ALTHOUGH beef farmers are now benefiting from a slight rise in the price they are getting from meat wholesalers, shadows still lurk over the industry.
Perthshire beef producer Randal Wilson, who chairs the committee behind Beef Expo 2008, which takes place on 20 May, said yesterday: "Producers are not out of the woods yet." The soaring costs of the three Fs – feed, fertiliser and fuel – are major
factors in whether beef enterprises were profitable, he added.
The theme for the Beef Expo, to be held at Perth Agricultural Centre, will be boosting efficiency in the Scottish industry.
Although the scientific basis for choosing a bull, its Estimated Breeding Value (EBV), has been around for more than a decade, there is still a reluctance by practising farmers to base their purchases on the quality of progeny left by the herd sire.
Visitors to the exhibition will be able to use both the more traditional measure of livestock quality – judging by eye – and the EBV measure.
"We have to remember that any improvement in genetics is a permanent improvement, which will be of benefit from generation to generation," said Wilson.
But it may well be that improving the genetics of cattle is not enough. More radical moves from traditional beef production may be needed.
Graham Brown, of Reidhall, Edzell, is a producer who buys in large numbers of store cattle and finishes them inside on a diet that includes cereals. He says that if the price of grain remains high, he might consider going back to grass-based beef production; an agricultural "back to basics" that would suit many parts of Scotland.
One producer who has already taken steps down that route is former businessman John Milligan, who farms on light land to the north of Perth. His stock manager, Jim Woodward, described how the cattle at Ballathie now graze on pastures with high levels of clover.
Not only does the enriched grazing provide more hundredweights of beef than it did previously, but also the following arable crops require much less artificial fertiliser.
The full article contains 351 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
