Scottish sheep producers are being encouraged to ‘bank a lamb’ to help tell the story of sheep farming as a St Andrew’s Day initiative gets underway.
The project has seen over 65,000 school children cook and eat Scotch Lamb over the past three years.
Farmers can donate the value of store, prime and breeding lambs, cull and breeding ewes and tups to the Lamb Bank.
Donation can be done via any Scottish auction market or by getting in touch directly with the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland (IAAS).
The campaign has also been credited with supporting and improving the prime lamb price throughout the month of November, with the price tracking upwards during the month.
Neil Wilson, executive director of Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland (IAAS), has called on farmers to participate.
“The Lamb Bank has been running for the last couple of years and has been very successful in allowing farmers to get involved in the campaign without needing to be concerned with the logistics of providing a physical lamb or ewe.
“When selling through the ring, just let your local auctioneer know what number of sheep you want to donate and they will simply deduct the value and send it to the Lamb Bank.”
Lamb Bank funds are then used to purchase Scotch Lamb for participating Home Economics classes across the country where children will cook recipes specially developed by Quality Meat Scotland.
Mr Wilson said this was a wat of getting future consumers to taste and savour Scotch Lamb, as well as the qualities of red meat.
“Feedback from schools and children from past campaigns has been entirely positive," he explained.
"This demonstrates the importance of direct contact with consumers and how campaigns like this can have a really important impact."
