SCOTLAND'S Agricultural industry has been shown off to over 200 international journalists who descended on Aberdeen last week.
The International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress, organised by the British Guild of Agricultural Journalists, saw 210 journalists from 37 countries discover what Scotland has to offer. With a theoretical global audience of 40 million, supporters of the industry were keen to get involved and sponsor the various events.
The delegates visited a large number of locations, including Mackies of Scotland, Thainstone Exchange, Corskie Farm, Mains of Tonley, Strithisla Farms, Glenlivet Estate and Mackintosh of Glendaveny.
Nigel Miller, president of NFU Scotland gave a humorous and realistic view of the Scottish agricultural industry alongside chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink James Withers who described the pairing as "good cop, miserable cop".
Mr Miller explained the Macaulay system of land classification with a self-deprecating humour the delegates enjoyed.
"Class one is wonderful, it's what you have in Germany and France and you can grow anything - and you can clearly see there is no class one land in Scotland," he said. "This is spring barley country, you can see why we drink a lot of whisky!"
And he joked: "A lot of our land is actually pretty rubbish and you can see how amazing people we are that we manage to farm on this low-grade land."
'Eternally optimistic' Mr Withers added: "The world is changing fast and we will have to adapt, and if we get it right there is a fantastic opportunity for Scotland over the next few years."
The chairman of the British Guild of Agricultural Journalists, Jane Craigie, commented: "The Congress has exceeded all of our expectations.
"The farmers we visited did Scotland proud by explaining their business and quality outputs to the 210 delegates we hosted. Innovation, science and pioneering farm practices left the gathered journalists in no doubt about the progressive way in which they run their businesses.
"The congress was also a chance for us to share our fine produce from the north east of Scotland as well as our culture and heritage. Without doubt, IFAJ 2014 has put Scottish food, farming and tourism firmly on the world's map."
The delegates also heard from First Minister Alex Salmond who spoke during the Gala Dinner on Sunday evening.
For in-depth news and views on Scottish agriculture, see this Friday's issue of The Scottish Farmer or visit www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article