Reindeer movement licence revoked

"Due to the 20 day restrictions on livestock movements and a shortage of night staff at Cleansing & Disinfection centres, DEFRA cannot authorise a Reindeer Movement Licence which includes any flight-path over livestock unit chimneys. There will, however, be a special derogation for one night only, on December 24, provided the following procedure is adhered to:

- All stockings must first be washed in an approved disinfectant and hung on boundary gateposts together with a copy of the official licence.

- DEFRA Inspectors will accompany Father Christmas at all times.

- Father Christmas must wear a white waterproof suit.

- All children residing on farms will be faxed three pages of instructions on how to implement the alternative procedure.

Please note, this one-off concession does not include the collection of favours such as wine, mince pies or hay which are the responsibility of another department".

Chairman, Hugh Greensit, said that FMD was the final straw which decided shareholders to sell the market site for redevelopment at Ripon after 140 years of serving the farming community.

In size and throughput Ripon was not too dissimilar to Malton, with around 200 cattle, 800 sheep and 150 pigs each week.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the country, negotiations are still ongoing with DEFRA as to when it will allow livestock markets to restart.

The target date was to be Monday, February 4, but I understood early this week this had been put back to February 11 and murmurs yesterday, out of Page Street, even hinted at further procrastination.

I think it is quite unreasonable for DEFRA to stop one section of the farming community from earning a living when, by February, the last confirmed case will be almost five months old and, in North Yorkshire, over six months.

England seems to be dragging its feet, whereas Scotland has already been operating markets since August and the Welsh Assembly are now pressing hard to get going.

At the York Fatstock Dinner on Tuesday, 200 farmers heard from Robert Sturdy MEP that he had been instrumental in getting a full public inquiry set up through the European Parliament. Robert, who is a Yorkshire farmer and the Conservative spokesman for agriculture in Strasbourg, was asking for anyone with a story to tell about the FMD management to make contact with him.

Other matters raised by Robert included:

- Modulation is the vehicle through which Government is going to siphon off direct subsidies into the more tenuous environmental support schemes, and this year farmers will have seen 2pc being deducted from their IACS payments. Robert mentioned that France is way ahead of the UK with a 12pc knock-off.

- He defended some of the legislation coming out of Europe where the responsibility for the final length and the complexity of the document was not always down to Brussels.

For example, he said, a directive on slaughter houses started in Strasbourg at 8 pages long, went to France and was interestingly reduced to five pages, and then on to London where DEFRA eventually ran out of ink after producing an 87-page volume.

- MEPs need feedback from their electorate if they are going to do the job properly and "lobbying" is the most effective means of contact. Anyone with a small organisation or group should consider making the time and effort to get to Brussels to meet MEPs.

- There were only two presentations at the dinner in the absence of the fatstock competition:

(i) The Personality of the Year Award went to the butchers as a group who have supported livestock markets and farmers during the crisis; and on their behalf the trophy was received by Peter Pearson of Liversedge.

(ii) A newly-created competition, the Mad Cow Award, was presented for the person who has done most damage to our industry during the year and from the 48,254 contenders, Elliott Morley was the winner.

- York is back operating as a collection centre and we had 185 clean cattle on Monday, which was a record since we started in June. Many of these were from Malton customers. The collection centre will be operating on Thursday December 27 and Wednesday January 2 before returning to its regular Monday slot. Please let the help line know if you want to bring stock.

- A North Yorkshire farmer sent me a note about his problems over yet another form-filling marathon to do with the Pig Outgoers Scheme. Having filled in the form, the front page said it should be returned to the local office but, later on, instruction was reversed to sending it to the national office of DEFRA.

Not wishing to be wrong, the farmer rang Northallerton only to be put in a queue of calls and then was referred to Leeds where he was passed round the offices before being sent back to Northallerton again.

Four hours later DEFRA decided that on this form 'local' means 'national'!

This Friday, December 21, there is a special farmers market at Malton with over 20 stalls and, in addition, we are having the annual Christmas poultry sale. David Lindley tells me that there are 1,000 turkeys, geese and chickens entered, so why not take an hour off and take home a bird you really fancy for Christmas Day!

Cattle numbers have dropped steeply this week with the holiday period looming and, perhaps more importantly, the prospect of an extra £16 slaughter premium in the New Year.

However, all that glitters may not be gold and there is no guarantee that the prices will remain at the present level if money is scarce after the holidays. We must also not forget that we don't get the slaughter premium for another 12 months and even that depends upon the civil service being at work and not on strike.

The pre-Christmas trade has been good with 'R' grade cattle hovering at 170-174p/kilo, with premiums for retail quality cattle above that. The breaking-up cattle are still good money with nothing below 140p and a lot of Friesians coming back at 150p and better. In fact, I had one big Friesian steer that returned an '0+' at 166p/kilo.

Lamb numbers have come forward with a rush but, conversely, the trade at the meat market end has dropped off. Some lambs already booked into slaughter houses have been cancelled before Christmas. As far as trade is concerned, it is still running from 190-205p/kilo with a few top class sheep making bigger money.

The pig trade has enjoyed its best festive boom for several years and the top porkers have made up to 120p/kilo. More usually, bacon pigs have been running around 110p with all prices in between.

Help us to help you and phone our help lines at Malton on (01653) 697820/692151 and York on (01904) 489731.

A very happy Christmas to all misguided readers of this column.

Updated: 09:00 Thursday, December 20, 2001