COMMENT

IN GENERAL, agricultural journalists are a pretty trusting bunch. So, if the owner of the champion Blackface sheep – or any other breed for that matter – tells you the parentage of his winner and it is different from the information he gave you the last time, we do not go off on a rant.

If the owner of the prize animal wishes to bestow superior breeding on it, or even if he is just having a senior moment and cannot remember what he said last time, that is what will be reported.

That is not lazy journalism. It is possibly more to do with the fact that the world will not tip off its axis nor will wars be started with this changed information.

However, on a different level, when agri hacks are given information from public relations people, we expect to get the whole truth, warts and all, and that is where I tripped up last week.

The press release from Robert Wiseman Dairies was clearly headed “Wiseman confirms 1.85p per litre increase”. With the moans of milk producers about the low rates of returns in their business constantly ringing in my ears, I put it down as a good news story.

However, I did not decipher the coded message hidden in the final paragraph of the release about “some contractual adjustments” being made in order to bring the milk more in line with the requirements of the business.

The result was another ringing in my ears. This time the producers who supply the East Kilbride-based company were calling to point out that the trumpeted price increase was not a given.

It was an offer, and the offer was conditional on meeting considerably changed conditions in the quality of the milk they supplied.

So, far from being a “confirmed 1.85p per litre increase” for all, it appears that some producers will get no more than fractions of a penny increase. Reductions in bug counts have been inserted in contracts, as have increases in both protein and butterfat levels.

Some dairy producers will need to change their feeding regime in order to achieve the new standards in the changed contracts.

In fairness, those who do hit the new targets will get more per litre than if they supplied companies other than Wiseman. but to my mind, if their milk was spun as much as the press release they would soon have butter. The company in question has, in the past, trumpeted the success of its partnership board, which links producers with the business.

It is meant to provide the sort of co-operative approach that overcomes criticism of big companies out-muscling individual and therefore weak-selling producers.

But, from comments I received after publicising Wiseman’s munificence, it would seem that that body is well short of being a happy ship.

ENOUGH of that; I apologise to readers for not reporting the full story. I can assure them I will in future look at any releases from that direction in order to pick out the news buried under the headline.

How I prefer the more direct approach, or in this case reproach from the spin doctor for landowners’ umbrella group Scottish Land & Estates (SLE), who wondered why I had decided to raise question marks over the future of farm tenancies in last week’s comment.

There was no direct threat of thumb screws or having a spell on the rack as some of his employers might have wished but he wanted to know what had triggered my tirade.

The answer – as many of those who contacted me know – is not because of any vexatious streak in my body, but because it is an issue that needs to be addressed.

My comments on how farm tenancies may have been a suitable method of farming land last century, but do have major drawbacks in the current day, sparked a great deal of positive reaction, along with the not-unexpected SLE view that the status quo was fine.

While I had listed the dereliction of farm houses and steadings as part of the evidence that the landlord-tenant form of ownership had its faults, I was reminded that other, more hidden, aspects of good husbandry such as drainage are also being neglected.

We are all aware of a move to wetland environmental objectives, but my contact pointed out that there is now an involuntary increase in wet areas in some of the country’s most productive land as drainage on tenanted farms has been neglected for decades.

The one group of people who are strangely quiet on the subject of land ownership in Scotland are the politicians. Or perhaps they do not do difficult decisions or have radical policies any more.