The duck shooting season begins this Friday (September 1st) and runs until January 31st next year. The UK mallard population is boosted every year by birds that migrate here to over-winter and about 750,000 that have been hand-reared to be released onto "flight" ponds. For the next 5 months, alongside their wild cousins, they will regularly have to fly the gauntlet of hidden, waiting "sportsmen" with their shotguns, until the season closes.

Unlike a lot of Scots I like eating ducks. Last year my wife and I holidayed with a couple of friends in the Dordogne region of France where duck meat in one form or another appears on most menus. Dishes like cassoulet - a rich, slow-cooked stew based on beans, pieces of duck, Toulouse sausage and pork rind -, or duck confit - pieces of preserved duck meat, such as the legs cooked in their own fat -, or duck fois gras - a rich pate made from fatty livers from specially-reared ducks.

Back here in Scotland most would probably only consider eating duck in a Chinese restaurant, although it is becoming an increasingly popular choice as a special treat at the weekend as part of one of those "meal for two" deals.

The market for duck meat is considered to a be a niche one, both in the UK and other Western countries, although it is growing. It's reckoned that only 8 per cent of UK households will cook a fresh duck in a year, whereas 78 per cent will cook a whole chicken.

To put things in perspective, the British Poultry Council reckons duck meat only accounts for about 5 per cent of the UK primary meat market. In 2011, poultry meat, in total, accounted for 40 per cent of the UK meat market, pig meat for 29 per cent, beef and veal 24 per cent and mutton and lamb 7 per cent.

The EU produces close on 500,000 tonnes of duck meat annually, with more than half of that in France.

The GB Poultry Register indicates that, at any one time, there are nearly 6m ducks in Scotland, England and Wales on registered holdings. Over 3m of these are kept for meat production. There are some 8,700 premises with ducks, though only a small number of these are of a "commercial" size.

Consumption of duck in the UK is seasonal, with peak demand in the colder months between October and March.

Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) statistics show that UK production of duck meat in 2011 was 33,000 tonnes and has remained reasonably static since then. UK production was supplemented by 12,000 tonnes of imports last year - all of which were from EU countries.

Although Scotland has several large-scale producers of duck eggs with flocks of around 5,000 laying ducks, there are no large-scale duck meat producers due to a lack of processing facilities. Scottish duck meat comes from small-scale or backyard producers.

The vast majority of ducks commercially reared for human consumption are in the eastern counties of England. The production of duck eggs is mainly in the same area, although there are some commercial-scale holdings in western counties, particularly Gloucestershire, Devon and Cornwall.

The UK duck meat production sector includes two very large integrated producers - Cherry Valley and Gressingham - who account for approximately 85 per cent of the duck meat produced in the UK. Both of these companies are based in the east of England and have their own processing facilities.

To give an idea of the scale of these operations, Gressingham produce 8m ducks annually on 60 farms, half of which are owned by the company, while the others are farms where the ducks are reared under contract.

These Gessingham Ducks are a cross between a Mallard and a Pekin and have more breast meat and less fat in the skin. They are fast growing birds that are ready for slaughter from 6 weeks of age onwards to yield carcases of between 1.2 and 2kg.

The UK's role in the global duck meat market should not be underestimated as it supplies genetic material to produce over 60 per cent of the world duck meat total. Cherry Valley was awarded the Queen's Award for Export Achievement in 1984 and 1994 as they expanded their customer base to cover over 80 countries. The vast majority of the EU Pekin duck industry uses UK breeding stock.

It's a great pity that Scotland doesn't have a suitable processing facility, as rearing ducks for meat could be a lucrative diversification for some.