IN the pre-Christmas week, it has always been traditional to sell turkeys by auction in Ryedale and this year is no different, except that the millennium figure of 2,000 won't be enough to match the number of birds on offer at Malton and York markets.

Charlie Breese tells me that well over 1,000 are already entered for Malton, most of which will be oven-ready turkeys, geese and chickens. The Malton sale is tomorrow, Friday, starting at noon; and the sale at York is today, Thursday, at 10am.

All the birds are locally produced; so come along and buy one, as they say.

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Philip Trevelyan, of Spaunton, wrote to me again this week with a very worthwhile suggestion about the sale of organically-fed livestock. He is one of many who have been tempted to join the Soil Association regime and go organic.

At our auctioneers annual general meeting in Bristol, last month, they invited one of the executives from the Soil Association to talk to us and we were told that the area being organically farmed had dramatically increased.

If I remember rightly, some 60-70pc of this area is grassland and by definition, therefore, there will be large numbers of livestock coming forward for sale. There is a desperate urgency for a marketing strategy which will provide an outlet for these animals to reflect their organic status.

Organically-fed meat is in demand and, at the present time, the UK supplies are far outstripped by the demand in supermarkets, which has led to the bulk of the British organic food being imported.

There are severe questions over the validity of imported 'organic' food but, conversely, I believe the Soil Association is too rigid in its enforcement of regulations which were conceived over 50 years ago.

What directly affects me, is its ban on the use of livestock markets for selling slaughter stock, which is apparently based on an historic decision, casting cattle markets as places of animal abuse and stress.

The 21st century livestock market is very different, for we are governed by mountains of welfare legislation and policed by vets, Trading Standards officers, RSPCA inspectors, et alia.

Yet still the ban persists and, although the auctioneers backed a pilot scheme in the north-east earlier this year, I am afraid it has never taken off due to the expense imposed upon it by the Soil Association.

Not only did the association require a hefty subscription from the market concerned, but it also insisted that one of its officials would have to be paid for being present throughout the sale; and frankly the end result was nil profit.

My answer to Philip Trevelyan is, therefore, that Malton would like to take a lead and put on sales of organic livestock but I fear that the vital premium status would currently be lost due to the out-of-date policies of its governing body.

If there is anybody in Ryedale involved in producing organic livestock that can help, please make your views known if you think it is worthwhile organising a sale.

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As I go to press, the market cashier, Steve Rawlings, is travelling on a bus down to London to protest at the second reading of the fox hunting bill.

Steve, like many of us, is not a blue-blooded aristocrat but an honest British citizen who loves hunting and enjoys the privilege of riding around the countryside.

I find it desperately sad that we seem to have created a political situation whereby the Government of the day seems to think it has the authority to stamp on minority groups. Compared with lowering the age of consent for homosexuals, fox hunting doesn't even have a place in the moral maze and yet, with unsavoury, indecent haste, New Labour is determined to provide rural Britain with a nasty Christmas present.

I hope Steve and his friends have some effect, but I fear political dogma and ignorance will triumph. The major demonstration is set for London on March 18, and if fox hunting is banned before then perhaps we should all consider going hunting for a day or two - wouldn't that be fun?

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On a happier note, the markets this week were pretty stable with 160 cattle sold to average just short of 90p/kilo including all the rag, tag and bobtails.

I dealt with the 68 bulls and, although trade wasn't exciting, it was no worse than last week. Most of the shapely continentals were making from 95-100p/kilo and the best of the day was a heavyweight from John Hall which made 119p/kilo.

Amongst the clean catttle, Philip Place reported plenty of demand for the well-fleshed continentals of 'R' and 'U' conformation. The top-priced steer was shown by Chris Beal at 110p/kilo and the best of the heifers came from George Marwood at 123p/kilo.

In accordance with requests for the balancing bottom figure, the lowest price was 64p/kilo for a very moderate Holstein bull.

We had 1,370 sheep, and the overall average for the hoggs was 91p/kilo, up to a top of 98p/kilo for a pen of heavy lambs shown by Philip Bell of Normanby.

We had 280 pigs on Monday/Tuesday with an overall average of just over 90p/kilo, although Tuesday saw more demand than the previous day.

Top price went to Colin Piercy with a pen of lightweight gilts at 115.5p/kilo and, for the first time, the lightweight category averaged over 100p.

It was nice to finish the year on a high note for our pig producers who have suffered for so long.

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A very happy Christmas to all readers of the market column from the Malton Auctioneers.