NOW there's a revelation for you - in an Exeter University report, partially funded by MAFF, researchers estimate that around £250m are spent in a year on activities which maintain the landscape but add nothing to a farm's output or revenue.

Taking an average, each farmer is putting aside £1,400 per annum for activities such as the care and planting of woodland, maintaining traditional buildings, creating ponds and wild life areas, maintaining hedges and stone walls. If this doesn't come as a surprise to MAFF, the news should surely shock our Government which has about as much sympathy for our industry as gunpowder.

Perhaps it will hopefully make it harder for the Government to dodge the issue of under-funding countryside schemes which are always over-subscribed.

As leader of the research team, Professor John McInerney, said: "The main point of the study is that the countryside doesn't come for free. Agriculture is carrying the costs of giving society the countryside it likes."

I have just sent back my response to a consultation document produced by the Food Standards Agency which has been told in two separate public reports to reduce costs to small abattoirs, and to introduce an independent appeals mechanism.

I am afraid I was almost lost for words when I read that the FSA proposes to introduce a headage charge, which will benefit the smaller operator but, in parallel, they are seeking to impose a whole new raft of extra charges for vets' travelling time and the unsociable hours that small slaughter houses have to keep.

By these miserable back door methods, the FSA will seek to retrieve any ground that is lost to them by conceding the headage charge basis of payment, and I deplore such tactics.

Furthermore, the consultation document goes on to state that, for the time being, they are not going to implement any independent element to their appeals mechanism because it would be costly and unwieldy to administrate, putting further burdens on the industry.

The truth is that the problems are arising out of the abattoir industry because of the current incestuous cover-up procedure that is followed every time there is the suggestion of a complaint.

Foolishly, I thought that with the appointment of Sir John Krebbs we would have a fresh mind to look over the unwieldy bureaucracy of the Meat Hygiene Service, but it has taken little over 12 months to tranquillise the chairman's ardour.

The FSA options are putting at risk the best of our rural abattoirs, like those of Brian Glaves, Alec Traves and Richard Horner. I don't believe we can do without them and you don't get imported rubbish of questionable pedigree out of Brompton!

Don't forget your final claims for the Sheep Annual Premium have to be received by MAFF on or before Sunday February 4.

It's ironic that, when sheep trade is as high as it's been for several years, Sheep Quota is almost unsaleable. Cull ewes at Malton on Tuesday were up to a top of £61, whereas Sheep Quota is being traded to lease at around 50p and to sell at around £3.

As if to highlight this paradox, the calculations for the coming season's Sheep Premium have been announced at just under £11 per head, which is a drop of 20pc and a loss of £55m to the UK industry.

"Brussels giveth and Brussels taketh away."

With the count of older cattle now completed on what was supposed to be 'D' Day, namely January 29, MAFF has rewritten part of the rule book for the sake of simple confusion.

After January 29, all cattle born before 1998 were supposed to have been registered with the BCMS but, because the official systems were not capable of producing the necessary certificates in time, they have granted themselves an extension until March 31. Bearing in mind that this announcement was only made last Friday, three days before the deadline, we initially thought that any animals not under application would be cast out into the inferno without identity and without compensation; but on Tuesday the BCMS helpline told us how wrong we were and that they would continue to accept claims for the time being!

The best advice we could get was that any outstanding claims should be made very rapidly but there seemed to be no end date on their calendar.

For the time being, we do need a declaration signed by anyone bringing older cattle into the market without a registration certificate that they have made an application.

The debate on genetically modified food, rather like that on BSE, has been largely driven by emotion and not scientific research. The latest illogical extension to the 'anti' brigade has been a decision from the Co-op to insist that beef in their butchery department is fed on non-GM food.

They are insisting that all their farm suppliers, even at auction marts, must sign a declaration to say that the feed contained no GM ingredient.

Having discussed the matter with my friend Mike Bainbridge of Thompson Feeds, I set down a few thoughts for farmers and consumers to digest:

-In practical terms, it is only the protein element of a fattening ration that is relevant; and the main ingredients we use in the UK are maize gluten and soya.

-We source nearly all our soya and maize gluten from North America where they have no hang-ups about GM crops; and approximately half are grown free and half GM. The Americans can quite happily sell their produce to other parts of the world and we are, therefore, unlikely to get any major guarantee of non-contamination.

-The other substantial source of soya is Brazil, where large areas of non-GM seed are sown; but even if the soya starts off uncontaminated, it still has to run the transportation gauntlet of separation in the ship itself and when off-loaded at Rotterdam and when re-shipped to the UK and when held in stores at the feed merchants.

-To put the affair into context, a fattening ration could contain around 15pc of this protein material, but most cattle and sheep will have up to 80pc of their diet fed in home-produced forage such as hay, silage or straw. We are, therefore, looking at a possible inclusion of around 3pc of the animal's diet comprising GM protein; but as we have further to consider that the North American protein is only 50pc GM, we are therefore looking at a potential contamination of 1 pc of the animal's diet which has to go through its digestive system before we eat the meat.

The remoteness of the risk does make one wonder if good sense hasn't been thrown out of the window.

Tuesday's market saw 237 cattle face a pretty good trade. I was highly satisfied with the 76 bulls, of which the continentals would average 96p/kilo; and anything of 'U' conformation was making more than 100p. Top price of the day went to John Halkon, with a double muscled Belgian Blue at 110p, and Jerry Hagar had a middle-weight at 108p/kilo.

It's the strength of the Friesian trade that is surprising, with very little under 80p/kilo and the odd old-fashioned black and white making up to 90p.

Philip sold the clean cattle and the Intervention-type steer was making 98-102p/kilo, up to a top of 108p from Mark Hammond of Ebberston.

Retail butcher heifers featured strongly, with George Marwood hitting 131p/kilo, followed by Marwood Bros of North Grimston at 127p.kilo. Generally there was plenty of activity around the ring.

Michael Harrison had over 2,000 sheep, with trade hovering at 110p/kilo, with the strongest trade for hoggs at 124p from Ken Harrison. The ewe trade deserves a mention, as we averaged £36 for the 500 ewes up to a top of £61.

Pigs were a little disappointing, averaging around 75p with more demand for the lightweight porkers. Fred Horsley topped the market at 80p.

Updated: 08:51 Thursday, February 01, 2001