By Ewan Pate, farming editor

“WE SHOULD all be making a conscious attempt to maintain the social fabric of the glens,” says John Cameron.

Not surprisingly for the man who is billed as Europe’s largest sheep farmer, he sees the continuation of that type of farming as central to the issue.

He employs six shepherds who live on the farms with their families.

There is no doubt that Mr Cameron is a complete enthusiast for hill farming.

He has often proved this in a range of political roles including NFUS president, but he also relishes a hands-on approach and is rarely happier than when amongst the sheep on the hill farms at Glenlochay and Invermearan, which he owns with his wife Margaret.

Last week he was hard at work selecting cast ewes and drafting lambs at Invermearan, but took time to explain his views on this type of farming.

These are views which are forged on his own experience on the 50,000 acres of rugged terrain which runs in a single block from the heads of Glenlochay and Glen Lyon out towards Ben Challum and the hills around the southern fringe of Rannoch Moor.

These hills run up to well over 3000 feet and feature side glens, lochs and gullies.

This very terrain poses one of the major challenges in running 10,000 Blackface ewes on 18 separate hirsels.

“Hill farming is not an exact science,” says Mr Cameron.

“On this type of ground we are doing well to exceed 80% of the sheep gathered at any one time.

“With a ewe to five acres it is easy to miss them even with good conditions and the dogs working well.”

The two main gatherings are in June/July and September/ October.

Each can take up to six weeks of hard work in total, between gathering days and handling days.

The early summer gathering allows the lambs to be marked and the ewes to be clipped and is the first real indication of the lambing percentage for the year.

Of all the attributes Mr Cameron looks for in his hill stock of west highland Blackfaces it is “survivability” and the June count will show just what effect the winter has had.

The tups go out in November and have to endure some of the harshest weather, including, he believes, more rainfall in recent years.

Last week Mr Cameron and his team were running a hirsel, around 500 ewes, through a well-designed set of pens at Invermearan.

They were selecting which ewe lambs to keep as stock replacements and, crucially, how many.

The judgment had to take into account ewe losses, ewes drafted out for fattening and then finally the desired stocking rate for the hill.

The draft ewes were being drawn out, as were the wedder lambs and the ewe lambs not needed for replacements.

All of these will be finished on Mr Cameron’s farms in Fife.

“This integration greatly helps our business,” he says.

At the same time the stock was being marked, dipped and tagged.

Tagging is a contentious issue at the moment.

Mr Cameron has no objection to the impending new regulations for every sheep to carry an EU tag.

Indeed, he has been tagging stock ewes for two years now as they come into the flock.

However, he regards the suggestion that all sheep should be tagged by January 1, 2006, as completely unworkable.

“It would mean gathering all these sheep again in November at the worst possible time of year,” he says.

“We would have needed to be advised in early August to have any chance of complying.”

The dipping in September is regarded as being particularly important in the battle to keep sheep scab at bay.

As far as sheep health is concerned, Mr Cameron has been a long-term advocate of overall health schemes and he practises what he preaches.

“It is an integral part of management,” he says.

“If sheep are not healthy then they will vanish and there will be no satisfactory way of maintaining the balance of vegetation on these hills.

“Within ten years they would be unrecognisable under birch and scrub.”

Looking to the future of hill farming, Mr Cameron says, “In the past one of the less attractive aspects of the support regime was that it was driven by the numbers of sheep kept.

“There could, therefore, be a tendency towards overstocking, but now the numbers are coming back.

“However, we must still maintain sufficient stock to be able to keep shepherds employed.”

This is a recurring theme for Mr Cameron.

“Can we continue with a sufficient number of shepherds on each unit to ensure suitable standards of husbandry and welfare?” he asks.

The alternatives of no sheep on the hill or an extensive ranching system with the minimum of care are equally unappealing to him, particularly from the social aspects of these remote areas.

“There is a lot of talk of endangered species but in my view the most endangered species in the glens are the people who live and work there,” insists Mr Cameron.