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CDh6
  • 5/8/2025
Landward episode 6 2025
Transcript
00:00This time I'm in the lush pastures where these girls love to graze. Welcome to Labord.
00:30A very warm welcome from the Mackers in Galloway. With Wigton Bay to the east and Loose Bay to the west, this area of low-lying land juts out into the Irish Sea.
00:43And as you can see, it's extremely green and fertile. Ideal for large-scale dairy production. In a moment I'll be finding out how one farm is taking advantage of these pastures. But first, here's what else is coming up.
00:56Rosie helps out with the pine marten housing crisis.
01:03You can see that's the mum there. And she's taking the kit out for a bit of climbing training.
01:09Shabazz discovers why the Wester-Ross landscape really is out of this world.
01:15So we find places on Earth which share lots of the similar geology to what we want to explore on Mars.
01:21Here we go.
01:22And Cammie celebrates a new arrival.
01:25It's nearly there.
01:27Ah, boom.
01:28That's the game.
01:30But first, there are just under 800 dairy herds in the country. And of them, the average is around 230 cows.
01:46But all year round, these lush green fields are home to one of the biggest herds in Scotland.
01:53But how many cows?
01:57The herd at Durie is certainly one of the largest I've ever seen.
02:01And it belongs to Rory Christie, who farms just outside Port William.
02:06Rory, how's it going?
02:07Thanks to meet you.
02:08So the cows down there, there's a fair few of them. How many are there?
02:11We've got 1,200 altogether.
02:131,200?
02:14Well, let's go down and see them, shall we?
02:16Come on, then.
02:18Rory isn't a man to follow the herd though. Not only has he got more cows than most, he keeps the girls outside 365 days a year.
02:29So what we do is called spring block grazing, which means that the cows all calve in January, February, by May.
02:40The grass is growing lush, and we make milk from grass all season, for all year, until about Christmas time,
02:48when the cows get what they call dried off, they get a holiday, they have a rest for a couple of months, and it all starts again.
02:55Rory experienced this system at work on New Zealand's South Island.
03:01With Wigtonshire having a similar climate, he saw that it could be brought back.
03:06And with a little tweaking, it's working for the herd.
03:11Scotland's got lots of systems. Some people are inside, some people are outside, some people are a bit of both.
03:16We are outdoors because we are specialists and the climate suits it, right?
03:19Uh-huh.
03:20We are warmed by the Gulf Stream.
03:22Uh-huh.
03:23Never too hot, never too cold. Really good for grass. Plenty of rain, unfortunately.
03:27Uh-huh.
03:28And so the grass grows, and the system is very much about doing that, grazing grass and eating grass with the cows.
03:35So 90% of a cow's diet will be grazed grass.
03:39And what's a farmer to do when a very specific cow is needed here?
03:44Well, Rory and a few other local farmers bred their own, of course.
03:49They're not one particular breed, they're what you call crossbred.
03:53They're a bit of Jersey, a bit of Holstein, a bit of Frisian.
03:57They're 40 years of breeding in the making.
03:59So they're composite cows, I guess.
04:01Right.
04:02Made specifically to thrive here.
04:04We needed to make cows that could cope in the south-west of Scotland with the climate.
04:10We could give us lots of milk, and high-quality milk at that.
04:13Getting calved every year, handle the horrible winter weather, and be voracious eaters.
04:19They're greedy gets, basically.
04:21Maybe it's because the grass is so tasty.
04:24Rory's been working on that, too.
04:27We are using clovers.
04:30We've got chicory.
04:32Uh-huh.
04:33It's more like a salad, really, than a straightforward grass.
04:36So it puts deep roots down, draws its own nitrogen from the atmosphere, and it's super palatable.
04:43I actually pick all of my grasses on palatability now.
04:47And why would you not?
04:48And do you test it yourself?
04:50Oh, it's lovely stuff.
04:52And there's one final ingredient Rory needs for his grass.
04:57As much as I moan about the rain, my system doesn't work without it.
05:01It just needs a bit of sunshine, and a bit of rain.
05:05Be careful what you wish for.
05:08The herd at Dury produced over six million litres of milk last year.
05:13The yield per cow is lower than in dairy systems, where the cows are kept indoors.
05:19But because Rory's milk has a high fat and protein content, it demands a higher price.
05:26Our milk goes off to make cheese.
05:28It's manufacturing milk, is what they might call it,
05:30opposed to drinking milk, liquid milk, that you put in your cornflakes.
05:34And that's all down to your system?
05:36That comes from our system, yeah.
