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On Your Farm: Scotland Without Sheep?

Scotland Without Sheep?

18/02/2018

BBC Radio 4 - On Your Farm, Scotland Without Sheep?

Can Scottish farmers continue to raise sheep in an uncertain future?

Can Scottish farmers continue to farm sheep in a future without a European trade deal? Nancy Nicolson meets John Fyall, chairman of the National Sheep Association Scotland.

Sheep farming in Scotland is a sector which has more to lose than almost any other if an advantageous trade deal isn't brokered with the EU after Brexit, as most sheep meat produced here is exported - and the bulk of it goes to Europe. 

It's a point that weighs heavily on John Fyall, the recently-appointed chairman of the National Sheep Association north of the Border, who has thrown himself into negotiations and promotion since his appointment. 

As a new-entrant tenant farmer with only a few years of his tenancy left to run, he has a lot to weigh up in his own business too. And on top of all that he spends a few days every week negotiating deals and arrangements between farmers and the main contractors on one of Scotland's biggest construction sites.

Nancy Nicolson caught up with him as he was moving sheep on a frosty Sunday morning.

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