Picturesque older cattle breeds make a comeback

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Time seemed to be running out for the most traditional of European beef breeds – Longhorns, Highlanders and Galloways – until robust, rough grazers were needed for landscape maintenance and conservation. What's more, the meat they produce is still some of the tastiest in the world

by NORMAN DUNN

Maybe Highland cattle can't really be termed a threatened breed, with purebred numbers nowadays well over 35,000 and rising. But there was a time, just a few decades ago, when many thought the picturesque long-haired beasts wouldn't make it into the 21st century, outside a zoo at any rate.

The same applied to the even rarer Old English Longhorn. Back in the 1970s, the U.K. Rare Breeds Survival Trust reckoned there were around 225 examples left of this massive breed, which once supplied the main plow pullers of England – and a good proportion of the country's famous roast beef. Now the herd book has over 2,500 registrations and many a European farm show between Jutland and the Jura features at least a few pens of the magnificent Longhorns. 

Such breeds come from times when survival required inherent hardiness and disease resistance.

Weight gain and conformation might not have been quite so important in those days. But steady growth on the roughest of forage was expected. And so was a long productive life – a trait that still finds Highlands in their 18th year, having produced 15 thriving calves.

So I wasn't all that surprised when I came into a forest clearing while hiking in the German Rothaar Mountains this September and found a thriving herd of hardy Highlands in a high-altitude landscape where most farmers had long ago given up animal production in favour of forestry. But clearings and fire breaks have to be kept clean of bushes and long grass, and that's why low-maintenance breeds which can keep these areas clear summer and winter are now in demand.

In similar situations throughout Europe, Highlands, Longhorns and other older breeds that have somehow survived despite the demands for modern meat production have found their salvation in sustainable landscape conservation. And since they have been introduced into this new role by far-sighted farmers, they've also rewarded their supporters with a surprise bonus: beautiful beef.

This also comes straight from yesteryear, being full-flavoured, juicy and of unbeatable texture.

Breed numbers keep expanding as the old types of cattle are put to work in what seems like Europe's largest farming enterprise nowadays – landscape maintenance and conservation. They're herded winter and summer on steep upland slopes, in the scrublands and clearings of dense forests and on boggy riverbanks and water meadows.

Move up into the Swiss Alps, for example, and you'll find Highlanders grazing at 5,000 feet on Jon and Erika Janett's property at Tschlin in Engadin. These hardy beasts can be outside most of the year with the odd bale of hay. And in summer they're happy grazing even higher, at over 6,000 feet.

Here, too, the end product of excellent beef hasn't gone unexploited. The Janett family sell prize-winning beef salami sausage under the organic "Bio Suisse" label as a useful byproduct.

Another breed, another role. Sabine Zentis is a businesswoman from the Eifel uplands near Aachen in Germany and part of her land runs off into the fresh water reservoirs for cities, including Cologne.

"There was no way we could farm livestock intensively on the permanent grass up here," she told me. "We wanted a hardy race of cattle that could stay outside year-round feeding on grass that was not artificially fertilized... stock that could do well on just silage and hay in winter. We found the ideal animal with English Longhorns and imported the first animals from the U.K. back in 1989. Now we have a purebred herd of around 140 head and sell breeding stock to Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands."

The Longhorns also produce top-class beef, says Zentis. The bulls not selected for further breeding are fed on just grass, hay and silage (except for some sugar beet pulp nuts in their first winter) and weigh in with over 350 kilograms slaughterweight at 19 to 20 months and top carcass classification.

Not so massive as the Longhorn, nor so picturesque as the magnificent Highlanders, but more noticeable out on rough pasture are the curly-coated Galloway cattle, especially the striking black and white Belted Galloways. This breed from the cold, windblown southwest of Scotland is also making a name for itself on the continent as a protector of ecologically sensitive grasslands.

One of the most striking settings for the "Belties" I have seen are the lands surrounding the graceful Chteau de Lerse in the Charente region of France. There, a growing herd of Galloways is not only keeping the grass down, it's producing a standard of good, fleshy breeding stock that is attracting buyers' notice  throughout central France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Just like the Highlanders and Longhorns, these Galloways are giving a new meaning to the term dual-purpose cattle breeds. BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.