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Purpose – This chapter explores the way in which the food crisis of 2008 and issues of food security have impinged upon debates about agriculture and agricultural support in Scotland.

Methodology/approach – Adopting a discourse analytic approach, a series of pivotal Scottish agricultural policy documents produced between 2001 and 2010 are examined. Official agricultural policy discourse over time is traced as is the nature of that discourse as the food crisis impinged upon and altered the context of debates about agricultural policy reform.

Findings – The chapter finds that prior to the food crisis, agricultural policy documents were dominated by neoliberal discourse that emphasised the importance of agriculture becoming more oriented towards the market and by a growing emphasis on multifunctionality. But after the food crisis, the dominant political rhetoric utilised different arguments to defend agricultural subsidies and argue for a continuing role for the state in perpetuating agricultural production. It is suggested, however, that the key factor in this retrenchment to continued farm support was not the food crisis per se; rather, it was the intersection of issues of food security with the rise to power of the Scottish nationalists and their resistance to the UK's neoliberal position.

Originality/value – The chapter provides the key insight that, for Scotland at least, the food crisis did not spark a change in domestic agricultural policies, but rather became an argumentative resource that was opportunistically deployed in established debates about agricultural policy reform.

Purpose – This chapter aims to explore the consequences of a renewed impetus for ‘neo-productivist’ agriculture on multifunctionality in Western Europe.

Design/methodology/approach – We analyse how the issue of multi-functionality has been interpreted and implemented in Western Europe through a comparison between Norway and Scotland (as an EU example). Relevant policy documents and literature are analysed. The chapter explores whether European agricultural multifunctionality is being revised in response to the rise of neo-liberal (neo-productivist) ideologies, food security and climate change issues.

Findings – Our results suggest that Norway and the European Union have developed somewhat different understandings of multifunctionality. In response to recent events these forms are diverging further with the EU strengthening and Norway weakening their respective policies and discourses. However, in both cases, food security and climate change are emerging as key elements in the restructuring of both policy and rhetoric.

Research limitations/implications and practical implications – The study has been limited to an overview of multifunctionality within the European context and a case study approach using Norway and Scotland. Nevertheless, in highlighting the flexible use of the notion of ‘multifunctionality’, it illustrates to policymakers the importance of maintaining a focus on its key environmental and social objectives in the face of pressures to increase production and liberalise agricultural policies.

Originality/value – This is one of the first studies to point out the varied nature of the ‘multifunctionality’ discourse in Europe and how it is likely to change further in response to economic, environmental and social changes.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the attitudes and experiences of Scottish farmers in marketing their beef and sheep, and the nature of their marketing relationships. As such, it seeks to identify the challenges that the recently revised Forward Strategy for Scottish Agriculture may face with respect to the wider establishment of collaborative supply chains and the strengthening of links between beef and sheep farmers and other parts of the meat supply chain.

The approach involved a postal survey of beef and sheep producers throughout Scotland, with a sample which was representative in terms of regional and farm size distribution. In total 1,778 questionnaires were mailed, with a response rate of 34 per cent (n=611). In addition, interviews were held with major meat processors and retailers in order to provide a “reality check” for the information from the survey.

The results from the survey show that there are low levels of customer awareness amongst farmers in the red meat chain, and low levels of trust of other chain participants, particularly in relation to price.

The wisdom of developing collaborative supply chains is widely acknowledged throughout the European Union (EU), but such moves need an understanding of the attitudes and circumstances of the various supply chain participants. This paper is of value to practitioners (government, consultants and academia) as it highlights empirical issues that may hamper the development of collaborative supply chains.

