Episode 2 Landward

Hello, and a very warm welcome to Landward.

This week I'm in Aultbea,

just south of Ullapool on the beautiful northwest coast.

But I'm not just here for the views and the bracing breeze.

I'm here to see a pioneering form of farming that could put

one of the great luxury seafoods on all our tables.

But first, here's what else is coming up on the programme.

-Euan is at the Crufts of the Clydesdale world.

-Are you confident?

Have you had a look at the opposition?

-I haven't looked at the opposition.

-They're looking good.

We ask, is it time to end the controversial cull

of mountain hares?

And Sarah discovers how today's aspiring farmers are getting

a foothold in the industry.

You need a lot of money to start up on your own.

This is as close to starting up on my own as I can get without winning the lottery, I think.

Salmon farming has been one of the great rural economic success

stories of the last 20 years

with salmon top of the Scottish food export charts.

Now, a new form of farming involving scallops hopes to replicate

that success.

Before I see how they are farmed, I have come to Ullapool to taste

local scallops, one of my favourite foods.

They are also good for you.

Low in fat, yet rich in omega-3 and fatty acids.

These are really, really wonderful.

Generally in Britain, there are two ways to catch them.

One, hand-dived, two, dredged.

Hand-dived, like the name suggests,

means a diver goes to the bottom of the sea and plucks them,

whereas dredged uses equipment to rake along the sea bed.

Around 98% of all scallops caught are dredged.

Many conservation groups say that the dredgers destroy

the sea bed, killing other marine life as they scrape up the scallops.

Hand-dived scallops are considered very sustainable.

But they are also very pricey.

Often more than double the cost of dredged ones.

And, as a tiny percentage of the scallops landed, they are

harder to get hold of.

So, which ones do you buy - the expensive,

hand-dived ones, or the more affordable dredged ones?

Well, in the future there could be a third option - ranched scallops.

I am heading to Aultbea in the north-west coast to find out more.

-Good morning, how are we?

-Hello. How are you doing?

-Can I come down?

-Aye.

Excellent, good stuff.

Lovely day for it.

'I've come south of Ullapool to meet Jane Grant

'and business partner Grant Campbell.'

-Have we caught these already?

-Aye.

'Jane and Grant, with a bit of help from Jane's son Phil,

'are pioneering a new method of farming scallops in Scotland.

'Which they call ranching.'

The scallop ranching is about helping us

help nature to produce scallops like this.

At the moment, we rely on our natural fishing.

Scallops born in the wild, they settle in the wild,

-they grow in the wild and then we catch them.

-Mm.

But we are just taking, we are not actually putting anything back.

Grant and Jane have developed a system that is far more sustainable.

Scottish scallops are sent over to a specialist hatchery in Norway, bred

in carefully controlled conditions, then the juvenile scallops

are sent back to Scotland, where they are grown in the sea here.

Jane, is this area particularly good for growing scallops, then?

It's not just this area, it's the whole of the Highlands

and Islands of Scotland, we have got all the ingredients required

to really grow scallops well here, we have got the Gulf Stream,

we've got beautiful, clean water and we have got

a lot of good sea lochs where we've

got the sheltered areas that are just perfect for growing scallops.

Scallops require no specific feeding.

They simply filter the water around them.

The young scallops are suspended in trays

and Grant is pulling one up so we can have a look.

-So these are only six months old.

-Yes.

-They are absolutely tiny.

-They will stay in the trays how long, then?

-About a year.

During this summer, these will be going on to the sea bed.

And how do you keep control of that part of the sea bed?

Because don't they move or don't they move very much?

If a scallop is happy where it is, it won't move.

It won't move 2m in the whole of its life,

as long as it likes where it is living.

On the surface, there is not much to see of a scallop ranch.

That is why I brought my snorkelling gear.

I must say, that is a fairly slim fit suit!

-It's 18 years old.

-18 years old?

-I was slimmer then!

The guys are going to go down now

and have a check of all of the lines and the trays.

They are going to the bottom, I'll stay on the surface

sort of bumbling around - I'm not allowed to go deep.

I don't have the qualifications.

But it's going to be cold, it's going to be fun - apparently -

and we'll see what we see.

Here goes. Ha-ha.

Jane and Grant plan to put two million scallops in the water

this year.

