Minister to Address Partnership
Objective 2 News
Convenors Comment
S'Update
S'up and coming ...
Drawing on the Whole Food Chain to Develop High Value Markets
Dumfries and Galloway Food Futures Partnership Programme
Organic Farming - Some Personal Views
Organic Poultry in the Yarrow Valley
Organic Farming - Hope or Hype?
Frond or Foe?
The Cree Valley Community Woodlands Trust
SEPA/FC EU LIFE Environment Project
Seeing the Woods from the Trees
Where There's Muck ... Part 2
Showing some initiative ...
The Small Print
Wholesale Marketing by Lamb Marketing Groups - A Personal View from Dave Stanley

Objective 2 News

The SUP has been co-ordinating the first phase of a study into the interactions between the environment and the regional economy of South Scotland. Funded by a number of bodies including SNH, FC, SE, RSPB and the local authorities and enterprise companies, the study will demonstrate how important the environment of S. Scotland is to the local economy. Figures for agriculture, forestry, industry and tourism are relatively well documented and it is therefore possible for these sectors to justify further investment. Figures have simply not been collated on the environmental sector, at least partly because they are difficult to obtain. ERM, an Edinburgh-based consultancy, are in the process of collecting relevant data and by mid March 2000, the first phase will be complete, in time to feed in to the Objective 2 plan for South Scotland.

1 - The launch of the SUP Membership Drive on February 7th was attended by Euan Robeson MSP, Murray Tosh MSP, Elaine Murray MSP and  Christine Grahame MSP and supported by the Post Office Board and Wemyss and March Estates.

Still Grousing on . . . "Biodiversity on the edge" is the name of the project being developed by a number of partner bodies to ensure the black grouse and other priority species do not decline any further in the Southern Uplands. The project plans to apply to the Heritage Lottery Fund to match other funding sources to create two full time posts. The project is almost fully worked-up. More news next time.

2 - Broadlaw looking towards St Mary's Loch

Shirley Black of Kershope writes: "When farming took yet another nose dive into decline I decided I had to diversify to make ends meet so that I could achieve my ambition after the death of their father 4 years ago of giving my children the chance of farming and a farming way of life.

Living in the Yarrow Valley although a lovely place to be is very isolated from main stream business and all the advantages that it brings, like communication, distribution services and most importantly word of mouth so when setting up my diversification these three things were my main hurdles to overcome.

After reading the press over the last year one began to realise that the meat eating consumer no longer wanted intensively reared, drug fed, and mass produced food coming from who knows where in the world. So with these things in mind I decided to convert half the farm to organic status Kershope is in an E.S.A. area conserving heather so with the reduction of stock for that purpose it seemed the next best thing to do. With this conversion taking two years lamb alone would not bring home any significant premiums so I took the plunge and decided to rear chicken and turkey on an all year round basis. Due to the remoteness of Kershope there was no slaughtering facilities close enough to satisfy welfare regulations so I built my own which is licensed by the Soil Association and also the Scottish Office which means that the birds are killed on farm with no travel stress and the consumer knows where the birds were reared and killed offering the all important traceability.

The actual business is very simple, chicks are brought by myself, as there are at the moment no carriers prepared or licensed to carry live birds from Thirsk as day olds, reared using the Soil Association directives fed on organic food which has been certified by the Soil Association are free range and are kept for at least 12 weeks which is twice as long as factory farmed birds. The birds receive no medication unless to alleviate suffering and are reared with strict hygiene and welfare codes. The birds are then killed humanely on the farm hung in a controlled environment with the eviscera still in, eviscerated at a later date, packed and distributed to wholesalers, butchers and the general public. At the moment I am working on a mail order package and using a local carrier in Selkirk who covers Edinburgh and the Borders it should work well. With the Slaughter House being Licensed with the Scottish Office it means that the birds can be sold anywhere in the U.K. and other producers may like to use the facilities to have then-own organic birds killed."
 
 

Frond or Foe?   The SUP Bracken Workshop that took place at the Gordon Arms in February was a great success in spite of a lot of snow. "The most positive and constructive bracken workshop I have attended in 25 years" said Professor Roy Brown of Birkbeck College in London. Other speakers included Dr Robin Pakeman, Dr Eric Caulton and Dr Roderick Robinson. Contractors (both aerial and ground-based) and the statutory agencies (SNH, SEPA and SERAD) also made presentations.  A working group has been established to consider how best to ensure bracken is managed effectively in future. Please contact the Project Manager if you would like further information on this. 4 - Speakers at the Bracken Seminar held at  The Gordon Arms in February

Thanks largely to the efforts of Miles Wenner, the Forestry Commission has been successful in attracting EU funding for a project to study, and demonstrate, how the potentially harmful effects of commercial forestry can be minimised. Two contrasting catchments with extensive coniferous cover have been selected Ð the River Cree in Galloway and the Viskan in south west Sweden. The project will run for 42 months during which time there will be international workshops in Sweden and Scotland to gather and disseminate the knowledge gained. Cree Valley Community Woodland Trust, a grant-aided body established to develop a local millennium forest, has agreed to co-ordinate the work.

