Ryedale Longhorns success at York sale (From Gazette & Herald)

Ryedale Longhorns success at York sale

The Harrison family has a great tradition of producing quality livestock, and John, from Settrington, kept the flag flying with great gusto at the York Rare Breeds Show and Sale last Saturday.

His beautifully marked young Longhorn cow, Settrington Eclipse, sold for 900gns, and two more Settrington heifers made 650gns each.

Trade overall for the 17th show and sale at York was almost as good as the spectacle itself.

Apart from the massive Longhorns, the cattle section was also well populated with diminutive Dexters, which are no less fashionable at the moment. David Dawson had a splendid selection on offer and made the top price of 880gns for Londsdale Lizzie with a bull calf at foot; and 820gns for Askew Chunky II, a show-winning cow.

In the sheep shed, it was the Ryelands that took the Down Breed Championship, with a gimmer shearling from Mrs C Cook, of Banffshire, and she went on to make a breed record price of 405gns.

The Scots invaders continued their successes with a Shetland gimmer shearling taking the Champion Primitive Trophy with a Shetland gimmer shearling from the Findlays of West Lothian making 430 gns.

The champion Hebridean ram came from Macclesfield and made 320gns.

For those half interested in keeping up the rare breeds stock, don't be put off by the high prices for the top show animals, as there were still many decent little sheep running at around 15gns to 30gns.

I sold the pigs in the main ring, which was quite a pantomime when the Berkshire weaners put on a display of "catch me if you can"!

The champion breed this year was the old Yorkshire Middle White, with Middlesbrough Borough Council, perhaps unexpectedly, but most deservedly getting the top price of 240gns for an in-pig gilt.

When all the sawdust has died down, however, it is the poultry section that really lifts the spirit and takes the eye, with its kaleidoscope of coloured feathers.

Without being boring, there were plenty of nice pairs and trios to be had, but some of the highlights deserve a mention.

In my mini section, you could have had a pair of Peking bantams for £58, a trio of Silkies for £110 or a Light Sussex trio for £125.

When you got in to Edward's water fowl section, his Hawaiian geese made £100 and top of the pops were a pair of Toulouse geese at a staggering £220.

It was a huge day for everyone, and a thoroughly satisfying meeting of town and country.

Many of you 'senior readers' will remember the TV game that I think was called Take Your Pick, presented by Michael Miles, in which contestants were eventually given the option of opening the box of potential goodies or taking the money.

The clock has gone round full circle, and this seems to be the current offer on the table to the agricultural community.

On the one hand, I told you a month ago that everything seemed to be dependent upon the historical track record of the IACS payments each one of us received during the years 2000 to 2002. That individual total of receipts was then divided by our acres and averaged over the three years to give a payment per acre for that farmer and that holding. Clearly, the resultant payments would be wildly different from each other, with the intensive livestock producer getting perhaps up to £800 per acre, and the lowly grassland farmer down to perhaps £40 per acre.

Indeed, some tillers of soil, such as horticulturalists or borage growers, would not benefit at all.

For them, therefore, and the landowners, the alternative is the most appealing, as it carries no constraints of inequality or social injustices, but sweeps through the countryside distributing its support system evenly across all England's acres.

That is a simplistic view of the debate raging at the moment, and I take the train before going to press to discuss the matter with my peers in Birmingham Town Hall.

It is a strange choice, with one hand offering to reward farmers under the historic handouts calculation, according to their efforts and the way they have used their talents, whilst the other offers the simplistic acreage payment across the country, which would be far easier to operate and put all on an equal footing.

The NFU has come down, after some fence-sitting, on the side of the individual historic method. What do you think?

News from the grain correspondent.

This time last season, we were successfully selling UK wheat to the USA and Australia; two of the world's largest traditional exporters. The tables have now been turned, following excellent harvests in North America and Australia and the drought in Europe. Australian wheat has recaptured traditional markets in north Africa, such as Egypt.

Globalisation, in its most transparent form, is the cause of these fluctuations, and international price movement affects the price UK farmers receive for every commodity they produce.

This Friday sees the first suckler sale, with an excellent number of entries. We are expecting up to 200 head of stock, to include bulling heifers, store bulls, bullocks and heifers, all from local suckler herds.

There should also be a good entry of store lambs (last week's entry - 600).

Sale times: Sheep 11am, cattle noon.

Many of you will have, or will receive, digital maps of your holding from the Rural Payments Agency as I have reported before. David Lindley informs me that these must be checked carefully as there are many errors regarding incorrect boundaries.

If you are unsure, please have a word.

Tuesday's market saw 142 cattle including 22 cows and 56 bulls; 375 sheep including 112 ewes and rams.

Light steers to 130p/kilo from J L Gray, Grindale; heavy steers to 129p from B Stonehouse, Staxton (ave 103.7p).

Light heifers to 113p from J A Barker, Snainton (97.5p); heavy heifers to 140p from G I Marwood, Harome (102.7p).

Light bulls to 99p from I D Watson Farms, Fadmoor (96.5p); medium bulls to 105p from D J Windress, Gillamoor (96.8p); heavy bulls to 110p from F Fairburn, Rievaulx (ave 96.5p).

Black & white bulls to 86p from R Inman & Sons, Acklam (81.2p).

Updated: 12:04 Wednesday, October 15, 2003