Farming

TRADE at the Lairg sale in Sutherland for an entry of more than 20,000 North Country Cheviot lambs was brisk yesterday, but a shadow of what was once the largest one-day sale for sheep in Europe.

Two decades ago, almost double the current number of sheep would have been sold and the gross aggregate on occasions exceeded (pounds) 1m.

That feature is unlikely to be matched in the foreseeable future as both sheep and cattle disappear from the more remote areas of Scotland.

The impending reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy suggest that both farmers and crofters may be better off keeping fewer livestock, yet remain secure

in the knowledge that they will be still in receipt of a substantial subsidy cheque regardless of production.

The Lairg sale is a unique mix of crofters and large estate owners reaping their annual harvest. Lots of up to 300 lambs are countered by lesser consignments of a mere handful. However, for the crofters the proposed loss of the Highlands and Islands Ram Improvement Scheme, through which the Crofters Commission buys rams at the major sales, and then sells them on to small-scale farmers at a discount is seen as a potential disaster.

Ross Finnie, the Scottish Executive's rural development minister, had made much of the necessity for focussing the forward strategy of the industry on quality.

However, his plans to deprive crofters of access to decent rams will knock the heart out of the sheep industry in Highlands and Islands, according to David Holden from Mull, who was in Lairg to buy lambs for flock replacement.

He said: ''I just do not understand what the Scottish Executive is thinking about. We have been able to use rams for many years of a superior quality to those which we could really afford. All that would happen in the future is that the crofting townships will end up using rams that are not up to the mark. This will do nothing for the Scottish sheep industry.''