At the recent annual meeting of the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland (IAAS) Willie McCulloch of Lawrie & Symington, Lanark was elected president.
He takes over from David Pritchard of Harrison & Hetherington Carlisle.
Other office bearers elected were vice-president John Kyle of Caledonian Mart, Stirling; and junior vice-president Steven Wilson of John Swan, St Boswells.
Outgoing president Mr Pritchard said: “The institute very much values the ongoing working relationships with the Scottish Government, stakeholders and other industry organisations as we are all in this together and this cooperation must be maintained going forward.
“We also value important links with our European counterparts,” he added.
“The core of our livestock businesses very much depends on livestock production and, in particular, the marketing of numbers sold.
“There is clear evidence, that there continues to be a downward trend in livestock production, and this is having a massive effect upon our industry.
“Last year I predicted major challenges in the primestock sector as numbers became tighter, and this did reflect in prices hitting an all-time high in the beef sector but the sheep sector did struggle due to currency rates, reducing export opportunities”.
The value of livestock through institute members last year rose by 2.7%, or more than £14 million, to level at £534.4m.
This was mainly attributable to price increases, particularly in the store and breeding cattle sectors.
Store stock throughput in value terms increased by nearly 5.6% or £17.7m, but primestock throughput value fell 1.8% (or £3.7m).
Numbers through the markets fell by 3.25% to just above 2.715 million head of stock.
Within these numbers sheep were down by 92,000, slightly offset by 2,900 more cattle.
Over two years the decline in numbers now reflects an 8% drop.
“In the near future we have further challenges to overcome, particularly with CAP reform on the horizon,” IAAS chief executive Andrew Wright said.
“We have made our submission to the Scottish Government’s consultation on direct support.
“We very much support any measures which will help retain livestock numbers and that includes coupled payments, especially for beef cattle.
“We didn’t offer an opinion on coupling for sheep, but did say that the CAP mechanisms as a whole had to be kept as simple as possible.
“There is also a need to keep cross compliance measures to a minimum. Everything should be related to increasing production and not to helping slipper farming,” he added.