5 - River Cree, Galloway

6 - River Viskan, Sweden

As well as EU money, there is financial support from the Freshfields Foundation, a charitable trust set up by the Littlewoods Group, and funding in kind from a number of partners who form the Steering Group to oversee the project. A fundamental and early aim is the preparation of a catchment management plan based on GIS technology. So too is the completion of a literature review to avoid duplication of studies undertaken elsewhere. Although there will be an element of research in some of the demonstrations, the emphasis is on devising practical management techniques that can be incorporated into daily forestry practice with little extra cost and maximum environmental benefit.

SEEING THE WOODS 

7 - A remnant of wood-pasture today

FROM THE TREES Our ancestors made a living from the land much as we do, but they lacked the machinery, chemicals and technology that we have so they had to work "with nature" at a more basic level. We are still learning about what they did and why but, if you know how, you can "read" some of this history from the ecology and form of the landscape we have inherited. One practice which we are starting to understand is wood-pasture.

Grazing of woodland by stock would have prevented regeneration of trees, the scattered mature trees would then have sheltered the stock, supplied timber and wood, and may have provided additional fodder. Wood-pasture would therefore have provided grazing and shelter for animals as well as a supply of fuel and building material. The thinning of trees to create open woodland, which would then have been grazed, allowed a ground flora more characteristic of grassland to develop over time. This would account for the presence today of elements of both long established grassland and woodland.

In Scotland wood-pasture is not confined to the enclosed lowlands. It is also to be found on the unenclosed valley slopes of more upland areas. This is particularly true of the fringes of the Southern Uplands. This habitat is similar in some respects to lowland wood-pasture but has its own ecological and historical associations. Whether these upland habitats were managed on an ad hoc basis or through a more systematic management regime is not known. The result is likely to have been the same, a semi-open habitat with grassland and scattered trees. A number of sites have been surveyed recently by Scottish Natural Heritage.

Today, remnants of wood pasture systems are often on marginal land and the persistence of the woodland element may be the result of these sites having been left largely unmanaged in recent times. There are many examples which have been almost completely cleared of trees and are now open grassland with scattered hawthorn. 

Looking to the future, there may be a role for the development of new upland wood-pastures as an economic land use. This sort of habitat would form a useful part of the matrix of a woodland habitat network. 

Comment from Lanarkshire

Dear Pip,

Thanks for the invitation to say something for the next newsletter. I have no forestry expertise but, in 1983, I planted a commercial forestry plantation of some 100ha (an FC approved scheme of Sitka and Japanese larch and several thousand native broadleaves) up here (300m above sea level) on an exhausted sheep-run devoid of trees or heather in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire near the Daer Reservoir. My husband and I built a croft here in the plantation where we now live. I have come to recognise some realities about the cultivation of native broadleaves. There has been virtually no "spontaneous regeneration" of native trees. Those I have planted in the last couple of years made as much growth in a year as the original ones did in 10. This is because of the shelter afforded by the exotic conifer crop. Hardy commercial conifers create a new and far more benign microclimate for the native trees. Our original birch forest died out according to our local archaeologist following a dramatic change in climate - it was NOT cut down for firewood - 3,000 years ago. We can still dig up those trees with the bark shining as silver as the day they collapsed into the peat. Also, everything up here except for the Sitka has to be protected against browsing by deer and rabbits. My immediate neighbour to the north still has all the plastic tree shelters on the broadleaves he planted in 1984! 

My next point is on employment and suggestions for the economic development of the Southern Uplands. Our nearest village is Crawford. If it were a village in France, I am sure that there would be a sign pointing to the village off the main road outlining the main points of interest to attract the visitor, including the local amenities such as hotels and restaurants. Crawford has iron age forts, Roman roads and forts, the oldest coaching inn in Scotland (now sadly a ruin waiting to be redeveloped into flats), a medieval tower, the remains of a Cistercian chapel and all sorts of other amazing historical remains. However, such is the lack of support for civic pride that the best view as you approach the village along the Clyde is spoiled by a rusty lorry parked in a field. A 17th century cross marking a fatal coaching accident opposite the Post Horn Inn that was knocked down a year ago has not been reinstated. We have Watling Street (part of the Roman road), we have Bronze Age platform settlements but we have absolutely no vision of how employment might be created through the imaginative development of our history. Crawford was once a mecca for Victorian holidaymakers seeking the beauty and peace of our countryside but its many hotels are now mainly occupied by long distance lorry drivers 

Two more things that the SUP could consider lobbying for: one is to try to devise an imaginative extension of public transport in remote rural areas such as this and the second is an idea which came to me suddenly yesterday. As far as transport is concerned: we discovered when we first came here to live, that the Water Board ran a regular bus from the Daer reservoir past the end of our forest road into Lanark. Although the bus only ever carried a handful of people, to our astonishment, the only people permitted to use this service were employees of the Water Board! There is no way that we can get easily into Lanark or Glasgow by public transport from here, although there is a good bus service into Edinburgh. We would welcome a post bus or even better, a kind of Dial-a-Ride service. Now to the possibly more controversial idea: in medieval times, large parts of this area used to belong to various religious orders. There was a 13th century chapel, for instance, in Crawford, built by Cistercian monks and dedicated to St Thomas a Becket. Why not follow the example of the Russian people, who have rebuilt a great cathedral in the centre of Moscow that was dynamited by the Bolsheviks in 1922 and re-make some kind of ecumenical spiritual centre here, which is what so many people long for ?