These will have been bred in Norway,

but there are inherent risks in transporting them to Scotland.

The ideal option would be to have a Scottish hatchery

and at the moment, the team are trying to raise over

£1 million to make that a reality.

They believe the potential is massive, though.

Japan produces 400,000 tonnes of farmed scallops every year

using a very similar system.

Imagine if we could do that here.

It was incredible to go down there and see very small,

very young scallops.

Jane and Grant's business is equally small and equally young,

but if they get the investment to grow, the potential is huge.

And very, very tasty.

And later in the programme,

I will be meeting up with Nick Nairn to find out more about this

amazing shellfish and to sample one of his favourite scallop recipes.

But for now, it's off to Lanark, home of the Clydesdale.

The Clydesdale is the gentle giant of the horse world.

The breed was developed in Lanarkshire in the 18th century

when native mares bred with stallions imported from the Continent

to create the perfect farm horse.

Dillars, near Lanark,

is one of the top Clydesdale studs in Scotland and I am joining them

for the day as they prepare some of these guys for the highlight

of the Clydesdale calendar, the National Stallion Show.

The highlight of the show is the Cawdor Cup, which is awarded

to the best Clydesdale stallion.

Bob Hamilton, who owns Dillars Stud,

has won it three times before and is hoping to win it again tomorrow.

-Bob. Hi. Who is this?

-This is Dillars In The Lead.

-He is big, isn't he?

-Yeah, he's a big boy, eh?

He's growing very, very well, since I got him.

-You've got the big show tomorrow.

-We're going to the big show tomorrow.

-How important is it?

It's most important for the stallion owners to do very well

at this show, because this is where you're going to

advertise your stallions and hopefully, if you do well,

it'll encourage mare owners to come to use your stallion.

Right, so how do you get him ready?

Basically, we'll start today with washing him.

Wash the legs and if you like, you can help, you can hold him.

-I can hold him.

-Great stuff.

I will go to the back and start washing him.

Steady, boy.

So, Bob, how much work is involved getting him ready for a show?

There's a lot of horse here.

Well, the stallions, I will start working with the stallions to

get them prepared from the month of November.

The farrier is in to put the first set of plates on them

to go on the feet.

We will start feeding them from that time on.

So it's a long... it's quite a long journey.

I know I shouldn't ask this question, but what are the chances of winning?

Well, the Cawdor Cup, I've won it three times now.

And it's a very, very difficult thing to win.

This is the main accolade.

Everybody that has a male stallion or an entire horse,

this is the one they are trying to win, the Stallion Show.

So hopefully we will go and I am very happy with the horses

I'm taking, I don't think I could have any better.

So it's just in the hands of how they behave and how we do tomorrow.

As they say, it's not about winning, it's about competing.

Nah, it's about winning!

I suppose that's right, but you've got to give a diplomatic answer!

So what's next? You have got the farrier coming, yes?

The farrier is coming in this afternoon.

He should be here sometime and we will get his dancing shoes on

and be ready to go.

Today is show day.

We're at Stirling Farmers' Mart,

where the stallions are given a final pampering.

And this is it. The National Stallion Show 2014.

The show is organised by the Glasgow Agricultural Society

and it's been held since at least 1860

and the original point of the show was the hiring of stallions

to travel to various parts of the country to breed.

Recent additions to the show include the Highland

and the Shetland classes.

But the Clydesdales are saved until last,

and it's the Cawdor Cup that everybody is waiting for.

And this is it, the famous Cawdor Cup,

donated by the Earl of Cawdor over 120 years ago.

What happens is the stallions are divided into classes

and the winner of that class goes into the final

and the champion gets to take this and put it on the mantelpiece.

Dillars In The Lead has qualified for the Cawdor Cup,

but there are still four other stallions that he has to beat.

-He's scrubbed up well.

-He's done very well.

-Good job you washed him yesterday.

-Absolutely.

-So, are you confident?

-Well...

-Have you had a look at the opposition?

-I haven't looked at the opposition.

-They're looking good.

We'll see them when we go in. They will be good.

It's very difficult to win the Cawdor Cup.

To me, all the horses in the ring look quite different.

I am meeting Sheila Keron, the secretary of

the Clydesdale Horse Society,

to find out just what the judges are looking for.

I think that's the 50,000 question.

