|
From The Wellies - March 2008
The National Farmer’s Union of Scotland held its AGM at Dunblane Hydro Hotel on the 22 & 22 February. At the start of his second year in office, President Jim McLaren laid out six crucial steps that had to be taken to secure supplies of quality food in an increasingly volatile world.
* Development of clear political leadership on food issues from Government.
* A revolution in regulations to eliminate red tape that delivers little benefit, but stifles food production.
* Greater Scottish control of animal health issues to better protect the country from diseases like foot & mouth.
* A fairer supply chain, with supermarkets recognising the threat to the future supplies of food.
* A farm subsidy structure which secures value for money for consumers.
* A new scientific debate on the future of biotechnology.
* * * * *
In recent weeks the Scottish Government has launched a Climate Change Bill, a Flooding Bill and a National Food Policy document. This led Jim McLaren to ask the question “what does the consumer want from my farm? Does it want me to flood it to protect the town, does it want me to remove my livestock to cut emissions, or does it want me to produce food to feed the people.”
Whatever discussions are taken in the future to find a balance between all these objectives, it’s been noticeable in the last few weeks that politicians have finally started monitoring the issue of food security. The penny finally seems to have dropped that demand in other parts of the world for more food means that there is no longer plentiful supplies of cheap food to ship into the UK.
* * * * *
Lambing and calving is fast approaching and stockmen across the country are hoping for a rise in temperatures and some decent weather. An early bite of grass in spring can help save on expensive feedstuffs and working long days at lambing or calving time always seems better in t-shirt weather rather than waterproofs and wellies weather.
Many livestock keepers have now gained their Certificates of Competence in livestock transport. Most of the multiple choice questions were relatively straightforward although some did however cause a few laughs when comparing notes after the test. The subject was disinfection of the vehicle and the choices of parts of the vehicle to wash down and disinfect were a. the dashboard, b. the mudflaps, c. the wheels and d. the wheel arches. While some farm vehicles and livestock lorries many not have the tidiest dashboards, I don’t think many drivers would be happy having them washed down and sprayed with disinfectant!
* * * * *
It looks like we will have to watch the Bluetongue virus advancing towards Scotland over the summer. The rate of advance up the country will depend on English Restriction Zones on animal movement and the activity of the virus spreading midge. There are lots of different opinions on when to vaccinate – full immunity takes three weeks to develop in sheep and six weeks in cattle.
One worrying discovery is that Bluetongue can now be passed from mother to offspring through the placenta. All we can hope for is that vets and politicians who have to make decisions about when to order vaccine and when to use it get their decisions right. Best estimates at the moment are that the Scottish government would have to spend £10million on the vaccine order. Chief vet for Scotland Charles Milne has said that he would prefer Scotland to go down the route of compulsory vaccination. This would be Scotland’s main control policy against Bluetongue and unlike Foot and Mouth, there would be no compensation for farmers caught up in an outbreak.
|
