Oklahoma Ag Leadership Program
All Eyes on Ewe! Day Three in Scotland Pictures Available on FLICKR
Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:16:50 CST
The final full day in Scotland proved to be a busy one for members of Class XV of the Oklahoma Agricultural Leadership Program- including a full morning spent with one of the larger livestock farms you will find in Scotland. The group traveled to Broughton and stopped at the Lochurd Farm to meet with Gordon Noble. Gordon farms with his dad, his younger brother Derrick and his children on 1100 acres of mostly pastureland.
Their farming operation includes Suffolk and Cheviot sheep and British Blue Cattle. They are primarily in the business of producing animals for meat production, altho they also get a large wool crop off of their sheep annually, too. We talked primarily with Gordon and got into quite a discussion on the amount of paperwork an individual farmer faces with the animal traceability program. Gordon explained the system to the Class- and showed the group a animal passport, which must stay with the animal each step of his life- either for years as a breeding animal- or until he or she reaches the processing plant.
Gordon Noble says that if you haul the animals off of your farm without the papers right there in the truck with you- you can face big fines from the federal government. And if you should lose the passport for your animal- you face a replacement cost of over a hundred dollars US to replace it with a new one. Noble says the tracking will remain just as tight as 2012 unfolds, but that the system is finally shifting away from a paper passport for every single beef animal on your farm over to an electronic based system.
Day three in Scotland pictures have now been posted- and among other things- you will see up close the ear tag used by cattle in the United Kingdom. We also have some pictures of the passport needed to transport cattle anytime that critter is moved.
We also have just a few pictures from the midday lunch spot on Saturday- Whitmuir's Organic Farm.
Click here for the full set of FLICKR pictures to date from the OALP travels to Scotland and Ireland.
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