05:38And it's the land here in Wigtonshire that makes this system financially viable.
05:44The key thing is availability of land.
05:46And farming has been pretty tough over the last 30 years.
05:50And so people have had to become extremely efficient.
05:52And when you're constrained by land, the only way that you can get more income
05:57is to have more milk per cow.
05:59And so when farmers became constrained by the size of their farm,
06:03they got their cows to give them more.
06:05That system usually involves you spending lots of capital on concrete and bringing the cows inside
06:12at least part of the time.
06:14I was the sort of converse.
06:16I had land but no buildings.
06:18And I had the right weather.
06:20So I took advantage of those natural things.
06:22So that's really why it's all about economics, as it so often is.
06:28And I'll be back for afternoon milking later in the programme,
06:34meeting the workers who keep the milk flowing.
06:45Now, here on Lambert, we like to think there's nothing quite like the Scottish landscape.
06:50But Shabazz is in Wester Ross now, catching up with some space scientists who beg to differ.
06:58Ground control to Major Tom.
07:01They told me to prepare for a space mission.
07:04Ground control to Major Tom.
07:07You'll be meeting some scientists going to Mars.
07:10Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.
07:15They want to find out if there really is life on other planets.
07:19She's not dressed like me.
07:27Hi Clare, I'm here for the mission to Mars.
07:32It's a nice try with the sea.
07:34We've got a few years to go yet, but you can come and see it.
07:36We're up to you down on the shore if you like.
07:38Brilliant, let's do that.
07:39Perhaps just this way.
07:42Dr Clare Cousins is from the University of St Andrews.
07:45She's come to Lower Diabeg on the banks of Loch Torridon as part of a team of international scientists from the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission.
07:55It's the first attempt from the European Space Agency to land a robotic rover on the surface of Mars.
08:03And it's got this really sort of big goal of trying to understand these ancient environments that were on Mars about 4 billion years ago.
08:10And to explore the geology of these past environments.
08:14But also, quite importantly as well, whether this was somewhere that life could have flourished or whether it could have just been preserved in the rock records.
08:21And this is what we really want to try and find out.
08:23The landscape around the Loch really does look like another planet.
08:28And that's why Clare and her team have come.
08:31So the reason why we're here is because the rocks here are actually really great test beds for the types of technology that we're going to be sending on this robotic rover.
08:41And before we send any of this technology to Mars, we of course want to put it through its paces.
08:46We want to understand how well it works, how well to use the data that we get from those instruments and how to interpret it as well.
08:52So we find places on Earth which share lots of the similar geology to what we want to explore on Mars, to what we know is there.
08:59And we use this as a way to sort of make sure that we can do our best once we're actually on Mars itself.
09:05The rare geology here makes this Wester Ross location one of only a few in the world suitable for ExoMars testing.
09:14And, out of my overalls, Clare can show me just what's so special about these rocks.
09:21For Earth, you know, it's really unusual to find these kinds of beautifully preserved sediments that are a billion years old.
09:28They haven't been metamorphosed, right?
09:30They haven't been cooked and squeezed and crushed underneath mountain belts or anything.
09:34They've stayed beautifully preserved.
09:36What we're really interested in is what we can read about the past.
09:39You know, what we have here is this beautiful kind of slice of time that's been, you know, fortuitously preserved over a long time period.
09:45And this is what we can actually explore.
09:51So, what we're standing on right now are one billion year old mudstones.
09:57And, you know, very slowly all of these muds were deposited, building up and forming these beautiful rocks that we're testing our instrumentation on.
10:05And we can see all kinds of really interesting features here.
10:08We can see ripple marks down here, down just behind you.
10:11You can see some beautiful mud crack features.
10:13And we see all of these features on Mars as well.
10:15So that's why it's an ideal testing ground.
10:17But also, if you look over here, you can see this beautiful kind of platey layered nature of these rocks.
10:22These are really perfect for also not only showing us that there was once a liquid water, you know, habitable environment for life to live in.
10:29But also, these rocks are very good at actually kind of capturing evidence of that ancient past biology.
10:35So it's just sandwiches it in between those layers.
10:37We don't know, of course, yet at all whether or not there was other life on Mars, but these are the kinds of rocks that are going to preserve it.
10:45Other members of the team, Grace Nielsen and Jack Langston, are already testing equipment out.
10:53I'm taking measurement of this mudstone, and it tells us a lot about the minerals in the rock.
10:59And Harry Marsh is testing the rover's eyes.
11:03So this is a replica of PanCam that's going to be on ExoMoz.
11:06We've got a series of cameras and filters to look at the geology of the landscape from a distance.
