NMAL Goes to the United Kingdom!

 

This year, class 15 participated in the New Mexico Agricultural Innovation and Trade Mission trip to England and Scotland in late June. The international trip is everyone’s highlight of the NMAL program.  It gives members of the class an opportunity to gain a new perspective about global agriculture.  My primary goal of this trip was to learn more about their livestock systems, marketing, and management. 

Our first two days were visiting with members of the US Embassy in London, the United Kingdom's department of Ag, and a member of parliament. On day three we traveled out to the country to visit with a variety of farms.  The first was Cragend Farm whose focus will be agri tourism and rare livestock breed preservation.  To conclude the day we visited with a commercial producer.  Their perspectives on agriculture we fairly different.  The first was more idealistic with profit from their animals as low priority and the other more pragmatic and production oriented.  By the end of day three we had reached Scotland. There we visited with a very progressive and highly diverse farmer who raised a variety of crops.  He is transitioning to all electric based equipment and the bulk of his property is powered by solar.  He also raises sheep to keep the grass down under the solar panels. 

The tour concluded with a stop at a fruit farm that focused on agri tourism, the Glenturret whisky distillery (oldest in the country), and finally a stop at the University of Stirling to meet with faculty within the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Center.  This variety of stops, gave a 30,000 ft view of the diversity there is in the United Kingdom agriculture industry.

 

 

 

This snapshot of the respective countries was somewhat limited within the confines of the tour. That said,  it was clear producers were much in tuned with today’s narrative of sustainability, carbon sequestration, and positive messaging to their customers.  Though the US livestock industry is starting to adopt some of these ideas, we still function with the primary intent of meeting global demand for protein. The UK’s climate and land mass limitations, makes it difficult for them to produce meat and dairy products to the scale of the United States. What I thought was interesting was aside from those difference, the challenges producers face in the UK are very similar to that right here in the US.  Lack  of meat packing facilities, captive marketing, increasing input costs, and government regulations all are very frustrating and restrictive issues for both countries. 

Currently the UK buys very few animal products from the United States.  This is mostly due to miss information about our management practices.  It does seem eventually, they will find value in our products, and visa versa so that the trade relationship between these countries may improve.

The 2022 international tour had many great highlights that created great memories.  The countryside was stunning, small towns and farms picturesque, and the history behind the massive and beautiful buildings and structures were all what you imagine England and Scotland to be.  Being able to experience this with the class drew us all closer together.  The evenings at the pub allowed for us to reflect on the day and get to know one another better.