The third Scottish Smallholder and Grower Festival is poised to return to Lanark Agricultural Centre next month.
The largest event of its kind offers a packed festival programme, with seminars and talks on cattle, poultry, sheep, goats, pigs and bees all geared towards helping to support small-scale livestock keeping.
Since its inception on the agricultural calendar in 2012, the festival has been engineered to provide an opportunity for smallholders and growers to celebrate the end of the season, and a successful year of production.
It also provides a forum for gathering ideas for future years and gives producers a chance to showcase their products to benchmark their success against their peers.
From its original concept, the festival has grown to offer all of those interested in the countryside and sustainable living in the widest sense an opportunity to join in the celebration.
This year, Northern field officer for the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, Ruth Dalton, will be returning with a talk on small-scale cattle keeping.
Although many smallholders hesitate to keep cattle because of concerns about their size, requirement for grazing, feed and the implications of milking, Ruth will explain how native breeds can be the perfect cattle for smallholders.
Pigs will have a double outing on the programme, with Sam Jones of The Rushbury Pig providing both a roadmap for anyone looking to getting started with pigs and a showing workshop, allowing novices, old hands and anyone who just likes pigs to get tips on the way to show and win in a competition environment.
A team from SAC will also be on hand delivering two seminars on sheep for beginners and disease control in goats.
Many people interested in rearing their own livestock start with poultry, so Janice Houghton-Wallace, a well known figure in the poultry world, will be on site giving a talk for anyone looking to get started with poultry keeping.
Even the smallest garden can usually accommodate a beehive and the benefits to the greater farming community and the wider environment are significant.
The team from Solway Bee Supplies will therefore tell how to get started and what essential pieces of kit are required to enjoy this rewarding pastime and how to harvest honey and other treasures from the hive.
Coupled to the fantastic competitive showing classes for cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry, this year’s festival promises to be a bumper one for anyone interested in livestock.
The annual event was launched in 2012 at Forfar Market, before making the move to Lanark last year.
Last year’s festival saw more than 550 entries across all of the livestock and craft classes as well as a programme of 22 seminars, more than 40 trade exhibitors and the presence of 13 breed societies.
This year’s event takes place on September 27.