11:10If you want to press enter, it will move to look at these rocks.
11:15So this is what it's seeing.
11:17So we're going to send commands to the rover, and then a day later we'll get the data back.
11:21Oh wow, okay.
11:25The rover will land in an area on the red planet that's never been explored before,
11:30putting Claire and the team at the forefront of the search for extraterrestrial life.
11:37As far as we're aware, Earth is the only planet in our solar system that's hosted life,
11:41that currently hosts this incredible biosphere that we see around us.
11:44But we don't know if this ever happened anywhere else.
11:46And Mars is our planetary neighbour.
11:48It's got such a similar history to Earth, you know, during its first sort of 500 million years,
11:53you know, first billion years or so.
11:55And so it's the most obvious place to start testing this whole big question
11:58about whether or not life exists beyond Earth.
12:01That the geology of Torridon might help answer that question is pretty amazing.
12:07But we always knew our Scottish landscape is out of this world.
12:11Now, a couple of weeks ago, our resident sheep farmer, Cammy Wilson,
12:23welcomed some cows onto his new farm in Ayrshire.
12:26The five cows were expecting.
12:29And since our last visit, Cammy's had his first taste of calving.
12:33You've got it.
12:37It's nearly there.
12:38Oh, boom.
12:40That's the game.
12:43Honestly, when the first live calf came out,
12:45I hadn't been that excited in farming for years.
12:47Like, I was giddy, is probably how you would describe it.
12:52Couldn't stop smiling.
12:54Since then, we've had a second calf.
12:58But things haven't all been rosy.
13:01We lost one calf early on when our mother aborted.
13:04And we're now waiting to see what happens with the other two expectant cows.
13:09In the meantime, there's a lot to do.
13:11So we're just sticking a bale of straw in with them.
13:14We're going to get the cows and calves out today.
13:16But I still want to bring them in at night.
13:17One of the girls has got a big udder on her,
13:20and she needs them milked out occasionally.
13:25It's exciting for them.
13:28Two similar but very different calves.
13:30Both their own in colour, which means they're red and white.
13:33The heifer calf there, beautiful white flash,
13:36just like its mum on its forehead.
13:38And the bull calf, big, thick, broad calf.
13:44And today, they're both getting their legally required ID tags.
13:49I'll be honest, I've never done it before,
13:51and I'm not looking forward to it.
13:55First, I need to stop the mothers getting involved.
13:58So they go in a yoke.
14:00Boom, they're all locked in.
14:02We're safe.
14:03It's safe.
14:05Each calf gets two ear tags.
14:07This little bit here that sticks out,
14:09that should go on the inside of the ear,
14:11so it doesn't catch on fences.
14:13So that would be like that.
14:15And then this little tag here,
14:16this is the one with her name on it,
14:17it'll go in the other ear.
14:19So much to remember.
14:21Sheep are so easy.
14:23Now, make no mistake, this is gonna hurt.
14:27But I'm trying to do it as quickly as I can,
14:29so there's as little pain as possible.
14:31Good job, the mum's in the head joke.
14:33I'm sitting her down like a sheep,
14:35maybe she doesn't like that.
14:36She doesn't like that.
14:43Oh, I don't like that.
14:45You're all right, Cavi.
14:48There's still one more tag to put in.
14:51It's okay.
14:52That's it.
14:53It's done.
14:54It's done.
14:55It's done.
14:56It's done.
14:59It's a two person job.
15:01Where's Dougie when you need him?
15:04One done.
15:05One more to go.
15:07Reinforcements are definitely required.
15:09Especially since the bull calf
15:11now knows what's in store.
15:14Fortunately, we've got a vet student with us at the moment.
15:16Rachel.
15:17She's here to help with lambing.
15:20But I've got another job for her.
15:22A wee calf.
15:23You're quieter.
15:24You're quieter.
15:25Right, Rachel.
15:26Come and save the day.
15:30Right.
15:31Do you think you can hold the calf?
15:32Mm-hmm.
15:33They're strong, mind.
15:34They're about as strong as a big yow.
15:36Is that good?
15:37And don't turn?
15:38Aye, if you can.
15:40You got it.
15:41That is so much easier.
15:47There we go.
15:48Right.
15:49Let him go?
15:50Yeah, let him go.
15:51You did well.
15:52He's strong for about a week later.
15:53Really?
15:55Ain't he?
15:57That was stressful for everybody.
16:00But they can now go out to the field,
16:02leaving the two expectant mums back in the shed.
16:06Here we go.
