As hill sheep farmers struggle to cope with a disastrous crash in prices, Catherine Brown reveals an initiative which aims to bring their breeds back into

the fold

Cooking classes for Islay children will liven up next week with the first delivery of the island's lamb and beef to Islay High School. For the first time their teacher, Mairi MacLeod, will be able to teach them about the different cuts and how to cook them when the school takes part in a rescue operation for farmers as prices for the season's lamb plunge. Worst hit are the sheep farmers on Shetland, who face the prospect of destroying this season's lambs, rather than incurring the costs of export.

It was the head teacher in Bowmore, Donnie Campbell, who took his idea to the Islay, Jura and Colonsay farmers. The budget for the school's cooking classes was so low, he said, that children never had the chance to learn about meat. It was a gap in their education. Also, many of them knew very little about the link between food and farming. Why not make more use of a local resource, help the farmers in troubled times and hopefully encourage some enthusiastic lamb eaters for the future?

The farmers are providing #300 worth of lamb and beef to the school. It's money which they made at this year's Islay Show, selling beef steak sandwiches, and will be used to pay the farmers who provide the meat. Some of the lamb will be Blackface, the hardy little breed with thick coats and black faces which have been bred to survive harsh winters on the hills, making the best use of large areas of rough grass and heather grazing which provides a much more flavourful end product than lamb raised on lowland grass.

There are 2.5 million Blackface ewes in the UK, which represents 14% of the sheep industry. Most of them are in Scotland, with a few in the uplands of Northumberland. But until recently there has been little attempt to distinguish between breeds of lamb at the point of sale.

It's a situation which the Blackface Sheep Breeders' Association (BSBA) has tried to change, promoting the breed for the first time throughout November last year. Now participating butchers in this year's promotion are up from 65 last year to 90 and the sale of Blackface, with special stickers and rosettes, comes at a time when this year's best

young lambs are at their peak of tenderness and flavour.

Born in April, which is late in the lambing season, they are grown to maturity slower than other faster-growing breeds and are not ready for sale until November and December. Though a small carcass size, by continental standards, their muscles are well-formed, their bones small and, because of their active lifestyle, they have little excess fat.

This year the strong pound, a surplus of lamb in Europe, cheap imports and the collapse of the skin trade

to Russia, which added around #8 to the lamb's price, are some of the reasons given for the fact that prices to the farmers this year have dropped to a record low. Islay Blackface breeder Brian Abbott raised only 30p a kilo dead weight last week for his best Blackies.

But how can the price be so low to the farmer and yet remain high in the shops? Top lamb price on a recce of fresh meat shelves this week was in Safeway for chump leg steaks - #14.49 a kilo! A price hike which might interest the Office of Fair Trading in their current investigation into supermarket profiteering at the expense of producers and consumers.

Safeway spokesperson Tony Combes defended this price differential, citing other factors: ''Farmgate and livestock prices cannot be compared to retail prices in our stores, which reflect the costs of transport, inspection, specification, classification, slaughter, preparation, boning, processing, packaging, distribution and promotional activity. And just 28% of the live weight of the animal ends up as lamb we can sell.''

While supermarkets make us pay not just for the meat they sell, but also the meat they can't sell - plus adverts they think necessary to make us buy - these extra costs do not figure on the balance sheet of the High Street butcher. He must make use of all parts of the animal and his prices, on my recce, were lower than the cheapest supermarket.

And lamb price is not the only buying issue on the fresh meat shelves. If a UK farmer can't get a fair price by exporting, then why is cheap New Zealand lamb still available on our shelves? It's usual for supermarkets to buy fresh supplies of NZ lamb at this time of year, as early-born English lamb gets a bit tougher and more limited in supply. So why not use Scottish and Welsh hill lamb, or the threatened lamb from Shetland?

NZ imports were put under the spotlight in mid-October as Asda announced that it was to ''reinforce its commitment to British farmers by cancelling all contracts to buy fresh New Zealand lamb this winter''. Protecting its reputation for high eating quality, a Marks & Spencer spokesperson claimed that, while it was not using NZ lamb at the moment, it might still use it in the future if it could not get the quality required in UK lamb.

Safeway, Tesco and Sainsbury are joining the boycott of lamb imports and are currently supplying 100% British lamb, though not, like Asda, declaring any longer term commitment. And, so far, none has taken the initiative to label Blackface, though at Tesco, Sainsbury and M & S the labelling does indicate that it is the new season's ''Hill Lamb''.

It's only at the 90 butchers (list available from the BSBA) that you will be able to ensure you get the quality, flavour and succulence of the genuine Blackies.

l Blackface Sheep Breeders' Association, Breed Promotions Manager, Aileen McFadzean, Brae View, Drumharvie, Crieff PH7 3PQ.

Tel: 01764 683746.

l Islay Farmers Meat in Schools Initiative contact: Gill Johnstone, secretary of

the Islay, Jura and Colonsay NFU.

Tel: 01496 302005. As we go to press, the news arrives that Scott Chance, chef of the Harbour Inn, Bowmore, who will cook a lamb dish for the pupils of Islay High School, has won a 1998 Scottish Tourism Thistle award for the Natural Cooking of Scotland