A beef and sheep farmer has recently been appointed as the new chairman of NFU Scotland’s (NFUS) Orkney region as Steven Sandison from Harray steps down from the post.
Colin Flett, from Appietown, Rendall, was appointed to the chairman’s role at the region’s AGM held on the island last week.
Believed to be the youngest Orkney NFUS chairman yet, Mr Flett farms in partnership with his father in the north west of the island, running a 120-cow suckler herd and 560 breeding ewes.
The herd includes mainly Limousin cross Aberdeen-Angus cows bulled to the Charolais, Limousin and Aberdeen-Angus, and the sheep flock is made up of Texel cross and Shetland cross Cheviot ewes.
Most of the calves are sold as weaned calves in the back end at United Auctions’ Huntly Mart, with the remainder taken through to the following spring and autumn when sold at Orkney Auction Mart.
The lambs are sold through the store ring at either Kirkwall or Huntly from the end of August onwards.
Around 20 acres of spring barley and four acres of turnips is grown on the farm.
Mr Flett is also kept busy during the summer months doing contract shearing for local farmers and he works in the auction mart at Kirkwall from time to time.
“It’s an honour to take on the role as NFUS chairman for Orkney and I would like to thank Steven Sandison for all the hard work he has put in during his time at the helm,” said Mr Flett, who served as vice-chairman for two years.
“The union has an important role to play in standing up for our industry and giving advice to farmers. I’ve always been under the impression that if something is worthwhile then you have to put something into it yourself.”
Mr Flett admitted that he had taken over the reins during an extremely busy and challenging time for Scottish agriculture but said he was determined to do his best for the industry, particularly on mainland Orkney and its outer isles.
“It’s a fragile situation on Orkney as we are faced with ever-increasing input costs and a lack of certainty about the future policy,” he said.
“Orcadian farmers are very limited to what they can do with the land because of the short growing season so beef production is at the forefront and sheep are now becoming just as important.
“I will be doing my best to make sure our voice is heard surrounding the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) and the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme (SSBSS) which Orcadian farmers rely so much on.”
During his time in the role, Mr Flett has said he will doing everything he can to improve the Greylag geese situation on the island, with hopes to secure funding to reduce the number of non-native residents from 30,000 to 5,000.
Mr Flett also pressed on the concerns surrounding the Scottish Government’s decision to look into the current arrangements of shipping livestock from the island to mainland Scotland.