16:10Of course, the one without a calf is the wildest one.
16:13She's very excited.
16:16Aye, girl.
16:17That's your calf.
16:18Yeah, yeah.
16:19You're alright.
16:20That's little Wednesday.
16:32How do you get them back in now?
16:35But good for them to stretch their legs, definitely.
16:37Especially those wee calves.
16:38Great to get outside in the fresh air.
16:41I think one of the most enjoyable things about buying the farm is all the new things I need to learn.
16:46You know, I know about sheep, but that is really all I know about.
16:50As you can tell from what you've just seen.
16:52So, learning about cattle and all the other runnings of a farm.
16:56I love the challenge.
16:57I absolutely love it.
16:58I'm looking forward to growing this herd.
16:59In fact, I've already bought ten more heifers.
17:02And you can see how Cammy gets on with them when we revisit his new farm later in the series.
17:11Now, from a small herd, back to a much bigger one.
17:16Earlier on, I found out how this super herd of dairy cattle spend 365 days outside.
17:23But to run an enterprise on this scale, you need a super workforce to look after them.
17:30But hiring that workforce is easier said than done.
17:35Because according to the National Farmers Union Scotland, one of the biggest issues facing farmers is finding workers.
17:42No wonder, then, it's estimated that a third of the permanent staff working in the British dairy industry are not from the UK.
17:53So, when dairy farmer Rory Christie couldn't find anyone locally to milk the herd at Durie, he had to look further afield.
18:02Hi, Benji.
18:03Hi, Benji.
18:04Nice to meet you.
18:05Nice to meet you too. Come in.
18:06And he found Benji Yap and Milo Solerano.
18:09They both studied agriculture in the Philippines, then worked on dairy farms in New Zealand.
18:16When Rory came calling, they took the chance to work even further from home.
18:21Because of the population in the Philippines and the limited job, the opportunity is really less there than here.
18:30So, the opportunity here, the sky's the limit.
18:33Benji and Milo work split shifts five days a week,
18:36with three Filipino colleagues.
18:38They start milking at four in the morning, have a rest break, then are back for the one o'clock milking in the afternoon.
18:46Rory pays them the going rate in the UK, but the cost of agency fees and visas means it's more expensive for him to hire foreign labour.
18:56You really need passion and love for this kind of work, because it's really hard, hard job.
19:02So, if you're not passionate, you wouldn't wake up this early.
19:05You wouldn't work this number of hours.
19:08It's really extremely demanding, not only physically, but of course mentally, because there are so many things happening.
19:15That is my passion, because I love farming. That's the thing. If you love your work also, things will go smooth.
19:24Scottish cows have been fine, but dealing with our weather has proved to be the biggest hurdle.
19:30You cannot really predict the weather here. Sometimes in one day, you will have the four weather.
19:35Cloudy, cold, rainy, and then sunny in just one day.
19:39Yeah, there are some instances that I thought it is very warm and hot, and then later it just rain and then I forget my wet gear.
19:47Wet gear.
19:49I'm very wet inside.
19:52And wet weather gear is certainly needed today.
19:55They're bringing in the cows for their afternoon milking in the Rotary Parlour.
20:00It takes 60 cows at once, as Milo can explain.
20:05So it's a pretty high-tech system then?
20:07If you compare it to the old way, this one is different, more on advanced technology.
20:12If they are done milking, they will just go out, because the system knows how much milk these cows have.
20:20Right.
20:21Yeah, because we do have the milk recording, and then the result of the milk recording is put in the system.
20:27Each cow.
20:28So the machine knows how many milk left in the other.
20:35The dairy here couldn't operate without these qualified, skilled workers.
20:41It's clearly a hard job anyway, but doing it thousands of miles from home and family must make it so much tougher.
20:50Get up.
20:51Get up.
20:52Come on, girls.
20:53For Benji, his 11 months a year in Scotland means his children can go to university back in the Philippines.
21:02It really helps me and my family back home, because I want to support them, my children.
21:09I want to support them to go to a beautiful school, and they can also choose the courses that they want.
21:16I have three sons, and I know how tough it would be to be apart from them for 11 months of the year.
21:22So it's a real sacrifice, isn't it?
21:23Yes, it is.
21:24It's really great that Catlan has given us this opportunity to come here, for us to be able to secure our future and our family.
21:34Because the Filipino culture is usually family-oriented, so that's why it's okay for me to sacrifice to be away from them, to work hard on this kind of job because of them, my family.
21:51The number one thing, why I'm working here is because of them, my family, yeah.
21:56You wish all the best.
21:57Yes, of course.