But it is a working animal, so that is important.

Hair is really important, they're looking for really nice,

soft, fine hair.

You might see the judge touching their legs, that's what

they are looking for.

Action is really important as well for a working horse.

-It's got to be close behind.

-So it's kind of power...

-Yes.

-Power, and going up the dreels.

-Have they changed over the years?

Or are they still pretty much as they would have been in 1860?

I think, like all breeds, they have changed, definitely.

It has kind of evolved with demand, really.

After much deliberation, the judges have made the decision

and Dillars In The Lead has been placed third.

The winner is this one-year-old colt, Glebeview Eddie.

And it seems I'm getting an unexpected honour.

I have been asked to present the prizes, how good is that?

-Congratulations, sir.

-Thank you very much.

-You must be very proud.

-Yes.

-Was it a surprise?

-Pardon?

-Was it a surprise?

-Yes, it's always a surprise.

-OK. You get one of these.

-Thank you.

I'll let you put that on because I can't reach.

-We'll get that in a minute.

-There you go. Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

Dillars In The Lead didn't win, but Bob Hamilton is not too disappointed.

Bob, how do you feel? You obviously didn't take the trophy.

We've not got the trophy but we had a good show, so...

-He came close. He looked great.

-We'll keep going. I'm very pleased with the horse.

-We didn't win, but we'll just have to...

-You'll be back.

You can come back and give me a hand to wash him next year again!

The average age of a Scottish farmer is now 55.

Young, aspiring farmers have found it increasingly difficult

to break into the industry due to the cost of farmland

and the lack of available tenancies.

But some older farmers are now helping their younger peers

to get a foothold in the industry.

Sarah is off to find out more.

I am on my way to Upper Hundalee Farm near Jedburgh.

I am off to find out about share farming and this is being hailed

as a great new way of getting more young blood into the industry.

-Morning. Stephen? Hi.

-How are you?

Stephen Withers is the farmer here

but he has got a share farming arrangement with Neil Sandilands.

They share the profits of the farm's sheep flock.

-I follow you?

-Yes.

'The share farming arrangement is relatively straightforward.

'Stephen provided all the assets, things like the fencing

'and the feeders, the sheep themselves and the land.'

Come on, girls.

'Usually Neil provides all the labour,

'although he is getting a hand from me today.'

-My technique can't be as good as yours.

-Just spread it out.

They'll find it amongst the straw.

'They split the profits 50-50 up to the first £20,000.

'If they make more than that, then Stephen gets 60% of the profits.

'Any losses are split in exactly the same way.'

How did this share farming agreement come about? How did you get involved?

Well, I used to work for Stephen for about ten years

and I decided I needed a fresh challenge,

so I left and went self-employed for a while,

and then he phoned up one day

wondering if I'd be interested in coming back

as a partnership in running the sheep side of things,

which I thought...

-Why not? Give it a go.

-Give it a go. I'd nothing to lose.

He put all the money in and all the sheep in

and I did all the labour side of things and the running of it

and it's working away quite well.

You need your food. You're about to have your lambies.

Stephen took on Neil when he felt less physically able

to run the sheep side of things himself.

Through share farming,

older farmers can give young, would-be farmers

the chance of genuine business experience.

For something like this to work,

you have to have somebody that's willing to just stand back

and let somebody get on with it.

I mean, we buy quite a lot of store lambs in to finish.

Quite often, he'll be at the sale the same time as me.

I do all the buying,

and he never comes across and says, "You've paid too much for that."

He maybe thinks it, but he never actually says!

That very diplomatic of him. There's not many farmers about like that.

That's the trouble, there's too many that wouldn't do that.

The sheep are just one part of a bigger farming business.

When it comes to the cattle and cereals, Stephen still runs the show.

-I'll take you to see the cattle now.

-Are these guys your pride and joy?

This is my side of the business.

OK, so what is the key to making the share farming agreement work?

I think trust is the main thing, and give and take. You can't be greedy.

You've got to trust one another and work together.

You guys seem like very nice fellows,

but there is the potential to fall out, isn't there?

What would happen in that scenario?

Well, if we really fell out then the partnership would have to split

and we would have to split the assets.

Neil would walk away and do his bit

and I would carry on probably trying to take another young man.

At the moment, I don't think there's any chance of that ever happening.

