The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: rbarlo32 on November 11, 2011, 05:09:50 pm
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a new local area protection from the end of the month to have the above tag they must prove its from shetland.
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I saw this; I think it is EU PDO protection.
Like the meat one, I think it is a good thing and they are (mayvbe unlike the meat) stipulating that it is Shetland breed wool only as well as from Shetland.
But it does raise the same issue as the meat one in making it hard to know how to (in a short one or two words) describe the Shetland wool and meat that is raised on the mainland ; when a breed shares its name with the place covered by a PDO they dont seem to give thought to how to ensure proper distinguishing titles (which would benefit both island and mainland as it would give consistency and clarity).
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It's a problem. How am I to describe the meat and wool from my Shetlands? I think the island meat and wool should be 'Shetland wool from the Shetland Islands'.
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the cornish pasty is protected by this too iirc. i think it means that it has to be made in cornwall to a set recipe to be called a cornish pasty, so maybe that would apply to shetland wool and meat?
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turns out the eu has messed up. only six farmers/crofters are allowed to use this title. so at the moment shetland sheep on shetland can't use that title.
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Can I call my meat and wool "Devon Shetland" or "Shetland from Devon""? ???
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Can I call my meat and wool "Devon Shetland" or "Shetland from Devon""? ???
I bet it has to be 'meat from Shetland sheep reared in Devon' ::)
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sounds about right.
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I wonder if this small group ever has the financial means to actually sue someone using the title "Shetland wool"... (especially if you leave the "native" out).
However in general this is a bit of a kick in the teeth for the (usually) small-scale mainland UK Shetland breeders, who actually play an important role in providing a wider geographic distribution of the genetics for Shetland sheep... after all one F&M outbreak on Shetland and their flock could be gone...
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that is an interesting point has FM ever been that far north :farmer:
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Common sense (ha!) might say that "Shetland Wool/Meat" would be the PDO and "Shetland Breed Wool/Meat" a reasonable mainland version?
It's a shame Fairisle knitting/pattern isn't similarly protected, there are lots of cheap 'n' nasty acrylic copies out there in fashion-land at the moment.
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after all one F&M outbreak on Shetland and their flock could be gone...
Would that be the case, though? Isn't it lots of islands, and hopefully the natural disease barriers would mean it would not spread across the whole region and take out all the sheep?
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it would be a total wipeout if it did.
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it would be a total wipeout if it did.
Well I am fascinated. How does sheep-farming on Shetland work then? Is there lots of movement between islands?
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It was more a general point that having a rare breed of sheep in a single ocation would mean it could be wiped out by any disease spread through air/water/humans/dEFRA disease control measures etc.
Also to my knowledge the number of people selling pure shetland wool (on the mainland) are all small producers mostly selling through small shops, directly or etsy or similar. So not a real threat in my opinion...
But I think wihtin a few weeks everbody will have forgotten about it... I am just waiting till they put a PDO on texels...
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Anke - you type more quickly than I do, and this says pretty much the same thing as you have (this is happening more frequently to me - must learn to type faster ;D)
I think it's just an illustration of a point - putting all your eggs in one basket. We have thought of this with Hebridean sheep, which are found only in Great Britain (apart from one or two flocks in the Netherlands). It is always better to have a second and third population on the other side of the world, in case of a disease outbreak - not necessarily one we already know about. For the Shetland Breed, there are plenty of animals in North America.
There seems to be an ongoing rivalry between those who live on the Shetland Islands and those who live on mainland Britain, where the Shetland Breed is concerned. On Shetland, the breed is their commercial sheep, in the rest of Britain it is a minority breed, once rare, so people's attitudes to their sheep will be different.
I am surprised that the Shetland Meat /Wool name is only being used by a tiny handful of organic breeders on the Islands - I think the rest of the sheep farmers on Shetland have far more reason to be annoyed by that than we do on mainland Britain.
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In my opion Shetland Sheep that are born and raised on the Island taste far better than the same breed raised on the mainland. Is the wool the same ? The Island ponies have masses of hair to cope with the weather do the sheep have a thicker fleece.?
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I bet it has to be 'meat from Shetland sheep reared in Devon' ::)
Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it?
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with regard to f&m in shetland - is their no restriction on taking livestock to the islands? i understand that it can be passed on in different ways also, just curious.
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there are vet checks at the port mainly for less infectious things. say one farm was to get it they will run some of there flock on a hill that will have other folks sheep on it. so using the slaughter system that they did in the last foot and mouth outbreak in the uk. the slaughter circle would keep getting bigger as there is lot of diffrent farmers sheep on the same hills. so it would destroy the entire flock on the island the other islands may escape but not likely it would also be very bad news for the shetland cow as well