Meeting of the Parliament 13 September 2018
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
I declare an interest in that I am a partner in a farming business.
On my more than 2,500-mile summer surgery tour, I saw clear evidence of how the Highlands are contributing to Scotland being a world-renowned producer of high quality food and drink, from the award-winning beers of Black Isle Brewery to the award-winning Dunnet Bay Distillers in Caithness, who lovingly hand fill each bottle of Rock Rose gin.
In the remotest corners of the Highlands one will find many companies that have transformed their passion for food and drink into a prosperous business. The Spice Route near Cape Wrath is one such business, which I visited on my summer surgery tour. Mike and Lucy Goodwin have taken their love of regional Indian cuisine and now sell authentic prepared meals and teach cookery courses. Their business is a perfect example of croft diversification, where the produce is grown and marketed locally in innovative ways.
With businesses from those niche producers to long-established manufacturers such as Walkers Shortbread, the food and drink sector is absolutely vital for the Highland economy, creating some 32,000 jobs and generating more than £1 billion for our region.
We cannot forget Scotland’s biggest export success: whisky. As the cabinet secretary pointed out, 2017 was a record-breaking year with exports reaching a total value of £4.36 billion. The knowledge that 39 bottles are shipped overseas every second is truly inspirational.
In the summer, I visited the Pulteney distillery in Wick and the Clynelish distillery in Brora and saw for myself how distilleries are taking every opportunity to grow their customer base at home and abroad. With new names such as Torabhaig distillery, the Brora distillery and the Isle of Raasay distillery set to join old favourites, Scotch whisky is becoming more complex and nuanced and is increasing its world appeal by becoming more local.
However, this year, distillers might be running low on high-quality Scottish barley. It has been a very tough year for our farmers and many of them are struggling to achieve the quality of barley demanded by the distillers. One must always remember that Scotch is called Scotch for a reason and I am sure that we would all like to see a situation where distilleries source more local barley.
Given the extremely dry summer, I know that many farmers will go into the winter struggling to secure bedding and fodder for their livestock in order to produce the quality meat for which Scotland is famous. There is a genuine fear that much-needed feed will be in short supply; however, that is an area where our distilleries might be able to help. We might be able to encourage distilleries to consider whether it is right to burn the draff that they produce in biomass power plants when livestock farmers would welcome the opportunity to feed that rich source of protein to their cattle.
We should also be concerned about the continuing decrease in breeding livestock numbers in Scotland. I have heard of many farmers who are reducing stock numbers, not just because of a lack of forage but because of poor farm-gate prices that do not reflect the costs of production.