What are the advantages of you share farming with Neil

rather than employing somebody to do what he does?

Well, the great thing about it is he's working for himself,

I'm working for myself. I don't have to control him.

He decides when he wants to come into work,

when he leaves work, and he totally runs the sheep enterprise.

I don't have any say in it.

Although, if it came to the push and there was a dispute,

I would have a bit of say at the end of the day.

COW MOOS

As well as breeding, Neil buys in lambs to fatten.

Today he has to gather some in to be slaughtered for the market.

So, Stephen's getting the gate sorted.

Neil is going to bring the lambs in from the field

and I'm in charge of directing them at the gate.

But with animals, who knows if it's going to go according to plan?

Oh, no, look - he's left one behind!

-What's an ideal weight?

-Anything above 42 kilos is about right.

-So, that's 44, so that's OK.

-Gets the mark.

-Yeah.

-Would you open the front?

-Yeah, so just...?

Off you go.

Spray. There we go. Off you go.

So, what are your hopes for the future?

Well, I think we have to continue on as we are and maybe we'll expand.

I don't think you can stand still in this industry.

You have to keep looking forward, maybe double the sheep up or

if land became available, we'd have to look at it.

Would you eventually like to have a farm of your own?

Oh, I'd love to, but the financial implications of that -

you need a lot of money to start up on your own.

This is as close to starting up on my own as I can get without winning the lottery, I think.

According to Stephen and Neil,

theirs is the only type of this agreement in Scotland.

I'm a farmer's wife and I know it can be difficult

for the older generation to let go and hand over control.

It's obviously an agreement that requires

a huge amount of compromise and trust,

but these guys really seem to make it work and I suppose the hope is

that lots of other young farmers get the same sort of chance.

We're always keen to hear from you, so why not send us an e-mail?

You can also go online

to get the Landward five-day weather forecast at...

Earlier, I found out about the pioneer scallop farmers

who want to open a Scottish scallop hatchery.

Now, I'm in Edinburgh,

where Nick is going to show me his favourite way to prepare scallops.

Then, we're going to give the great Scottish public

a chance to taste them.

Doug and I have brought the Landward Street Food Van into Edinburgh.

Our mission - to bring the finest rural produce

into the heart of the city.

Doug, how are you doing with shucking your scallop?

I think... I don't know. What do you reckon?

I do believe you've done a rather excellent job.

We're going to serve them a la ceviche, bit of lime juice

-and chilli and coriander.

-Are we cooking this?

We're curing it.

-Curing it? So, it's basically raw, then?

-Yes. Raw scallop.

It's Edinburgh, Dougie, sophisticated people.

-They love this kind of stuff...

-Take me through the process.

First of all, we need to wash the scallop.

These scallops come from Class A waters,

really clean, unpolluted waters,

-and that's important, because we're not cooking them.

-Right.

Because there's no contaminants here to start with,

-they're perfectly safe. OK?

-OK.

All we're going to do is take the scallop,

and we're going to thinly slice it.

These are hand dived scallops, as opposed to dredged scallops.

They came out of the water, seriously, this morning.

These are genuinely as fresh as they will ever get.

Little bit of zest over the top...

A little bit of soft salt just over the top.

Little bit of lime juice. Do you want to squeeze the lime juice over?

What the lime juice is doing is it's starting to break down the protein.

It is curing it. So, it's doing a similar process to cooking it.

A little bit of chilli.

The chilli is not entirely necessary, and it's not necessarily...

This isn't authentic ceviche,

this is a Landward Street Food Van ceviche.

-And that's it?

-Yeah.

-Do you want to deep fry it before I taste it?

-No, I don't. Bon appetit. I'll join you. Here we go.

-Here we go.

Mmm!

Mm-mm-mm-mm!

Really strong taste,

and you can get the flavour of the lime and the coriander.

Chilli kicking in again. It's the scallop, it's incredibly sweet.

Amazing.

-There's a massive premium on this. These scallops are probably about £2 each.

-Right.

Dredged scallops, what the majority of people get, are about 60p each.

Are we selling or giving it for nothing?

-Giving it for nothing.

-They'll eat it.

-What about that?

-Mmm! Delicious.

-Cured in lime juice, coriander and chilli.

-Mmm!

-You like?

