AFTER a short six-weeks holiday in a caravan in France, our Minister of State, Margaret Beckett, returned to her desk and issued her proclamation for movement of livestock this autumn.

Whatever we think of our absentee minister, we will have to work with these tough new measures which should have been introduced months ago:

The unitary area of control will be county by county using the existing boundaries.

There will be three designations - High Risk, At Risk and Free. Most of the north of England, including North Yorkshire and Cleveland, are to be classified as High Risk.

All movements of livestock will require a licence. Although occupational licences will continue, longer distance applications will cease and the length of a journey will in future be limited to nine hours.

All livestock must be inspected by a vet within 24 hours of movement. The farmer needs to arrange for the vet but payment will be made by DEFRA.

All sheep to be moved within High Risk or At Risk counties will have to be blood-tested and moved within 14 days if the results are negative. I am told that the blood can be analysed within 72 hours but the administrative procedure in getting the results back to the farmer can take seven to ten days in total.

Cleansing & disinfection centres will continue. Any movement over 10km will require C&D plus sealing the vehicle. Movements less than 10km need only be cleansed and disinfected.

The most restrictive feature of the new regulations is that movement of stock will be confined to the individual High Risk county. This means that all live-to-live farm movements can only be within North Yorkshire and we cannot move out of our own boundary.

DEFRA will review the status of the counties every Tuesday and if we were to be reclassified to At Risk then there would be more flexibility for us in that we could move to other At Risk counties.

Most of the controls come into operation as far as we are concerned on September 24 for cattle and pigs and October 1 for sheep. The York Blue Zone will be lifted on September 14.

Here endeth the lesson.

The new movement regulations will impact upon the sale of livestock and, although the situation changes every week, there currently seem to be the following implications:

Stock being sold for slaughter are not affected by the new regulations and the rules remain as at present. We will be able to move to abattoirs in other counties and with the Blue Zone being lifted this week the requirement for veterinary inspection will also go.

Our collection centre at York will continue to operate and can now serve the whole region for fatstock.

For the time being, we are going to have to absorb all farm-to-farm sales within North Yorkshire and, although this will be difficult, we will somehow have to make it work.

For cattle, we need to establish a register of those wanting to sell stock and those wishing to buy which will continually be updated. We would then be in a position to put buyers and sellers together or, alternatively, arrange periodic video sales.

The problem is very rapidly going to arise when suckler calves from the hills need to be weaned and moved.

For sheep breeders, life is going to be more difficult but, for our part, the Michaelmas video auction will still go ahead, bearing in mind for the time being that purchasers must have holdings within the county.

We have spent the last weeks working on our arrangements and technology for the first Michaelmas video auction of sheep; and cameras are ready to roll. The new movement restrictions don't make life any easier but Charlie Breese and Keith Warters are determined to go ahead.

All producers who have sold at the sales in the past should by now have received their entry form and a leaflet explaining the procedure. Please complete the form and return it if you have sheep to sell and even if they are not ready in time for the first sale it will enable us to present your sheep to a wider audience for subsequent sales or by private tender.

With the restriction of cattle movement to North Yorkshire only, I think we shall have to move into a similar situation for selling cattle by video and this has already been done successfully in Scotland.

I also believe that it is the opportunity for all auctioneers in North Yorkshire to co-operate to try and effectively move stock to best advantage around the county and we shall be approaching our professional brethren over the next few days.

Light Lamb Insult - the Government has offered to take lambs from farmers at a set rate of £10 per head but, realistically, anyone forced to accept this level of payment is going to lose money. It does smack a bit of "kicking a man when he is down".

Unofficial estimates put this year's harvest at 15-20pc less than last year and prices have increased by 8-10pc.

For the purposes of Sheep Quota, producers who have had their animals slaughtered in the FMD crisis will be exempt from the usage rules; and those that may have difficulty in using 70pc of their quota will be treated on a case-by-case basis.

Fatstock was sold at Paisley and Strathaven for the first time last week with 134 cattle going under the hammer averaging around 100p/kilo liveweight.

The NFU has announced a competition to find the best farmers market in the country. Voting forms will be out shortly and it would be a great boost to have a Yorkshire winner.

The market is very sensitive at the moment and seems to fluctuate slightly on a daily basis almost.

Clean cattle, if anything, are edging dearer, with the best fed stock making from 168-178p/kilo. It is important to differentiate between cattle that have been on hard feed and those which are coming straight off grass and the price will vary by 5p or 6p/kilo. Friesian bulls seem to be getting more scarce and the breaking-up cattle price could close the gap.

Lambs looked at the end of last week to be making a bid for more money, running up to a top of 175p/kilo with most hovering at 160p or above. The first few days of this week have seen differing smoke signals from the abattoirs, with some wanting to drop the price to 155p and others still prepared to stand on.

Pigs remain pretty steady, with very little going at less than 100p/kilo and the best gilts making 112p/kilo.

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

Last week, I visited Mount Pleasant Farm at Sheriff Hutton to look at some cattle and spent a little time with Horner Lockwood who is in his 92nd year. I asked him about his first connection with the livestock market and he told me that as a young lad on the farm it was often his duty to take, on his own, up to six cattle to the auction at York, some 12 miles away.

This he accomplished on foot, walking the stock down the road through the villages and into the City. I can't help thinking it puts our present movement controls into some sort of perspective.

Updated: 10:02 Thursday, September 13, 2001