Francophile rank-and-file celebrates the Charolais

More than 140 representatives of the breed, which first came to the UK in 1962, will be on show.

Watching the entries from more than 40 of the top Charolais breeders in the country will be more than 200 delegates who are attending the breed world congress as part of the jubilee celebrations.

The delegates will also visit 15 top breeders in the country in their two-week stay. Two of those visits are in Scotland, the first to Major David Walter’s unit at Balthayock, Perth, and then to Murray Lyle’s Loganbar herd at Dunblane.

Speaking ahead of the visit, Lyle, a former breed president, said the cattle had helped to revolutionise the British beef industry. Prior to the importation of continentals, with their size and lean frames, the country had depended on smaller native breeds.

In the half century since they were introduced, Charolais cattle have taken over the mantle of being the leading terminal sire in the country.

Lyle pointed out that even although some 15 years of potential exports had been lost through first of all BSE and then the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak, British Charolais breeders were now selling abroad and this proved the high quality of the cattle in this country.

His own Loganbar herd concentrates on growth rates and easy calving performance and he uses the data from estimated breeding values to the full extent as a tool to improve performance.

Although he has not targeted selling at the top end of the pedigree pyramid, he has sold to a top of 10,000 guineas. His main market is farm gate sales to commercial producers to whom he sells some 25 bulls annually.

Lyle said it was difficult to think back 50 years to when the breed’s entry into this country was fraught with barriers and difficulties. Back in the 1950s, a number of British breeders had seen these large, lean cattle on visits to France and had seen their potential with their superior growth rates.

While a group of farmers, politicians and dairy farmers started lobbying to get official permission to import the breed, others took a different line and “imported” semen in a thermos flask in order to get their hands on Charolais bloodlines.

The lobbying group, which included Bob Milne from Laurencekirk and his farming neighbour, John Mackie MP, eventually was successful in getting permission for a controlled importation of bulls provided they remained in the ownership of the Ministry of Food and Farming and also provided access to the bulls was through the then Milk Marketing Board’s artificial insemination service.

The British Charolais Cattle Society was then established in 1962 with Mackie as the inaugural chairman.

His herd at the Bent, Laurencekirk, was given membership number one in the first herd book, published in 1966.

The next significant step in the breed’s progress in this country came in 1967 when the first pedigree Charolais bull was born on Roger Chapman’s farm at Newbury; that bull was later purchased by John Irvine for his suckler herd at Tomintoul.

Stepping into the 1970s, the Scottish Milk Marketing Board paid 10,000 guineas to get the services of Kersknowe Festival and this bull’s easy calving and fleshing ability converted many commercial producers to the Charolais breed.

More recently, the breed record price has moved on and currently is the 70,000 guineas paid to Tom and Sheena Gatherer last year.