No apologies for repeating basic advice (From Gazette & Herald)

No apologies for repeating basic advice

I AM sure those not involved in agriculture do not appreciate the trials and tribulations through which we are being put in recent times by this Government's interpretation of European law and Deaf Ears gold plating of relatively simple directives.

On January 15 every farmer wanting to claim the Single Payment had to have in place his set aside area; and the 40 page guidance handbook setting out the ground rules landed on our breakfast tables 48 hours before the deadline, with the unequivocal threat that "you must fulfil your set aside obligation in its entirety if you wish to activate any other entitlements on the remainder of your holding".

In other words get the set aside wrong and we give you no money whatever. At this stage of the competition I don't apologise for repeating some very basic advice:

The set aside rate is eight per cent outside SDAs, and you should include all your land except permanent pasture and permanent crops.

It is far safer to over provide the SAS area and there is no penalty as far as I can see if you want to leave the whole of your farm uncropped provided you do so in accordance with the other cross compliance rules.

The one thing you must not do is to fall short by even the smallest of fractions.

Those with less than 48.13 acres of eligible land will not be allocated SAS entitlements and don't need to worry.

We now have five handbooks in the series on the Single Payment Scheme totalling 210 pages of compliance rules.

This week's publication gems included "Guidance For Soil Management" and a handbook for the Management of Habitats and Landscape Features.

As the printed pages of cross compliance proliferate so do the opportunities for yet further interpretation of their various edicts, providing a mouth watering prospect for the army of inspectors that will need to be employed to enforce the rules.

For example under the permanent pasture section we are required to avoid over grazing and under grazing.

Many farmers may regard as good practice the hard grazing of pasture over winter or the leaving of a field to grow on for the flushing of ewes, but will the trainee inspector from Pudsey agree with you?

To my eye the guidance documents are riddled with simplistic statements requiring the subjective judgement of an individual inspector.

I'll leave you to read and digest these lyrical publications with the happy thought that next week we will see the revelation of the new Single Payment application form in all its glory.

A technical point has arisen over the grazing of land by livestock belonging to farmers other than the land owner.

In years gone by these areas have been let on short term Grazing Agreements and brought under the umbrella of the farmer's holding whereby animals can freely be moved without affecting the six day standstill rule.

With the SP Scheme if any graziers do not want to endanger their own historic claims by taking short term lets and landowners are having to make the applications themselves.

Thereby will be created a separate holding number, and anyone grazing such land will be subject to the livestock movement regulations including six day standstills.

TB amongst cattle is spreading at an alarming rate in this country and there are diametrically opposed views on the reasons for the potential epidemic.

On the one hand naturalists cannot envisage the dear old brock as having anything to do with the problem, and on the other hand farmers are convinced that badgers are carriers.

The Irish carried out a five year study on culling badgers and in simplistic terms found that proactive culling reduced the risk of TB in cattle by around 60-96 per cent.

Deaf Ear with masterly inactivity has sat on the fence for years and their Independent Scientific Group has now criticised the Irish findings because of its "statistical methodology" . Meanwhile TB marches on!

I see that Northern Ireland has allowed a concession on the six day standstill rule whereby if you have an approved isolation facility on your farm all your other animals are unaffected so far as restricted movement is concerned.

Such a rule in this country would undoubtedly help farmers to market their stock and put Auction Marts on a level playing field.

Everybody treads very carefully around this taboo subject but it was brought to my notice again through a letter from Deaf Ear about the Muslim festival of sacrifice this coming weekend.

The official missive confirmed current requirements for permitting the slaughter of animals without prior stunning which is achieved by cutting their throats with a sharp knife.

I just wonder if anyone else finds it difficult to reconcile this concession on religious grounds, with the stringent welfare regulations under which the majority of Britain operates.

My barber is nearly as old as I am and was delighted to tell me that he had organised a three day trip to Blackpool for £90, and I thought if only he had been our Prime Minister he could have flown like Tony Blair to Egypt in an RAF "whisper jet" at an estimated cost to the tax payer of £96,000.

It must be galling for pure socialists to find after eight years of New Labour government, all men are not as equal as Karl Marx prophesised.

David Sheppard reports that grain markets across Europe are seasonally quiet but with unsold farmers' stocks of wheat, barley and maize at much higher levels than normal this must be a worry.

Storage problems are also severe in Hungary and the Eastern EU, and a decision will have to be made at some time whether to pay for transporting this grain into intervention in other states or allowing it to be sold on the open market which would have a depressant effect on price.

On the seed front prices for the most popular spring varieties are beginning to rise and some have already been sold out.

Forward 162 cattle including 85 bulls, 1,000 sheep including 297 ewes. Light steers to 134p G I Marwood, Harome, ave 115.4p, heavy steers to 122p A M Armitage, Salton, ave 108.5p, light heifers to 137p O J Barker, Snainton, ave 117.6p, heavy heifers to 142p G I Marwood, Harome, ave 111.7p, medium bulls to 120p, P & I Beal, Settrington ave 107.4p, heavy bulls to 117p P & I Beal, Settrington, ave 106.5p, black and white bulls to 97p J T Medd, Rievaulx, ave 86.5p, standard lambs to 126.4p

M Richardson, Edstone, 111.7p, medium lambs to 119p H Atkinson & Son, Scampston, ave 111.6p, heavy hoggs to 113.4p, W & L Thompson Middleton, ave 106.8p, overweight lambs to 103.7p J Leckenby, Baxtons, ave 98.5p, ewes to £53

D Burkill, Harpham, ave. £32.

Updated: 14:37 Wednesday, January 19, 2005