Scottish Smallholder team looks back…….and forward

The team at the Scottish Smallholder Festival held their fifth event recently at the Lanark Agricultural Centre, and celebrated a record year for entries across all classes, as well as the highest ever number of visitors.

Coupled with a very well received seminar programme and a growing number of exhibitors in the trade and food and craft halls, the event was a great success.

But by far the most important factor is that everyone had a lot of fun and enjoyed celebrating the end of another smallholding year. And in an innovation for 2016, all of the presentations from the day are available on the website – www.ssgf.uk

The festival was extremely grateful for the support of the Scottish Government, as well as major sponsor NFU Mutual and returning key sponsors The Natural Fibre Company and Home Farmer.

As the year draws to a close, the team are now looking forward to the third annual Smallholding Scotland Conference which will be held on the February 17, 2017 at Pitcairngreen near Perth.

This event is a focused day for smallholders to hear concise and practical talks on subjects of current interest to all. This year topics will include livestock health planning, business planning, conservation pigs and how to make a profit from small scale poultry. Tickets are on sale from the December 1 at www.ssgf.uk.

2016 Scottish Smallholder Festival results

The major classes at the festival saw high quality livestock, presented beautifully, and all the judges had difficult decisions to make.

The Sheep Interbreed Championship was won by Scott Hamilton from Lesmahagow, with his Badger-faced Welsh Mountain Ewe – a very popular winner.

Reserve was the Ryeland champion from Emma Griffiths. The Interbreed Pairs Championship was also won by Ryelands, this time from Janice Milne with the reserve pair coming from Ben Welsh.

In the RBST Scottish National Sheep Championship, the Champion Youngstock was a Ryeland lamb from Messrs. Fisher and Hoggarth who have been great supporters of the Festival having taken the Championship in a previous year.

The champion senior was the Ryeland from Emma Griffiths with a coloured Ryeland from the Fisher and Hoggarth flock in reserve. There was a great display of sheep in the Wool on the Hoof classes, the top prize of the festival tankard for best wool on the hoof was lifted by the Border Leicester from Grant and Wright of Anstruther.

Special mention must be made of the Poll Dorset flock from Ben Welsh who swept the board in the British Lowland classes, and also for Jonathan James who took the best horns prize with his stunning four horned Hebridean.

The Alpaca Classes were in their second year at the festival this year and a record 32 alpacas came forward for the four classes. The best in show and reserve went to Velvet Hall Alpacas with Velvet Hall Hejira taking the top prize and Velvet Hall Iqaluit in reserve.

A strong entry of goats was headed by Mrs Elaine Woodhouse, whose British Toggenburg Aphrodite Shannyn won the Championship, while Rebekah Fleming’s Ladeside Ladyrue was Reserve Champion.

The RBST senior and youngstock championships were won by the Lisean herd of Avril Garrett, a longstanding RBST supporter with her Golden Guernseys.

The undisputed champion in the poultry and waterfowl was Neil Watson, who won both hard and soft feather championships in Bantams, and also took the soft feather title in the large fowl classes.

Unsurprisingly, Neil also won the championship with his modern game bantam. Neil was also the inaugural winner of the Sandy Cumming Memorial Trophy, a trophy presented by the local RBST branch in memory of Sandy who was one of the stalwarts of rare breed poultry over many years.

The organisers would like to thank everyone involved with the festival for their enthusiasm and assistance and look forward to working with them next year. The 2017 Festival will be held on Saturday, September 23 at Lanark Agricultural Centre. Information is available on the website www.ssgf.uk and folk can follow the festival on Facebook. The 2017 Smallholding Scotland Conference will be held at Pittenweem near Perth on the February 17.