-Perfect.

-Would you normally order something raw?

-No, not normally.

-But good?

-Yeah, very good.

Very positive so far, very positive.

Basically, it's raw scallop.

-No, thank you, no.

-But it's cured.

-No! No!

-Can I interest you in a bit of raw scallop?

-No, I don't eat it.

-Don't eat it? OK, no bother.

-Not for me, thank you.

-Not for you? OK, no bother.

-I don't like coriander.

-You don't like coriander? Scrape it off.

SHE LAUGHS

Very nice.

-Would you order that?

-No.

Fresh this morning.

That works, actually, I have to say.

-Do you like that?

-Well, I have to now I've swallowed it!

It's that chappie, Nairn.

-That is the chappie, Nairn, the very one. Yes.

-Well done.

-How has it gone?

-It's gone incredibly well, actually. Remarkably well.

I was expecting people to turn their nose up

at anything that's raw or cured,

but on the whole, people are eating it, loving it.

It just shows you, when you get fabulous Scottish produce,

you don't have to do much to it.

Now, Euan has headed into the hills to investigate the controversy

over the culling of mountain hares.

The mountain hare is the only species of hare native to Scotland.

Their chameleon-like ability

to change colour in the winter to provide camouflage against predators

helps make them one of our most loved creatures.

Every year, thousands of mountain hares are killed in Scotland,

both for sport and to reduce numbers on grouse moors.

This has led some conservationists to believe

that in certain areas of Scotland, they could become extinct.

In certain places I think, anecdotally, we've got

good information about the numbers of hares are not

as abundant as they have been. That's caused us concern.

There's a suggestion that local extinction is a possibility.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

We're certainly seeing some parts of the country where hares

are not as prevalent as they were, and indeed, not present.

If that trend continues, I think that would be something which

we would be particularly concerned about.

Research done in 2008 shows that

half of all the hares killed in Scotland are killed

to protect grouse from a tick-borne disease called louping-ill.

The disease doesn't affect the hare, but the animal does act as a carrier.

The tick is a bloodsucking parasite that attaches itself to mammals,

birds and people and it acts as a carrier

for some nasty diseases like louping-ill.

Alan Hodgeson is a member of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association

involved in grouse moor management and he's seen first-hand

the effects that ticks can have on young grouse.

Louping-ill is a very, very deadly thing.

It's bad for more than just grouse

but if there's louping-ill present, it'll kill eight out of ten chicks

that are bitten by ticks infected with it.

Just the sheer numbers of ticks -

you can get grouse chicks a week, ten days old,

their eyelids are all swollen up where they have been bitten,

their nose is full, the head's bald where they've been scratching

and you'll have maybe 100, 120 ticks on it.

How concerned are you about

the potential for hares to become extinct, certainly locally extinct?

Well, I wouldn't say that estates are trying to make them extinct,

but they've been, certainly in the early stages of the control,

fairly thorough and they've reached a level where you're shooting

the same number of hares every year, so it's obviously sustainable.

Hares live underground, they're like rabbits, so what you see

through the day, you might not see any hares at all.

So, there's always that surplus underground

that are going to survive.

So we're killing hares

because they're perceived to spread ticks and disease,

but are they the main culprits?

I'm off to the James Hutton Institute

to find out what the latest science says.

We found that in the presence of other hosts,

in particular red deer, which can carry a large number of ticks

relative to mountain hares,

then reducing mountain hares in the presence of red deer in particular

is unlikely to have an effect on ticks, louping-ill and grouse bags.

What's the potential for the mountain hare to become extinct,

or certainly, locally extinct?

Mountain hares' leverets will usually establish

their own home ranges very close to where they were born

and will usually stay within a kilometre or roundabouts

of where they were born.

So, sustained killing of mountain hares does have the potential

to locally reduce mountain hare populations

to very low densities indeed.

So it would seem that the culling of mountain hares

makes very little difference to grouse populations

when red deer are present, even in very low densities.

So, why are they still being killed?

Later in the series,

we'll be looking at other grouse moor management issues.

Next week, as part of a season of programmes on BBC Scotland,

we have a Landward special

looking at the impact of the First World War

on Scotland's farming communities.

In the meantime, from all the team here on the stunning

but bracing north-west coast, thanks so much for your company.

Bye for now.