Out of Doors

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Factual: Science & Nature

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Out of Doors: The 200th Royal Highland Show

The 200th Royal Highland Show

BBC Radio Scotland - Out of Doors, The 200th Royal Highland Show

Mark Stephen and Euan McIlwraith with highlights from this year's Royal Highland Show.

Mark Stephen and Euan McIlwraith with highlights from the 200th Royal Highland Show held at Ingliston outside Edinburgh.

Mark and Euan are at the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston bringing a flavour of the 200th anniversary show.

Euan takes a look back at some of the history of those 200 years including the origins of the show.

Martin Kennedy, president of the National Farmers Union of Scotland brings Mark and Euan up to speed with the issues impacting Scottish agriculture at the moment including rising costs.

A couple of weeks before the show, Mark headed to Tomintoul to meet Raymond Irvine and his flock of Valais Blacknose sheep, are they the cutest sheep in the world?  Mark finds out more about the breed which is being judged at this year’s show for the first time.

Aylett Roan is a director with the Royal Highland Agricultural Society which organises the show.  She tells us about some of the changes to this year’s event and points Mark and Euan in the direction of the goat tent.
	
And this week’s Scotland Outdoors podcast features Galloway author and farmer, Patrick Laurie.  We hear an excerpt where Patrick tells Mark about some of the problems he’s currently encountering just trying to get hold of more land to expand his venture. 
	
While many Scottish farmers are struggling with costs at the moment, could there be opportunities to be gained from this very challenging situation?   Mark and Euan speak to Professor of Food Policy at Scotland’s Rural College, Mads Fischer Moller about what changes we could be making to food production. 

Also at the SRUC stand, we discover a rather attractive tank filled with edible plants and find out how vertical farming might be the key to solving some of our food security worries.

This year the area of Scotland being highlighted at the show is the Highlands and Islands.  We caught up with this year’s honorary president, Ewan Macdonald who’s representing the area to find out what’s involved. 

And Helen Needham visits the Shorthorn Cattle Society as they celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the Coates herd book, the oldest herd book in the world.

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