Farmers and crofters can learn about Quality Meat Scotland's changes to its standards at upcoming village hall meetings
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COLUMN: From the Croft by Russell Smith
Is spring on its way now?
The in-bye is starting to go green, though the hill ground is still sepia shades of brown; the curlews and lapwings are back.
There are buds on the daffodils and trees; the cockerels are “active”; smoke from muirburn is in the air: and lambing is just around the corner.
So we try to cram in everything else before the long days in the fields and byres start.
The Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF) has organised an on-line session with Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) to go through the changes to the standards which come into force in April.
The major change for crofters is that an animal health plan will be required (you should have one already) and this will need to be discussed and signed off by your vet on a visit to your holding.
Talking through your plans with a vet should lead to improvements and new ideas that are worth trying, but the visit comes with a bill attached.
If you have cattle, then you probably have the vet out every year anyway so that is you covered, but for those of us with a few sheep then this may well be a new cost.
High animal welfare standards are integral to the marketing of our beef and lamb and we must be able to demonstrate this to the consumer - that is the way the world is going.
So for those of us selling 100 plus lambs every year, the cost of QMS membership and a vet’s visit will be of the order of £2 per lamb, which is okay to my mind if prices stay good.
But you have to decide if it is worth it if you only have a few lambs to sell each autumn.
Quality Meat Scotland do a good job marketing our produce but sometimes you have to pick and choose where to spend your money.
There will be village hall meetings after lambing time, Covid permitting, if you want to know more about the QMS changes.
There have been no significant announcements about the new support regime recently.
However, I trust that work is going on in the background with appropriate attention being paid to supporting small units in the more remote areas and not just focusing on big farms in the east and south.
The new system will have to balance food production, biodiversity, and net zero/carbon reduction. And that point of balance will be different for a croft in north-west Sutherland compared to a large arable farm in East Lothian.
Food security may have moved up the agenda as a result of the war in Ukraine, though most grain production in Scotland goes for animal feed or to the whisky industry.
There should be a consultation in the summer on proposals and we will have to get used to carbon audits and phrases like “enhanced conditionality”, which is where you get a flat rate payment for following a minimum set of standards then increased rates if you are operating at a higher standard (with the aim of encouraging businesses to keep improving).
SCF has a seat on the body that is reviewing the draft policies.
We need to ensure that policies are croft-proofed and that common grazings get the attention that their acreage and contribution to biodiversity and carbon capture warrant.
Russell Smith is a crofter at Bonar Bridge and a director of the Scottish Crofting Federation.
