By Ewan Pate, farming editor, at the Royal Highland Show

THE RESUMPTION of beef exports dominated the comments from Quality Meat Scotland yesterday on the opening day of the show.

Chairman Donald Biggar reported £1 million of business in the six weeks since the ban was lifted.

“It is a flying start and we are exceeding our pre-1996 share of the market compared to English or Welsh beef.

“Our trips to Europe have been focused on top chefs, meat wholesalers and food writers. It has been great to see distributors competing to handle Scotch beef.”

Rural Development Minister Ross Finnie also welcomed the resumption of exports, although his earlier claim that exports might reach £200 million per annum seemed optimistic, with the minister claiming that he had meant a figure of 200 million euros.

There was also little progress to report on country of origin labelling, although Mr Finnie had laid this out as an objective at last year’s Highland.

However there was good news for the monitor farm project run by SAC and QMS with the minister confirming renewed funding of £150,000.

This means that a further two monitor farms can be established in central and northern Scotland. It also means that those including the one in Perthshire can begin a second round.

Mr Biggar said, “These were due to finish later this year but thanks to renewed funding we can build on the excellent information coming out of the monitor farm project.”