first month of 2023, I have to tell you that in my lifetime, having been born early on during the WW11, we farmers world-wide, have more than doubled food production, in every aspect, due to innovation, progression, and determination, but most of all because of the invention of granular fertiliser.

Let me remind everyone that all humans ‘Cannot have a meal without a farmer'. If we do not have enough affordable fertiliser, we will not have sufficient food to feed the world’s population – end of.