The interview in The Courier last week with Mike Logan, president of Fife Show, is a timely reminder that one of the perennial features of the Scottish rural scene is about to spring back into life.
Mr Logan’s analysis of why agricultural shows continue to survive even when the industry they serve is in manifest and constant change is interesting and revealing.
He pointed out that Fife Show, which is to be held on Saturday, has expanded its arts and crafts fair, increased home produce entries and attracted a record number of trade stands.
And refreshingly he stresses “with farming being a part of the food industry”, there are a number of specialist food stalls.
Equally importantly, he focused on the need to get the public involved as spectators, and to bring in the younger generation “where we need to try to show them a little bit about farming and where their food comes from”.
By recognising the potential of the show to be an effective ambassador for farming as part of the rural firmament, Mr Logan has put his finger on one of the most critical aspects of determining the success of the agricultural show.
Without serious and sustained public participation, shows are on a shaky peg.
Significantly, the decision by the directors of the Royal Highland Show to change previously announced dates for the premier Scottish event from June 26-29 to June 19-22 reflects the possible impact of not having a younger audience to draw on.
This year’s “Highland” dates have been brought forward to keep the show in school term time.
Last year 25,000 school children attended the event. Had the dates remained as originally announced there was a real risk that numbers could have been slashed.
Agricultural shows, even the biggest and the best, cannot successfully exist without public support.
But that begs the question as to what shows have to offer.
In the case of Fife and the ‘Highland’, this has been clearly articulated.
Show organisers elsewhere would concur, but the level and depth of public attraction has been, to say the least, patchy over the years.
In some cases attempts at creating public attractions have been risible; others have fallen into the trap of assuming that any slapdash ‘spectacle’ will suffice without considering the core elements of the Scottish rural tradition as positives to be included in a show programme.
Shows face some challenging times in the years ahead, not least of all because of the pressures on agriculture, but in terms of an ongoing decline in livestock numbers.
More than ever before, agricultural shows have to be innovative, adaptive and up to speed in charting their course for a new world.
For smaller shows, with tighter hinterlands and limited reserves, the capacity to change markedly is not there and they have less room to manoeuvre.
But there is the potential for some shows to come together, to pool their resources, maximise the entries, and ensure that the spirit of competition in the livestock ring or in the home produce section is matched by a formidable range of competitors.
Significantly, Fife has made much of its arts and crafts section.
Shows could give greater consideration to how collectively they can be a showcase for Scottish food and produce and be a real connecting force between the land and what it produces and the public as customers and consumers in essence being the marketing arm for their own regions and areas, using the examples of the farmers’ markets as real-time expressions of where food comes from and how it is produced.
Agricultural shows have an important role in addressing the wider non-farming community, and over the years some of the bigger regional events have proved consistently that they can bring in large numbers of the public.
Shows of course create their own loyalty and following, but they also have to make a profit to survive and continue.
Getting the public in is the passport to success.
The challenge is to create a recipe that flags up local shows as having a distinct package to offer.
Creating amalgamated regional events could be the way forward offering the economy of scale, drawing the best of livestock from a wider area and being vital players in the Scottish rural economy.
Fife Show, after all, is the product of amalgamation of Colinsburgh, East and North Fife shows at various points over the past century.