225 delegates help mark Charolais golden jubilee

Farming correspondent

Monday 25 June 2012

This year's Highland Show was attended by 225 international delegates from 12 major beef producing countries who were attending the World Charolais Congress.

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Farming comment ROG WOOD

They couldn't resist attending the UK's major agricultural event on Thursday while they were touring Scotland.

Charolais cattle are the massive, white ones that originated in France.

People forget that the UK Government steadfastly refused to allow the importation of foreign breeds until the early 1960s. Pioneering Charolais enthusiasts spent more than six years lobbying against the import barriers before Government finally gave the green light in 1961 for the first importation of bulls.

The first 26 Charolais bulls to cross the Channel remained the property of the Government and were administered by the old Milk Marketing Board and independent Artificial Insemination (AI) stations.The early pioneers of the breed established a scheme to upgrade succeeding generations of Charolais crosses by breeding them back to pedigree Charolais bulls. The resulting progeny eventually contained a sufficiently high enough proportion of Charolais genetics that they were deemed to be "pure-bred", and ultimately "pedigree". The British Charolais Cattle Society was formed in 1962 to manage the upgrading programme and record the pedigrees of the succeeding generations – so the overseas delegates were visiting the UK to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the breed in Britain.The Charolais breed was initially imported to improve beef from dairy cows, and not until the late 1960s were they used for crossing on to beef cows. The breed was an instant success in the marketplace. Those high-performing Charolais cross calves, with superior weight-for-age, commanded instant premiums in the sale ring over their native counterparts, while the finished, prime cattle met the increasing British demand for lean meat.The Charolais were followed by other imported breeds that met with varying degrees of success, although it is fair to say that the Limousin, also from France, is now more popular.Those imported cattle fairly made our native beef breeds like the Aberdeen Angus, Beef Shorthorn and Hereford look to their laurels. They had enjoyed unprecedented success thanks to a booming export trade with the rest of the world for breeding cattle – most notably South America.Countries like Argentina had a massive beef industry based on converting the grass on the Pampas into prime beef, and they were attracted to our native beef breeds because they had been developed over centuries for much the same purpose. Unfortunately, South America preferred cattle that didn't grow massive carcasses, because they could fit more smaller ones into the ships that would carry them to their overseas markets.Canny British breeders soon bred smaller, but extremely beefy, bulls that tempted overseas buyers to bid extremely high prices at auctions. Stetsons became commonplace at British pedigree bull sales, like those held at Perth. The fashionable bulls of that period were not very tall at the shoulders, but had thickset, beefy bodies. They were invariably photographed in deep straw that came up to their bellies, prompting an auctioneer to tell me once that: "It wasn't fashionable for bulls to have legs in those days, so they hid them."Continental cattle, on the other hand, were developed to stand tall and produce big, lean carcasses, that were invariably fattened on a cereal-based diet, rather than grass. Little wonder British beef producers were so impressed with them when they first appeared over here!British beef breeds spent a long time out of fashion and in the wilderness. Fortunately, many breeders in North American countries like Canada and the US, as well as New Zealand, and Australia, whose early pioneers had taken our native beef breeds with them when they emigrated from the UK, had not followed the fashion for breeding, small, dumpy cattle. They had kept scale and growth, while retaining the all-important attributes of being easily fattened off grass and succulent, marbled beef.An enlightened generation of British breeders went out to those countries and brought back fast-growing, big bulls to breed back that which we had lost.Now the best of our native breeds can grow just as big and fast as most continentals, with the added advantage they readily fatten off grass, or forage-based diet with less expensive cereals.The overseas visitors will also visit eight Scottish breeders this week. One of them, Murray Lyle of Loganbar Farm, Dunblane, will host a dinner on Friday, when the highlight of the menu will be roast Charolais beef.

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225 delegates help mark Charolais golden jubilee

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