Farmer's View: Time for us to take meat eating quality seriously

That is also the case with regards to the appreciation of many Australians for the contribution of farming and their support for local food production. In contrast to us, their ‘can do’ attitude to almost anything.

A taxi driver who had fled as a teenager with her doctor parents from war-ravaged Afghanistan summed it up perfectly. She told me Australia was a country where, if you worked hard, you could be successful and rewarded – as proof, her brother had just joined her from the UK where he was struggling to make anything of himself.

Every morning, at 7am before school, I watched kids from 4-14 on playing fields near my daughter’s house getting involved in all sorts of sports – netball, cricket, football, you name it. The very best of them were being coached by state-funded coaches clearly trying to identify and stream the brightest prospects to become the elite sportsmen and women of the future. This was replicated after school well into the evening sunshine and at weekends.

Of course, the weather there is more conducive to outdoor activities than a Scottish winter, but even in summer you would never see that over here.

Two things struck me. First, how the education system, teachers, parents and coaches were so committed and passionate about the importance of sport and physical activity for young folk and in turn, the enjoyment of the kids, never mind the obvious health (physical and mental) benefits.

Second, no-one was apologising for (or criticising), the fact that the best kids should be encouraged and treated differently from a young age. No-one was excluded but excellence and ability weren’t the dirty words they seem to be here.

The contrast with Scotland is scary. An education system in tatters, little or no school sport and an almost total breakdown in the partnership between teachers, parents and coaches required to allow the students to participate.

I get that there is limited funding, but there appears no sense of the worth of these activities in the system, at least from policy makers. Of course, in the 'Woke' world we are forced to endure, a young person who happens to have a natural talent, or gift couldn’t possibly be given special treatment in the land of the lowest common denominator.

An ex-pat I met summed it up almost as well as my Afghan taxi driver. He left Scotland to find a new life for his family in Australia after realising that the political landscape and leadership in Scotland were nothing more than hot air and empty promises.

He cited the outgoing First Minister’s endless broken promises to close the attainment gap as a prime – but not only – example of the exasperation that led him to leave his native land. Scotland’s education system was once the envy of the world, but that is now a distant memory.

Saying you’re the best at something isn’t the same as proving it. He described the once lauded, so-called Curriculum for Excellence as having been replaced by a Curriculum of Excrement!

The ‘can do’ attitude and forward thinking is just as obvious in Australian agriculture. While here in Scotland we wait for future policy direction and, in the case of the beef industry, continue to tell the world we are the best as our sector accelerates into further decline, in Australia they let their actions and results do the talking.

We are totally fixated on subsidies, while they focus on markets and efficient production to satisfy that demand.

Nowhere is that more evident than in their attitude to the meat eating quality of beef. In butcher’s shops, in Coles (a large multiple retailer), in Harris Farms (an excellent fresh produce outlet), in restaurants, the messaging and the products were the same. Grass fed, carbon neutral suckler beef (yes, it’s already for sale), differentiated and priced accordingly.

Crucially, they have easy to understand descriptions on packs, displays and menus of the taste and texture of the excellent products on offer. The quality and consistency of this messaging, but most importantly the meat, was a credit to everyone involved from producer to processor to the various customer facing outlets I experienced.

The prices matched the effort. Around two years ago, Scotch fillet (which is ribeye over here), was selling in Harris Farms for Aus$40/kg. Last week, it was retailing on the same shelf at $70/kg with plenty of customers.

I realise beef prices have increased substantially over here as well and are now around £5/dwt kg to the producer, but that isn’t my point. Australians are earning their rewards through a real focus on what customers will pay for.

We are receiving higher prices because of scarcity, partly because of years of exploitation and abuse of primary producers by Irish processors and their multiple retail boot boys who have decimated the British suckler herd.

This decline has accelerated in the absence of any coherent ag policy in Scotland and a policy of clearing suckler cows off pasture land in England. Note the number of Scottish store cattle now heading south as they don’t exist there anymore and never will again.

Meanwhile, despite my best efforts, most recently before I went to Australia when I spoke to the CEO of QMS, Sarah Millar, about Scotland’s long-awaited 'Meat eating quality strategy', it was clear it is going absolutely nowhere.

She waffled on about a three-stage approach to this vital initiative. Stage one identifying on farm actions which we have looked at ad nauseum; stage two looking at handling carcases in abattoirs (which has been done before) and individual companies’ control.

There is still no plan, after 20 years, to reach for the real prize namely scrapping the antiquated EUROP beef grading system allowing the introduction of consumer facing taste and texture measurements and descriptions, and finishers being rewarded properly for meat yield and value.

Or, dare I suggest, other actions to improve producer margins, including abandoning the out-dated 12-month definition of 'beef'. These are in the 'all too difficult box', which is pathetic.

ScotGov officials don’t care and politicians don’t understand, but because EUROP grading and beef age definitions still exist in Europe (and someday the SNP want to be back in the clutches of the EU), they won’t act. Processors, particularly the Grand Slam winning ones, love it because it allows them to totally control and manipulate the way carcases are priced as well as the price itself.

It doesn’t matter that we, the farmers, who pay the bloody levies don’t get a look in. Meanwhile, the eating experience of our beef goes backwards as suckler bred beef supplies reduce and dairy-bred fills the gap.

On this issue of meat eating quality, QMS is like the Arran-bound Glen Sannox tied up in the mist at Port Glasgow, years behind schedule already, with no one having any idea when it will be delivered or at what cost. Crucially, no one is ever held accountable for these abject failures.

We are falling behind many countries in the world with suckler herds miles bigger than our own – Australia, New Zealand, the US, South Africa and even Ireland. My experience of eating some of the best beef (and lamb), I’ve ever tasted in Australia is again is testament to that.

But still we sit on our hands, or spend endless hours talking about some rubbish National Test Programme that no one understands, or cares about and will make no difference to our businesses or the climate. We are totally transfixed on agricultural support when bodies like QMS should be adding commercial value to what we do.

Why don’t we find an abattoir (even if it isn’t in Scotland), that will co-operate with a small group of committed producers to demonstrate on a small-scale (say 20 cattle/week to start with) that we can replicate (or improve), the Australian model for meat eating quality? Just do it without the Irish and QMS.

As the house of cards that Nicola Sturgeon built collapses, organisations like QMS would do well to note that endless promises, waffle and press releases with few outcomes eventually lead to what we are witnessing right now.

This was unimaginable a month ago in Scottish politics as I left for the other side of the world. It just goes to show if it can happen to Nicola it can happen to anyone!

QMS are there to serve the farmer levy payers who fund it, not the Scottish Government who now control it and are failing woefully in that regard.