The NFU Scotland has called for urgent action to support agriculture in Scotland’s hills and uplands following a report highlighting a dramatic decline in the numbers of hill sheep being kept in Scotland.
The report, “Farming’s Retreat from the Hills”, produced by Scotland’s Agricultural College (SAC), shows a substantial drop in sheep numbers since 1999, most notably in the North West with many areas seeing a reduction of between 35 and 60 per cent.
In response to the findings NFU Scotland are now calling for a revised package of measures to tackle the agricultural decline in Scotland’s remote upland areas.
Speaking at a hill farming event near Crianlarich today where the SAC report was launched, NFU Scotland’s Vice-president Nigel Miller said:
“This report cuts through the anecdotal evidence of stock leaving the most vulnerable parts of Scotland and clearly highlights for the first time that in some areas up to 60 per cent of sheep have left the hill.
“The root of the decline lies in the simple economics of producing lamb in these parts. Without a significant increase in the prices that these hill farmers receive, then there is little incentive to keep the same numbers of ewes as had been traditionally kept in the past.
“That then poses a significant challenge to the clear social, economic and environmental benefits that keeping sheep on the hills delivers. Fewer sheep means fewer farmers, shepherds and their families and that leaves holes in the social fabric of these areas and a downturn in local rural economies. Fewer sheep also means undergrazing of traditional pastures, a loss of biodiversity, a return to bracken and brash and the potential for irreparable damage to Scotland’s beautiful landscape.
“If we are genuinely committed to keeping sheep in these parts and enjoying the public benefits that they deliver, then the challenge to policymakers is clear. They need to look at ways of bolstering our Less Favoured Area scheme - targeting funding at productive agriculture - to react to the changes taking place. There is also a need to retarget some of the rural development payments available so that they are relevant to hill farmers. This report clearly indicates that they need to do this now.”
One person has commented on this article. 1. NFU calls for action to protect hill farming
Hill shepherd, Unregistered SOS – Policy & funding to safeguard our hefts and herds in the hills- NOW
Scotland’s hefted hill sheep, hill shepherds & their families cannot be replaced once they are gone. Who in Holyrood can make effect without another meaningless consultation or enquiry? To retain hefts and herds..a moratorium on all hill-bound hefted flocks (the few left of traditional leased hill holdings) is needed urgently with policy & funding in place now to avert plans before last retirals & dispersals of Scotland’s hill flocks this Autumn.
Better late than never, is recognition that to keep the hills of Scotland amazing, we must keep them grazing! The big lie - overgrazing in the hills has always been a hoax. NFU’s simplistic thinking about more for "producing lamb" is not economics as if people matter. What matters, is hill people and their hefts and herds of grazing animals, as groundbase to the rich pickings left of Scotland's unique natural & cultural heritage. Any payment to eradicate grazing, and the traditional land use of centuries and its people in substitute Stalinist remote control whether in quangos, forest solely for investment or “empty acres” destroys the hills and glens, the very fabric of rural Scotland. The curse has been forestry funds instead of farming for the hills, prohibitive rules, no animals, market, abattoir, just SRP; vegetation ungrazed, landscape, wildlife, rural communities lost and people too.
We hill shepherds have a voice, not heeded, until too late. Instead, the ignorance, advice and flawed research of Scotland's so-called specialists, experts, associations and organisations, has led to misapplied policies and funding towards the irredeemable loss of our hefts and herds off the hills. Don't blame Europe! Remote control by quangos has been the worst case of absentee landlordism.. "Rural" "local" and "community" does not exist without individuals, without families living and working within our hills and glens, without the local interaction of timeless traditional skills of hillfarming as groundbase. Denial of the rich legacy bestowed by our way of life dependant upon our hill grazing animals, led to State control or schemes for diversification leading to desertification. Its a cultural crisis.. about displacement of Scotland’s indigenous people, as shepherds neither represented by a Crofters Commission or Commoners Association to voice our pleas.
Was it not SAC's "expert" advice to rid Scotland's hills of hefted flocks after replacing the Blackfaces with the feed bag in the disaster at Kirkton, Crianlarich? SNH, F.C.& RSPB were behind the Clearances of the Galloway Hills in the 90s and what of Rum?. In 2005 SNH were funded to get rid of the hefted flock off Cairnsmore, their only hill farm in Scotland. NFU do not come out with any glory either. For 20 yrs I have consistently begged our MPs, Scottish Ministers, NFU, SAC, SNH, Heather Trust, RSPB, Forestry Commission, MLURI- the Macaulay, and even Blackface Sheepbreeders to take heed, to lobby, to influence, to enable positive action....but No! Policy and funding dictates even further the demise of hillfarming and dire loss of our hefts and herds off the hills. No mention of the vital role of the grazing animal, in the favoured HLF project as supported by Countryside Alliance- the Derbyshire "Moors for the Future" Project Moorlands are "IN" for professors & professionals but uplands are "OUT" for grazers & graziers. Dismissive of Scotland's existing rich resource of indigenous hill people, schemes for "new" entrants fail, as promoted by Alex Salmond at the NSA conference "21st Century Clearances"; when there is NO proper value or reward given to the existing pool of scarce resources of hill hefted flocks and the families of hill shepherds who tend them.
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