20-day protest (From Gazette & Herald)

20-day protest

IN an effort to get the message through the thick hides of our masters, the NFU has been organising a series of demonstrations outside the animal health offices of DEFRA up and down the country.

Springing from the FMD crisis, the livestock industry has taken significant steps to improve bio-security, with much of the burden falling on producers; and it's now high time that DEFRA accepted this and made some effort to introduce more realistic and appropriate measures to control the risk of spreading disease in the future.

The 20-day standstill is completely unacceptable and increasing breaches of its rules make it pretty meaningless.

Any legislation should be capable of implementation and enforcement; and the 20-day rule is neither.

The Farmers Guardian ran a poll last week with 88pc voting in favour of total abolition and the remainder saying they would accept a shorter restriction period of 5-6 days.

I probably don't need to explain to the reader, but will just say that there are many times when issues of animal welfare and good husbandry take precedence over a nonsensical bureaucratic edict; and the law is thereby flouted.

It is not only the farmers that suffer as my fellow schoolmate and now NFU delegate, Henry Rowntree, points out: "These restrictions have also imposed additional expense on the auction marts as they now have to hold separate slaughter markets. This disadvantages not only the markets but also the farmers."

Elliot Morley is still doggedly in favour of the movement ban, which in itself is sufficient argument to campaign against it!

Sheep tagging nightmare

You may remember that the verbal and visual scourge of the Government during the FMD crisis was a website called www.warmwell.com. Last night I revisited the Warmwell site to find it alive, well, and still kicking like mad.

If you get chance to have a look, do so. There is a wealth of news items, articles and correspondence which is more interesting than most of the TV programmes of late.

Amongst recent reports was a letter from an Irish sheep farmer over the weekend who was relaying his experiences of sheep tagging which they have now had in Eire for the last eight months.

He only has 160 sheep left on the farm, but has just ordered 25 replacement tags lost mainly in the sheep fencing.

The EC just does not realise how difficult sheep tagging is and certainly Herr Fischler is no authority, coming himself from Austria where the biggest flocks may be 100 strong and there cannot be more than 100yds of sheep wire in the whole country.

We are being required to keep all our records for three years after the sheep have gone but worse still, the "reconciliation clause" requires each producer to gather all his sheep once a year and be able to account for the identity of any animal with a missing tag.

The threat of no record, no payment, is pretty salutary; and I fear there is going to be a lot more heartache before the tagging fiasco is through.

A few grains from the bin

The week has seen a varied selection of news:

Be ready for OTMS changes - Robert Forster's National Beef Association (NBA) is trying to prepare farmers for the possibility of changes to the OTMS rules.

Currently everything over 30 months of age is excluded from the food chain and burnt, an exercise which is costing the country £400m per year.

Most of us accept that this is nonsense and hopefully the risk analysis review being undertaken by the Food Standards Agency will release more cattle onto the market.

NBA advice is that breeders should look ahead and where possible cull those cows which were born before August 1996 when the meat and bonemeal ban came into force.

The fear is that the next version of the OTMS scheme may be biased against the older cows.

Christmas errata - I must have been too full of Christmas spirit when I wrote the festive article and thank those readers who spotted the deliberate mistakes!

In the story about church servers, Frank Mills was of course Brian; the church was Bossall, not Sand Hutton; and the son was a son-in law! With apologies for these and all other omissions.

Haskins obsession with dependence - I am growing a little tired of Lord Haskins, an Irishman attacking British agriculture, and I quote his latest outburst at the Oxford Farming Conference:

"If British food is competitive in terms of quality, service and value then of course our soldiers should eat it; but it is a nonsense to expect British tax payers to cough up again for the inefficiency of the British farming industry."

What His Lordship conveniently ignores is the fact that his friends in high places impose upon British farmers the most draconian set of regulations which cost a fortune to implement; and render it quite impossible for us to compete in a world market situation.

He must be in a very cocooned minority if he really believes that the British army should not be fed on British food.

Gloriously eccentric shots - As we near the end of the current shooting season, I thought it appropriate to quote from the past and an article sent to me by Holgate Illingworth.

Most of the legendary tales come from more than a century ago and one highlighted the prowess of Lord Ripon, reputedly the best shot in England.

He was so quick that he once killed 28 pheasants in a minute and another time had seven birds in the air at once! Mind you, he was shooting with three guns and two loaders!

At the other end of the spectrum, a less skilful Frenchman shooting in Scotland was asked at the end of a grouse drive how many birds he'd got. He replied that the grouse had defeated him but that he has succeeded in bagging three of the "moutons sauvages".

Free lessons to New Age travellers - This Government has earned a reputation for creating new ways of wasting tax payers' money, but the latest potty scheme from the Learning & Skills Council (LSC) really takes the biscuit. The LSC has allocated £25,000 to Somerset County Council which will then spend the cash on courses entitled "The Self-Sufficiency Project" for the benefit of New Age travellers in the county who have a creed of dropping out of society and living on state benefits.

Anyone interested can attend the courses which will be held at informal venues such as organic cafes in Glastonbury. Here is a sample of the lectures for you to savour:

Herbs, women's self-defence, composting techniques, circus skills, juggling & African drumming. If there are a lot of takers, we can arrange a bus from Malton market place!

More grains of truth - David Sheppard writes that wheat prices have picked up with a bit of export interest in UK wheat and due in part to the EU limiting grain imports into Europe.

Some farmers are being persuaded to sell, and the old adage of "feed a hungry man" is worth remembering.

Perhaps we should keep the market supplied rather than lose the customer.

Speaking of grain imports, David says it is time to squash the idea that UK consumers have been importing vast tonnages of wheat from Eastern Europe.

Although Black Sea wheat may well be cheaper than our own at source, it is certainly not so by the time freight costs have been added on. If the extra expense is not sufficient deterrent, then the UK assurance schemes certainly are.

Market report

Tuesday's market saw 137 cattle including 20 OTM; 1,396 sheep including 297 ewes. Steers - light to 121p, Pam Gibson, Bempton (ave 96.4p). Heifers - light to 126p, Wilton Lodge Farm (95.8p), heavyweight to 129p, G I Marwood, Harome (96.7p). Bulls - light to 102p, D Sunley, Nawton (95.8p), heavy to 107p, D A Robinson & Co, Stape (97.5p). B&W bulls to 87p, S M Avison, Black Bull (79.4p). Hoggs - standard to 110.2p, A V Pollock, Harwood Dale (104.9p), med to 116.5p, C Knaggs, Kilham (106.6p), heavy to 117p, A Richardson, Langdale End (104.5p), heavyweight to 106.6p, S I Grayson, Pickering (100.5p). Heavy ewes to £64, S R Grayson, Pickering (£47.50), light ewes to £47, B Stonehouse, Staxton (£44).

Updated: 10:58 Wednesday, January 15, 2003