Get going with Galloway cattle

As the world supply of fuel, fertiliser and arable crops grows shorter, attention is turning to beef cattle breeds that thrive under extensive systems.

The commercial beef industry, both in the UK and across much of the world, has focussed on continental cattle breeds that require significant consumption of cereals, normally demanding considerable inputs of artificial fertilisers. Systems and cattle breeds have adapted to utilise the abundant cheap cereals, and become reliant on heavily mechanised forage methods, in the latter decades of the twentieth century. As the century closed, significant tracts of uncultivated marginal land in the UK had started to fall into disuse, having become uneconomic for intensively produced beef.

But with peak oil production behind us, and a new economic climate, the maths driving livestock enterprises are changing rapidly. Although the 2008 harvest has temporarily pulled the price of corn back down, all the signs are that the price of arable products is going to inexorably rise.

Traditional breeds of cattle, developed over centuries to thrive on grass based systems, and on less productive land are making a comeback, not least the Galloway breeds. Utilising poor and unploughable soils, often in areas of extreme weather, has long been an accepted niche for the ancient Galloway breeds of cattle.

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