Rumbling around the forest

Apocryphal tales of mismanagement abound and my Pickering correspondent rang last week to report a rumour rumbling around the forest that two lorries from Cumbria had been seen taking timber out of Dalby before heading back towards their home county on a night exercise.

A friend of mine in the grain trade told me another story about the shortage of sealed wagons to carry carcasses and the approach by MAFF to grain merchants for the hire of their vehicles.

MAFF apparently suggested that once a grain lorry had been used for carrying FM corpses, then it would not be allowed ever again for use with other commodities. It's little wonder that there is still a shortage of covered wagons.

I had a further report yesterday from a man who is hiring out a sealed lorry to MAFF at £40 per hour including driver with a guaranteed 12-hour day.

The vehicle arrived at Catterick with a full load of carcasses to tip into a specially prepared pit but was told to wait until next morning; and in the meantime stayed at our expense in the local hostelry.

Apparently, the walls of the disposal pit partially collapsed and, having repaired this, the Environment Department declared it too risky to use.

And on the seventh day it came to pass that the lorry was finally dispatched to empty its now stinking load onto a funeral pyre to be burned.

My informant reported that his was only one of a dozen wagons or so; all the drivers were put up in the hotel, the minimum guaranteed daily rate of nearly £500 continued to be paid and, at the end of it all, another case was confirmed within a short distance of the funeral pyre.

It is not very charitable to be pointing the accusing finger and I don't want to underestimate the tremendous effort being put in by a lot of genuine people trying to get the disease under control; but their efforts are being consistently thwarted by miserable mismanagement and even more crass misguided policy statements.

The 1969 official report by the Duke of Northumberland's Committee of Inquiry suggested that burning would only aggravate the problem and that burial was better; but somehow this Government believes that their policy will lead to more rapid control with diagnosis taking three days, diseased animals waiting seven days for slaughter, corpses lying rotting on piles, and the virus rising in plumes of smoke to be spread by the north-west wind.

As of last night, they have succeeded in slaughtering over a million head of livestock and yet there are a further 500,000 under sentence of death to be dealt with.

The debate on vaccination still oscillates between those in favour and those against.

Government thinking has produced another U-turn, now favouring vaccination of the hot spots as I advised two weeks ago; but, to be frank, I just wonder if they are sufficiently in control of the situation to benefit from a vaccination policy now.

Matters are so out of hand in Cumbria that the dairy farmers, who would have given their right arms to save their herds, are now having second thoughts in the light of suggestions from the dairy companies that they may not take their milk into the processing chain.

So far as I am aware, the only European country to have adopted a vaccination policy is Holland where the Dutch authorities have moved from "suppressive vaccination" to "protective vaccination" in order to halt the outbreak in the Netherlands.

The EC backs the Dutch government's policy and has also given the UK permission to implement a more extensive "protective" regime.

At present, the Dutch are vaccinating all FMD susceptible animals within a two-kilometre radius of an outbreak prior to their destruction.

On balance, I think that the backlog of animals, both live and dead, is so enormous that we will probably have to go for some form of vaccination around the hot spots.

It is appropriate at this time of year to consider the resurrection of our livestock industry; and if there is to be any agricultural life after FMD then we must continue to buy as much British meat as we possible can.

If you want to support British farming, then insist on asking at every opportunity whether the meat you purchase in the shop or restaurant has been sourced from this country.

If we keep doing this then the message may get through that much of the imported rubbish is not wanted and for which we can probably blame this whole miserable crisis.

I am afraid the supermarkets are not our allies, especially with the ambivalent labelling laws which allow meat to be called British even if it has only been packed and cut up in this country.

My son, Tom, and his Kirkbymoorside mate, Jim Davies, went into a Reading supermarket on Tuesday night to get their rasher of bacon. They were told there was no British bacon on offer nor, as far as the sales girl knew, was there any British meat for sale in the store.

Tom has insisted that the manager confirm this in writing and perhaps we can name and shame next week.

We have had two short weeks trading with the Easter break but even this doesn't seem to have broken the back of winter.

Numbers of stock coming forward are tighter and there are signs that some farmers are bypassing our marketing service to deal direct with the abattoirs. Perhaps I could proffer a few thoughts in favour of supporting the Malton & York Marketing Service:

* With scarcity, prices are rising slightly and being in touch with most abattoirs every day we can get the best price for farmers whilst not exploiting the situation.

* We have got to know the requirements of each abattoir and can, to best effect, match your product.

* We can take the burden of marketing and a lot of its associated paperwork off your shoulders.

* We carry credit insurance and guarantee safe, prompt payment.

* We have reduced our charges by around 30pc.

* We need to work if we are to survive as a marketing force in the region.

* Our biggest threat to keeping trade up is the individual farmer dealing direct.

Cattle trade has lifted by around 5p/kilo and the 'R'/'U' cattle are coming back at around 170-175p/kilo with odd bonus sales taking the price up to 180p at times.

The best retail butcher cattle can still touch 190p/kilo.

Breaking-up cattle are also wanted with the bottom of the net gathering in at around 150p/kilo.

A variety of deals are available either on a flat rate price or based on a full grid and if you are to optimise your returns you do need to look at the alternatives.

The sheep market has been distorted by the introduction of the ill-conceived Welfare Disposal Scheme which I am afraid has been implemented in a manner not intended.

The consequences are that a lot of hoggs which would have otherwise gone into the food chain have been disposed of at public expense and there is now a scarcity of sheep meat.

Hogg prices have risen to 220-240p/kilo, dependent on quality, but the strength of the market may only last as long as it takes spring to arrive.

Lambs are dribbling in with some good batches on offer and again the price has lifted from around 250p/kilo 10 days ago up to 285p/kilo as I go to press.

Pigs are good to sell with demand exceeding supply. There is very little now under 100p/kilo and the best cutters are making around 110p/kilo.

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Updated: 13:31 Thursday, April 19, 2001