Evolution of Farming Patterns in Lochaber

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

LOCHABER as defined here consists of a large tract of hill and mountain country at the southern end of the Great Glen with Fort William as a focal point. From an administrative point of view the region covers eight parishes: Arisaig and Moidart, Glenelg, Kilmallie and Kilmonivaig in the Lochaber district of Inverness-shire; Ardnamurchan and Sunart, Ardgour, and Morvern in the Ardnamurchan district of Argyll; and Lismore and Appin in the North Lorn district of Argyll (Fig. 3). Although the area selected is delimited largely on grounds of convenience it does include a wide variety of farming conditions ranging from the rugged, exposed mountainous areas of Ben Nevis-Glencoe and Loch Quoich to the lower but heavily dissected country of north Argyll, and the wide, gently sloping glens of Glen Garry and Glen Spean. Also included is the fertile island of Lismore and the good soils of the coast of Morvern where Dalradian limestone and basalt respectively diversify the monotony imposed by the dominance of metamorphic rocks and the heavy hand of glaciation. The general characteristics of commercial farming in the Highlands and Islands are well known. Arable land is very limited in extent and in Lochaber the acreage of crops and grass varies in extent from 2.63 per cent of the total agricultural land in Lismore and Appin and 2.27 per cent in Ardnamurchan and Sunart to o.86 per cent in Ardgour and 0.72 per cent in Glenelg. Moreover, the high rainfall leads to a heavy loss of soil nutrients so that the fertilizing of the hungry land can only take place on a short-term basis. The acreage of grass is over four times as great as the acreage of crops in most parishes and the swing to silage as a form of winter feed is tending to widen the disparity. Rough grazings thus make up almost the whole of the agricultural land (96.3I per cent in Lismore and Appin to 99.o5 per cent in Ardgour) and hence livestock enterprises dominate. But many of the grazings are poor, consisting of steep, rocky ground; and there are often problems of waterlogging and exposure. This, together with the limited amount of low ground, places the emphasis under present conditions firmly on sheep, since cattle require better grazings and, to be an economic proposition, must be supported by arable land as a source of winter feed. The arable must be tied in with the hill enterprises and hence there is very little specialization in Lochaber: for although some farms have land which would be suitable, for example, for market gardening there is generally insufficient to justify taking the emphasis off hill farming.1 But the farming pattern is very liable to change. It is particularly susceptible to changes in government policy; and levels of subsidy paid for hill sheep and cattle have an important bearing on the density and ratio of stocking. Also it must be remembered that farming land is under pressure not only from housing, industrial and recreational requirements but also from other primary users, so that any study of farming must take account of the changing relationships between farming on the one hand and crofting, deer forests and woodlands on the other. As the many recent studies of crofting show, these relationships are often a legacy of past conditions and hence require some discussion of changing economic conditions over the last