IN recent weeks, our Government has been trying to distance itself from the horrendous costs of foot and mouth disease, preferring to present the ministry as an innocent victim of greedy rustics.

First it was the cleansing and disinfection process on farms, which Mr Blair stopped with masterful misjudgment, hinting at exploitation by the contractors but ignoring the simple fact that his own Government department, DEFRA, and its predecessor, MAFF, were entirely responsible for letting the contracts.

This last ten days, suspicions of overvaluation of livestock have been fed to the press with the suggestion of collusion between farmers and valuers; but on behalf of my profession I would like to dispel some of the nasty rumours spread from the Government slurry tank:

I am a member of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers and for the last 20 years since I have been a member of the relevant committee, we have been trying to persuade the ministry to adopt a two-valuer system, one to act for the state and one to act for the farmer, thus avoiding any conflict of interest.

Our words of warning were ignored and in practice the farmer is asked to nominate his preferred valuer who, although theoretically the servant of the state, is in reality working at the behest of the farmer.

The CAAV provided a list of all skilled livestock valuers, including some auctioneers who were not members of our association, and DEFRA was supposed to limit its appointments to this list.

There are strong rumours that cattle dealers, and even farmers themselves, have been appointed to undertake valuations. By not limiting these appointments to the CAAV list, the Government has opened up a process of competition which at the least has created a climate of expectation amongst the claimant farmers.

Needless to say, the CAAV drew MAFF's attention to this, on May 8, to no avail.

With good intentions, the Government introduced a table of standard values in order to speed the "diagnosis to death period" and these were deliberately pitched at an intentionally generous level.

Unfortunately, they have proved to be an own goal for the Government, directly inflating prices and fueling greater potential demand. For example, the standard value for any cow was set at £900. Quite within the rules, the farmer could select his old culls for the standard valuation and ask for his better animals to be valued individually, which by comparison should have been worth more. Standard values for compulsory slaughter were officially abandoned on August 1! (They do continue for the Welfare Scheme which I will explain later).

When the dust has settled, there will doubtless be tales of excessive greed and malpractice, but for my part I find it difficult to blame the farmer who has made the best of a situation created by the Government.

We should also bear in mind a few other factors which impact upon the debate:

The scale of the operation is enormous, with almost 10,000 valuations undertaken .

Some 5.5m animals have so far been removed from our countryside and those wanting to restock are probably going to have to pay a lot more than anticipated.

The compensation provides no consequential loss and a livestock farmer may have to live without his animals for six months.

As the disease has escalated, both in numbers and time, so has the level of valuation risen and those who were culled early in the year will have been quite seriously disadvantaged when they come to restock. The Government should be persuaded to consider a supplement, such as that which was awarded in 1968.

Finally, I do not pretend that the farming fraternity are all sweet innocents, but the villain of this valuation piece is certainly the Government and its ministry.

With effect from July 30, rates of payment for those applications under the Welfare Disposal Scheme have been considerably lowered.

SHEEP: Lambs under 30kg liveweight, capped at £10/animal; lambs over 30kg liveweight, 70p/kilo, capped at £25/head; all other sheep, £18/head

CATTLE: Clean cattle, 7-30 mths, 65p/kilo, capped at £365; cows up to 4 years old , £700; cows over 4 years old, £350; calves up to 7 mths old, free collection.

PIGS: All clean pigs, £12 + 55p/kilo liveweight, capped at £45/head; sows & boars, £30/head.

Having being overgenerous in its first table of standard values, the ministry has now swung the other way and the new rates represent a pretty unattractive underpinning of the market.

DEFRA is keen to provide a framework for the final lifting of restrictions at the end of the epidemic and would like to do this on a county by county basis.

With the heat still on in North Yorkshire and Powys, these areas would be clearly disadvantaged and we need therefore to request some subdivision of the area so that we can at least achieve comparable freedom of movement to our neighbours. Other changes in the licensing regime will be as follows:

Store and slaughter markets will be allowed in the FMD-free areas subject to tight controls.

All stock will be subject to veterinary inspection.

Market movements will be licensed.

21-day movement standstill on any premises receiving stock from market.

Individual ID and traceability for all stock including sheep.

No markets will be allowed in at risk or infected areas but there may be some form of collection centre for calves.

There is not a lot to report this week, with movement restrictions in the blue zone being very tight and supplies more limited. We have still managed to move quite a lot of cattle and the collection centre at York is functioning well for both Malton and York producers.

Last Monday, we had around 100 clean cattle, 40 cows and 100 sheep in the market which is starting to look almost like old times!

Trade is gradually hardening for clean cattle, with intervention types making 165-168p for 'R' and even 'O+' grades. The demand for young bulls is lagging a little behind, but even these have moved forward by a couple of pence this week.

Watch your weight, which can be penalised, and the abattoir deductions, which are very variable.

With harvesting temporarily suspended, lamb numbers have risen again making the price of 160p/kilo a little more fragile, although Wednesday morning we got a bid of 170p for a load.

I think we ought to try and stick to our guns if we can, but we do need support from everyone to do so. The cull ewe price has slipped to around 75p/kilo and they don't add up very fast at this level.

Pigs are holding grimly onto their trade at 100p for bacon pigs and 112p for lighter quality pork.

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

Here are two little snippets from the rural amusement arcade which came my way this week.

First, a farmer in the blue zone had to obtain a licence to move his bagged silage from an outlying field back to the homestead. When the document came through, one of the conditions of its issue was that the material should not come into contact with susceptible livestock.

Has anyone other ideas for consuming bagged silage?

The second apocryphal story comes from Chris Sowray who claims to have challenged a lady rambler on a footpath who responded with conviction by saying: "Of course I will pose no risk - I am a vegetarian!"

Updated: 10:10 Thursday, August 09, 2001