First January 1973 will not only mark the beginning of a New Year but a year which history will mark as a truly momentous one, for this is the year that Britain, after centuries of absence, re‐enters the framework of Europe as one of the Member‐States of the enlarged European Community. This in itself must make for change on both sides; Britain is so different in outlook from the others, something they too realize and see as an acquisition of strength. There have been other and more limited forms of Continental union, mainly of sovereignty and royal descent. Large regions of France were for centuries under the English Crown and long after they were finally lost, the fleur de lis stayed on the royal coat of arms, until the Treaty of Amiens 1802, when Britain retired behind her sea curtain. The other Continental union was, of course, with Hanover; from here the Germanized descendants of the Stuarts on the female line returned to the throne of their ancestors. This union lasted until 1832 when rules of descent prevented a woman from reigning in Hanover. It is interesting to speculate how different history might have been if only the British Crown and the profits of Tudor and Stuart rule had been maintained in one part of central Europe. However, Britain disentangled herself and built up overwhelming sea power against a largely hostile Europe, of which it was never conceived she could ever be a part, but the wheel of chance turns half‐circle and now, this New Year, she enters into and is bound to a European Community by the Treaty of Rome with ties far stronger, the product of new politico‐economic structures evolved from necessity; in a union which cannot fail to change the whole course of history, especially for this country.

An account of two cases of alleged sale of adulterated butter was published in the Oldham Evening Chronicle of the 25th April last, and in the Oldham Standard of the 26th of the same month. The facts as reported call for comment, not because they are in any way extraordinary—they are indeed essentially common place—but the method of dealing with them by the Oldham Health Committee seems to us to be so.

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate empirically the relationship between firm characteristics and information use within a small and medium sized enterprises (SME) context, proposing that firm characteristics are a catalyst of information use. With marketing information it is intended all data usable within for a marketing purpose.

First, firm characteristics and their impact on information use amongst SMEs were identified in the literature. After that, a quantitative study was performed analysing the data through multivariate data analysis techniques, specifically principal component analysis (PCA), canonical correlation analysis and regression. The results of the analysis are discussed and the paper ends with the conclusions, implications for practitioners and policy makers, limitations of the study and indications for future research.

The results of this study show the importance of the association between firm characteristics and information use amongst SMEs, demonstrating that strategic approach, firm size and resources allocation are catalysts of information use.

Different firm characteristics have an impact on information use. Understanding better what firm characteristics are potential catalysts of information use may empower practitioners’ with better marketing intelligence and policy makers with a measure to assess potential risk when subsidising small businesses.

This paper summarises how the Scottish agri‐food industry has been developing farm and quality assurance activities since the early 1990s as it seeks to strengthen its competitive position. It also outlines the European system of third party certification for quality assurance schemes. The paper is an introduction to a number of “insights from industry” presented to a conference on “Food Traceability ‐ What? Why? How?” which was held in Edinburgh in February 1998.

The paper examines one of Scotland's major pork supply chains and seeks to identify the key risks and challenges involved in developing a resilient agri‐food supply system, particularly with regard to primary product supply, and to show how risk management and collaboration amongst stakeholders can increase chain resilience.

The case study involved in‐depth interviews with seven people involved in the chain and its management.

Reduced supply chain vulnerability to risks arose through horizontal collaboration amongst producers, and vertical collaboration with the processor and retailer. Producers improved market and price security, and pig performance. For the processor and retailer the collaboration generated greater security of supply of an assured quality, improved communication with suppliers, and reduced demand risk as they could assure consumers on quality, animal welfare and product provenance.

The study's findings are based on the analysis of a particular supply chain, but the cooperative concerned currently produces over half of Scotland's weekly pig production.

The findings are highly transferable to other agri‐food supply chains. Producers' successful efforts to deal with different risks and the role of collaboration in enhancing chain resilience are illustrated.

The case is interesting because pigmeat supply profitability has been under constant pressure. It discusses the risks faced by all chain participants and the collective development of a chain which is relatively resilient to variations in price, production and supply.

Purpose – This chapter introduces the book collection and sets the theoretical framework for the subsequent chapters.

Design/methodology/approach – The approach of the book is to re-interpret major challenges to global agriculture – particularly climate change and the food crisis of 2008 – as demonstrating shocks to the resilience of global food systems.

Findings – Using resilience to shocks as a key quality of food systems enables recent crises to be understood as central to the ongoing dynamics of food systems rather than simply atypical events. Alongside climate change and food security, other potential shocks are identified: biosecurity, energy, financial and volcanic.

Originality/value – This framework establishes new criteria for examining the potential merit of multifunctional and neo-liberal policy regimes with world food systems.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.