By Bernie Bell
(With apologies to Alec Ross for nicking his title!)
I watched the first episode of the new series of ‘Landward’….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000v7fm/landward-2021-episode-1
……which included an item about a farm on which a cull/slaughter had to take place in 2001 due to Foot & Mouth disease. At the time, the farmer’s son very much wanted to follow his Dad into working the family farm – and he did.
What does he face now? Thanks to Brexit exports are down, down, down. Why not just sell to the home market? Because imports undercut the prices for the home market. Imports from places which don’t always have such high production standards as Scotland.
The stats. were there in the programme – down, down, down. It could be said that I shouldn’t always believe what I see on the telly – and I don’t – but this was on ‘Landward’, where they are usually reasonably sound in the information they present, and how they present it.
So what’s the solution? Maybe being able to re-establish the previous export markets. And how might Scotland achieve that?
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