21:58Now to the borders, where back in March, Rosie found out about a project providing new homes for a native species that's been out in the cold for a while.
22:20Not everyone likes pine martins. For years, their love of eggs made them a target for hen and game bird owners.
22:33Persecution and habitat loss meant that by the turn of the 20th century, they were barely clinging on in England and scarce outside the Highlands in Scotland.
22:43They've been a protected species since 1988, and it's allowed the population to recover.
22:50But like many of us, some of them are struggling to find a place to stay.
22:56The Highlands would ideally love to be living in large tree cavities, but for a large tree cavity to develop, the tree needs to be at least 100 years old.
23:06And unfortunately, most of the trees in Britain aren't that old.
23:09Dr Stephanie Johnston is from the Vincent Wildlife Trust, and I'm joining her in this wood near Gala Shields to help alleviate the pine martin housing crisis.
23:21We need to create these bespoke homes for them in the forest, very much like a bird box.
23:27It gives them a safe place to breed and give birth and raise their young.
23:32Boxes like this, 250 of them are being put up across the UK by volunteers.
23:41Inside here you can see we've got this central chamber in there, so that's where the pine martins actually hang out and where they give birth to their kits.
23:50And then we've got these two side entrances, which we call the chimneys.
23:54So they can come in here and that's the bit that's sitting against the tree.
23:58And then they come up and over here into this lovely warm and cosy central chamber.
24:02It's perfect.
24:04The growing pine martin population here in the borders is a result of moving pine martins from the Highlands, where numbers are good.
24:12So you're in charge of the rope, the hauling.
24:15They've been relocating Scottish pine martins across the UK since the 1980s.
24:21And then you're in charge of lifting the box up.
24:24And the hope is that animals from around here will cross the border into England, where pine martins are more scarce.
24:32I'm just going to tie it in place with this rope.
24:35That's it, that's our box of the tree.
24:37Yeah.
24:38Well done.
24:39Fantastic.
24:40Stephanie has some pictures of pine martins using the boxes already put up in Dumfries and Galloway.
24:47Now, if you look closely, you can see that's the mum there.
24:51And she's taking, that's the kit.
24:54So she's taking the kit out for a bit of climbing training.
24:57As you can see, they're not naturally born climbers.
25:01They do go through a period of training.
25:03So this is the mum teaching it to climb down.
25:06They first learn to climb down because gravity obviously helps there.
25:09And then they eventually learn to climb up as well.
25:11That's amazing to see.
25:12And it's so nice to know that this is all going to help.
25:16The pictures are from motion sensitive cameras that keep an eye on some of the boxes.
25:22They're placed more than five metres away before the pine martin take possession.
25:27And that's where one of the volunteers, Lisa McNeish, comes in.
25:32Presumably it's not just to get nice pretty pictures of pine martins.
25:35No.
25:36What's the purpose?
25:37So the purpose is to obviously monitor the pine martins and see that they are actually using the box.
25:42Okay.
25:43And get an idea of breeding and how they are faring in this area.
25:49So it's motion censored.
25:50So if anything comes up that tree, it's going to get recorded.
25:54Fantastic.
25:55And yeah, that's us.
25:56Good to go.
25:57And hopefully if we get kits in it, they will get footage of them scrambling about in those branches,
26:04learning how to be a pine martin.
26:06Oh, I hope so.
26:07That would be absolutely adorable.
26:09And from a personal point of view, what is it that you love so much about this work?
26:14It's just fantastic to be able to learn more about these really amazing animals, you know,
26:20that have been missing from the landscape for so long.
26:23And to actually see how they're starting to now increase in number throughout the borders.
26:28And just to be part of that is really good fun.
26:30It's fantastic.
26:31Lisa's cameras are primed and ready.
26:34Here's hoping the boxes mean there will be plenty more pine martins to take pictures of.
26:43And as the cows head back into pasture, that brings us to the end of this programme.
26:48Here's what's coming up next time.
26:51Shape, shape.
26:53I meet the Caithness crofter, proving there's still a market for wool.
26:58When you put your hands in it, you'll feel the difference.
27:01We've got a fight on our hands when wildlife filmmaker Libby Penman returns to Lambert.
27:06And Cammie catches up with the contract farmers.
27:10When I think back to my former teaching life, I'm definitely living the dream now.
27:14Please join us for that and much, much more if you can.
27:20In the meantime, from all the Lambert teams around the country, and especially from me here in the Makers in Galloway,
27:26thank you so much for your company.
27:28Bye for now.
27:29Thank you very much.
27:59You