Government's change of heart is welcome (From Gazette & Herald)

Government's change of heart is welcome

THE Food Standards Agency has announced that it is planning to recommend that the over-30-month rule will either be scrapped entirely or relaxed to allow cattle born later than 1996 to enter the food chain.

This is a dramatic change of heart on behalf of the Government and one which will be welcomed by both farmers and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The total cost of this scheme to the exchequer has been over £2.5 billion, with the cost currently running at around £400m a year.

The farming community and the meat industry, whilst welcoming the news, are concerned about the way these changes will be handled to allow these cattle to enter the market in a sensible and orderly manner in order not to destroy the very sensitive meat market in the UK. With over 800,000 animals being slaughtered each year under the 30-month rule, cattle breeders and feeders have good reason to worry because the Government's record on BSE has been poor to say the least.

Prior to the ban, many of the cattle over 30 months old were sold on to the export market, many of them to France, but, of course, thanks to the negative publicity which BSE generated, beef exports into Europe stopped and those markets have since been filled from other sources.

In removing this ban, it seems to me that HM Government is effectively saying to the British people: 'we are accepting that the links between BSE in cattle and variant CJD have finally been shown to be unproven and Government scientists were either over cautious or even completely wrong'. In certain quarters, there are very strong feelings that the origins of CJD were nothing to do with eating beef and the real reasons had been swept under the carpet and hidden from the public in order to protect the Government from massive claims for compensation.

We are also going to war soon and beef from these older cattle will provide a very useful strategic food reserve if something untoward should happen to our very vulnerable food supplies from abroad.

But in spite of these problems for farming, it's the middle of March, the daffodils are coming out and the Larch trees are just breaking into bud and will soon be green again. This means spring has arrived or is just around the corner. This is my favourite time of year, with longer days and warmer weather making life a little easier for most of us, but most especially farmers.

In our valley, this seems to be the opinion of the wildlife too and I noticed just recently the swans have arrived back at the pond and have started to rebuild their nest.

One of the jobs I must do is to take a photo of them to see if I can tell from their markings if they are the same pair which came last year.

The geese are around too, but whilst I welcome the swans, I am not too sure about the geese - we already have a flock of around 20 and last year there were at least three pairs, which reared 12 goslings between them. This is too many and they will soon have to be controlled. They like to eat the very best new grass or even cereals which are just emerging.

Before the wildlife enthusiasts complain, I farm for a living and there is very little profit in farming today and none at all in breeding wild geese.

Wild ducks too have survived well this year and, once again, with a flock of over 100 on various ponds, we have rather too many. But ducks eat slugs and snails, which can cause us some health problems in the cattle, and we can tolerate them at this current level.

We have kept on top of the rabbit population this winter, but there are already lots of youngsters coming out of the woods and here we will be using live catch traps as well as shooting, but one has to be very careful with the traps as they catch rats and stoats too. This can make life very interesting when you go to empty them. But properly set and run, this is a good way to control rabbits providing the wire fencing is kept well-maintained.

On our late night shooting trips, we often see foxes and badgers and there are definitely more badgers than we used to see a few years ago. This is a real worry to a dairy farmer because TB is spreading steadily up the country from the south-west where the original health breakdowns occurred. Badgers, of course, are protected and untouchable unless there is a change in the law - this will never happen in today's world.

Foxes in my part of the world are not so numerous for some reason, this must be down to the fact that hunting and shooting started again after foot and mouth and maybe the hunt kills a lot more foxes than people give it credit for. It seems strange but I have seen a lot fewer foxes this year than I saw during the foot and mouth outbreak.

We still have mink on the streams and ponds, but they and the otters between them seem to have wiped out all my carp, and most of the trout, which is a shame. We had some fish, which weighed over 20 pounds and were quite valuable.

But I share our valley with the wildlife and I am certain they all watch the changes I make with the same interest that I take in them. They certainly very quickly take advantage of any changes which are beneficial to them and claim squatters' rights on every piece of suitable property as it becomes available. We are, however, seeing more and more walkers coming through the farm and chattering people and wildlife don't seem to mix too well in the real countryside.

Updated: 11:01 Wednesday, March 19, 2003