How it all started.

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In 2023 we took over the deer management of our hill farm in Perthshire. Within the year we were thrown in at the deep end when a helicopter count listed us as one of the highest density deer areas in Scotland. It was recorded that our deer density was at 47/km2, when an environmentally damaging level is classified at 25/km2. We were almost five times the level that is appropriate for the landscape. There were severe repercussions of such a dense deer population. We were experiencing agricultural damage with grazing depletion and disease transfer. We began recording the damage to the moorland with the deep deer tracks cutting into the peat and leaving it bare. We noticed the displacement of our bird population, with waders, such as curlews and oyster catchers, no longer present in their breeding grounds. There was a notable increase in road traffic collisions with drivers unable to avoid the deer as they crowded the road at night. I grew up on the farm seeing a few deer at a time in winter, and now I was seeing herds of deer hundreds strong. There had been a huge shift in the deer population over my lifespan where the balance of the ecosystem has been knocked out of harmony.

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Reducing deer numbers proved difficult as there wasn't a domestic market for so many deer. We heard of instances with other deer managers were 50 deer may be culled and the local processing unit could only accept 20, so 30 would be wasted. It is a difficult balancing act as we have a legal responsibility and moral duty to keep deer levels at an appropriate level. We respect the deer and part of that respect is ensuring that all of the deer culled enter the food chain. With the ever-growing establishment of food banks, even in our little town of Pitlochry, it seemed wrong that we were looking at a surplus and waste. 

 

We began speaking to local and rural food banks and were shocked at the scale of the food bank system in Scotland. With challenges like Covid, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, families have been hugely impacted. We were learning that those accessing support from the food banks were needing this support for the first time, many people are employed, but the current economic situation is just making it impossible. We do think it is a more hidden problem in rural Scotland but it is a problem that is growing. We want to support our local and rural community by creating consistent and significant deliveries of venison over our five year pilot, and hopefully beyond. The socio-economic impacts of Brexit, covid, and now the cost-of-living crisis are long reaching and we should all be looking at long term sustainable forms of support.

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Our solution is to start a social enterprise, Fair Feast, providing high quality protein to food banks. It will be self funding by wholesale sales of steak, which will allow us to create a system to produce mince/burgers/sausages/meatballs/stewing steak for as many people as possible. The deer will be culled and processed on site by a butcher in our new deer larder and kitchen facilities. With this added infrastructure we look to fulfil our responsibilities to the environment, ensure the highest levels of deer welfare, and get these food banks the support they need.

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