Originally published June 2021.

I was five years old when my father decided to move to the north of Scotland, to farm at the edge of the world and the edge of the farming world. Why do I describe it thus? To the north, the east and southeast, his neighbours did not farm. His was the last land up the glen, on which sheep and cattle grazed. Beyond was rock and bog, Munros and eagles; he was at the edge of the farming world.

Much of my father’s approach to farming was informed and tempered by the time he spent working on farms in northern France shortly after the end of the war. He saw food shortages that continued well beyond the end of conflict, the immediate importance of harvest, and food rationing in England in one form or another until 1954. For him, farming was more than an economic activity, it was a role essential to wider social well-being. So, to move from the relative farming luxury of easy-working Thanet brick earth and remarkably fertile north Kent marshes was not to move to the edge of the world, but to fulfil an essential service.

My father ran around 2,000 Scottish Blackface ewes, hefted in four hirsels on the hill.  They are a remarkably hardy and resilient breed, but even with their ability to survive and thrive in appalling weather and on a limited diet, much over 50% of the lambs sold in September was a really good outcome. There was a reason nobody was grazing sheep further east into the central Monadhliath. Among the gloomy stats that emerged every autumn was the ‘black loss’, the number of lambs for which there was a record, an ear tag at birth or was at the July clip, but which had not made it through their first summer, details of their demise unrecorded.

In a single round of breeding, the historic sheep handling infrastructure was rendered no longer suited for purpose

To improve lambing success, my father decided to introduce some hybrid vigour. He headed south to the ram sales, I believe at Keswick, and returned with some enthusiastic Swaledale rams. I’m sure they were tups by the time he was north of Stirling. The Swaledales certainly introduced some vigour. The Scottish Blackface spent a lifetime walking up and down steep mountains, so when she was gathered into a nice dry stone-walled fank for dipping or drenching, she was content to be on the flat and out of the wind. A Swaledale cross, however, had other ideas, and she could walk up walls and was back on the hill like an alpine goat. In a single round of breeding, the historic sheep handling infrastructure was rendered no longer suited for purpose.

The cattle herd were a low-maintenance group of Hereford/Friesian cross cows put to an Angus bull: good mothers, milky and with easy calving genetics. They proved such attentive mothers that, on a regular basis, they would find somewhere so warm, secure and sheltered to calve down, that it was as if they had vanished from the face of the earth. Many an hour was spent searching the peat hags and hollows for a very comfortable mother and calf.  

The feed cost of over-wintering a herd of cattle in the mountains became unsustainable, even with the endless fodder growing in the long summer days. The solution was a modern form of transhumance. My father and Ewan Pate, a wonderful farmer from near Dundee, on some much kinder land, entered an arrangement that found the cows enjoying winter by the seaside eating vegetable residues and summer in the hills. The cows were quickly acclimatised to the move in early May and, much to the surprise of their new calves every spring, would gather at the gate to greet the lorry arriving to take them back north.

In spite of hybrid vigour, and even with the enthusiasm of Ewan, when my father retired, the farming stopped. The hefted ewes were dispersed and the cows did not return to the hills the following May. The edge of the world had moved a little further west and south, down the glen.

This decision, to abandon farming at the economic and biological limits has been facing farmers in Europe for 150 years. With the opening up of the Midwest, the Russian steppe, Australia, New Zealand and South America, ‘new’ productive land, combined with the ability to ship produce to European markets, Malthusian fears of food security evaporated. For the farmer now facing competition from the deep fertile soils of Illinois or the chernozems of the Black Sea hinterland, life got harder, and for those at the edge of the farming world, much harder. The edge of the world really had moved down the glen.

Although land was abandoned in the early part of the 20th century, farmers were given unexpected support from two World Wars and the disruption to food supplies that entailed

Farmers and landowners did not down tools in response to cheap grain and meat from across the world. Although land was abandoned in the early part of the 20th century, farmers were given unexpected support from two World Wars and the disruption to food supplies that entailed. A degree of food security, which translated into self-sufficiency, found its way into policy and we entered seven decades of taxpayer support for the farmer, a form of localism which often does not warrant detailed investigation. Of course, much of the money did not stay on the farm and food security was greatly enhanced by recovering trade and the green revolution of the ‘60s. But policy makers could take the credit for cheap and plentiful food and (some) from our own resources.  

This discussion continues today. Farm land in the Balkans, the Peloponnese, centre of France and elsewhere around Europe is slowly being abandoned. Taxpayer support, for which retention of people on the land is one objective, can only push water uphill for so long. The market can be cruel if it fails to reward you sufficiently for the finest grass-fed lamb. A sheep farmer in New Zealand may be happy with his price on the back of a higher lambing percentage and lower costs.  

Into this debate comes ‘natural capital’ and ‘wilding’, the latter involving the return of land to a natural state. In many cases it still seems to involve a lot of management intervention, to ensure that ‘wild’ meets somewhat arbitrary bureaucratic criteria. ‘Wilding’ meets many of the natural capital ambitions now at the heart of revised government support for farmers. In the absence of farm subsidy, a meaningful proportion of the land currently farmed in these islands would fail economically and perhaps should be allowed to do so. ‘Wilding’ might then be allowed (and I use the word deliberately) to happen in the absence of intervention. Where should the edge of the farming world now be drawn?

My father grazed sheep in the highlands. Alongside them were many hundreds of red deer and no effective predators (apart from the stalker). Browsers in large numbers are amazingly effective at preventing tree growth. My father was very aware that his farming world had once (and quite recently) been partially forested, with a much wider array of wildlife. Have you ever walked into a remnant forest of Caledonian pine and felt the wind die away, the temperature rise and heard the birdsong? The reversion of the Scottish hills to a more varied landscape, with tree cover in the glens, is an outcome he would welcome in return for talking that step back from the edge of the world.