LIKE an annoying tap slowly dripping, DEFRA is releasing bits of detail on the compliance regulations for the single farm payments which start next year.

Lord Whitty's latest announcement concerns the ten-month rule for occupation of land which is a pre-requisite for being able to claim the entitlement.

In the original document, the start date was given as September 1, with no apparent flexibility, which would have been highly-impractical as grazing tenancies could have started before the previous season's grazing had finished.

Lord Whitty has allowed a sensible degree of flexibility whereby farmers can set their own commencement date, between October 1, 2004, and April 30, 2005.

If farmers do not specify a date, then a default of February 1, 2005 has been set.

There is a further sinister sentence which says that a farmer will have to select the same commencement date for all of his land.

The flexibility will come as a great relief to many graziers and, in practical terms, means that our grazing tenancies can continue in the same format as now, but with ten months occupation instead of the old seven months required by the IACS rules.

What has yet to be defined is the meaning of the words "at the claimant's disposal".

If it means exclusive occupation, then there is trouble looming for those involved in common or shared grazing.

The next instalment is awaited with interest.

Combine the oil supply panic of the last ten days with Gordon Brown's vindictive pursuit of fuel tax and you have a recipe for significant rises in haulage rates for farmers.

Transporting grain is already running at £8 per tonne, and Banks Cargill commented that a 50p rise had been due to the increases since January. Many are forecasting that a further 50p per tonne will go on before harvest.

On the livestock haulage side, the effect has been to put many independent operators out of business and, as I told readers a month ago, we have lost four in the area over the past six months.

It is time we applied a little heat to our iron chancellor.

It seems unbelievable, looking back, that 1992 saw 37,000 confirmed cases in this country and, amidst the panic, the now-forgotten Professor Richard Lacey took the opportunity to predict that several 100,000 of our population would die from CJD, peaking, if I remember rightly, in this next 18 months.

This year, BSE cases are likely to be round 300 and virtually all of those are in cattle that were born prior to the feed ban in 1996; and yet the ghost of BSE lingers on and scientists have turned their focus on to sheep. Highly artificial experiments of injecting the BSE virus into sheeps' brains have apparently resulted in the odd few showing symptoms of a BSE-like disease.

In anticipation of finding their first case of BSE in sheep occurring naturally, DEFRA has announced its contingency plan for such an emergency.

Depending on the time of year, some 23m sheep could be culled "if enough of a signature was found", whatever that means.

A lot depends, according to DEFRA, on the progress of the National Scrapie Plan for which 10,500 flocks have so far been registered. Approximately 1m samples are being tested each year and the intention is to ratchet this up as more flocks join.

Another measure which officialdom favours is the introduction of individual identification, which is now being pursued through electronic tagging.

A practical overview seems to tell me that lambs have a limited value and that if all this expense is to come out of your lamb chop it could persuade many to shut their business down.

Before Morrice Roger reprimands me again, I apologise for the column being full of red tape and bureaucracy, but that is the reality of life in agriculture at the moment.

Europe's crackpot directive on horse passports has been given another stay of execution.

The deadline for obtaining a horse passport, be it donkey or Shetland pony, was to be June 30 this year, but DEFRA has just announced an amnesty until the end of February, 2005.

The department still maintains that all owners of "equipods" must have applied for a passport by the end of this month, but need not have one until next February.

What a nonsense!

David Sheppard, our grain correspondent, sent out a warning from ADAS that the orange blossom wheat midge is migrating northwards and their egg numbers are unusually high in wheat crops across Yorkshire.

The threat is real one as the last serious outbreak, in 1993, resulted in 4pc of the wheat crop being lost in the south of England.

In these environmentally-sensitive days, we are being told by our crop agronomists to target spray crops rather than use a blanket spray approach that could harm the beneficial predators of the midge. Anyway, seek some advice from the experts before spraying.

Back on the world scene, it looks as if the Ukraine and Russia will be entering the export market again following their disastrous droughted harvest last year.

Wheat from the Black Sea area is being offered to Spanish and Italian importers at prices that undercut the UK crop and, as a consequence, our own home market has fallen recently to trade in the mid £60s for August movement.

Whilst the world supply is relatively tight with regard to wheat, there are no potential crop disasters at present to lift the price and, in this scenario, the orange blossom midge is most unwelcome!

At the annual summer show of prime cattle and lambs, the cattle judge was Trevor Mudd, of Huttons Butchers, Knaresborough, and judging the sheep was Benjamin Gray, of A Atkinson Livestock Limited.

Forward were182 cattle including 60 bulls and 34 cows; 1,022 sheep including 716 spring lambs and 181 ewes.

Supreme champion heifer - G I Marwood, Harome, 575kg at 154.5p/kilo to Radfords Butchers, Sleights. Champion bull - M T Bulmer, Salton, 625kg at 131p to S Hibberd Doncaster. Bull to 525kg - 1 F Fairburn, Rievaulx, at 120p to S Hibberd; 2 M T Bulmer at 134p to S Hibberd; 3 A Scarborough, Sutton-on-Forest, at 120p to S Hibberd. Bull over 530kg - 2 Richard Mason, Linghall, at 121p to S Hibberd; 3 R H Mason at 118p to S Hibberd. Steer to 550kg - 1 T F W Morley, Robin Hood's Bay, at 135p to Woodhead Brothers, Colne. Steer over 560kg - 1 M T Bulmer, Salton, at 140p to Radfords Butchers; 2 T F W Morley at 118p to Woodhead Brothers; 3 F Fairburn, Rievaulx at 127p to Woodhead Brothers. Heifers to 480 kg - 1 F Fairburn at 140p to S Hibberd; 2 G I Marwood at 145p to R Agar, Ilkley; 3 G I Marwood at 136p to S Hibberd. Heifers over 485 kg - 2 G I Marwood at 154p to Radfords Butchers; 3 G I Marwood at 135p to S Hibberd.

Lambs: 1st prize and champion - G and R Waind, 44 kg at £65.50 to R Agar. Light lambs 1 E Fussey Sons, Bridlington, 60 kg to Barkers Butchers, York; 2 C Foster & Son, Nafferton, at £55.80 to R Machin, Brandsby; 3 T E Beevers, Cottam, at £57 to A Akinson, Hampsthwaite. Medium lambs - 2 W Burdass & Sons, Harpham, at £57 to R Makin, Aberford; 3 T Midgley & Sons, Kirby Underdale, at £58.70 to A Atkinson. Heavy lambs - 1 M T Bulmer at £62 to A Atkinson; 2 G Harper, Newton-on-Rawcliffe at £66 to A Atkinson; 3 R Green, Pickering, to F Turner, Rillington.

Cattle: steers, light to 135p (107.6p), heavy to 140p (110.4p); heifers, light to 107p (106.5p), med to 145p (117.4p), heavy to 155p (114.9p); bulls, light to 120p (103.5p), med to 134p (110.5p), heavy to 131p (107.3p) B & W to bulls to 94p from D Flinton, Marishes (87.8p).

Sheep: lambs, standard to 153.8p (129.6), med to 148.8p (129.81p), heavy to 134.7p (125.3p), overweight to 124.5p (124p); hoggets, light to 100p (94.3p), standard to 106.5p (98.2p), med to 107.7p (96.3p), heavy to 94p (81.1p), overweight to 86.6p (80.2p); ewes to £57 from J E Clifford & Sons, Slingsby (£38.10).

Updated: 14:54 Wednesday, June 09, 2004