SIR, In last week’s The Scottish Farmer (October 19), Julie Wight’s article ‘Boost in Scotland’s red meat value’, the news from QMS makes good reading on the surface of things and her message was repeated in NFUS members’ weekly email. I think it is wonderful that people around the world want to eat meat that is raised and grown in Scotland, and that we have a right to be proud of what we do.

However, it is clear to me that a non-farming person reading this story on its own would be justified in asking ‘with all this apparent surplus, why do we need to use our taxes to pay for it’?

We seem to have had an opportunity missed by the farming organisations to put things into perspective, putting food security back on the agenda and raising it to new heights.

Between them, AHDB and the Scottish Food and Drink Federation (FDF) both have the information to put the record straight, and I thank them for making the information available in order that the case for government at least contributing to the cost of food production is sound, helps keep food inflation in check, and provides the best return on our taxes at only a quarter of a penny in the pound in UK terms.

Conversely, the incredible increase in Scottish red meat exports is not replicated across the UK with overall red meat export figures 7% down in 2023 due to a number of factors that I will address later. Up until August of this year, the lamb kill figures are down by 7.9%, on the year, and by more than a third over the last 30 years – surely a concern to anyone with an interest in food security.

Farmers are not seeing the return needed on running a busy livestock enterprise and right across the board are keeping fewer animals.

In only seven weeks, the UK will become full members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTTP), the first country in Europe to join a bloc of trading partners who will have tariff-free access at their borders. Where this may be a positive move in the eyes of exporters, it should be borne in mind that our food imports are nearly three times more valuable than our exports, with the gap widening year on year. Australia, already a member of the CPTTP, in 2023 increased the amount of sheep meat sent to the UK by 25% with beef increasing by a massive 58.4%.

The FDF in a survey has stated that bureaucracy is seen by exporters as the biggest hurdle impacting on the confidence of companies getting produce out of the UK.

The survey also found that supply chain disruptions and administrative costs were major factors in denting the confidence of importers.

A prime reason for UK becoming a top destination to send food to: I remember during a farm study tour to Brazil back in 2005, one of the big take-home messages was that they, like many other countries, see the UK as lowest risk for debt recovery.

We are hearing this week that 10,000, perhaps 12,000, North Korean troops are heading towards Ukraine, some of them special forces trained, with 40,000 shipping containers of arms and ammunition already sent. We also hear China’s Xi Jinping stating that his armed forces should increase their battle preparedness.

These events should be sending clear messages to our leaders that we really need to become more dependent on homegrown food and not leave ourselves in the same state of reliance as we were at the start of the Second World War, remembering that food rationing in one form or another lasted 11 years after the war ended. We should also be aware that if Trump wins the US Presidential election in two weeks’ time their foreign policy is likely to change.

Noting that when Trump first came into office in 2017, within 24 hours he had taken the USA out of the CPTTP. This time around, should he win, I fear the consequences being that world peace could become a lot more fragile.

In short, while I am delighted that we are able to export, as it adds value to what I produce and congratulate those who have taken us well past the £100m milestone, I would at the same time be looking to our farming leaders to recognise and grasp any opportunity to promote farming and to dispel any possible myth that we are overproducing and receiving taxpayers’ money to do so.

Raise food security to the top of the agenda – we can’t feed a nation on trees and wild deserts of abandoned land.

Reduce our dependency on food imports to the same value of our exports and then we really will have something to shout about.

Yours faithfully,

Hamish Waugh