At the market: To ban or not to ban, that is the question

I accept that President Chirac turned back our meat boats entering Calais but it was a typically French decision, rather rash and extremely selfish. I believe we have to take a wider view of trade in the world, and we can accomplish the same result by requesting that anyone wishing to bring meat into our country should comply with the same standards by which our own producers abide.

Firstly, under no circumstances should any beef carcass that comes from an animal over 30 months of age be allowed near these shores and every consignment should be accompanied by a veterinary certificate to this effect.

It is no use telling me that it's not happening as I get, admittedly uncorroborated, tales from my customers who are being offered cow beef from various parts of the EC; and the parable of the smoke without fire springs to mind. Damn it all, we are being made to incinerate every animal that reaches 30 months and one day, and it is totally unacceptable for our competition to be allowed to offload their aged goods on the unsuspecting UK catering trade.

Any meat coming into Britain should be reared and slaughtered in conditions that comply with the standards of the Little Red Tractor. This is not unreasonable, and means that all such imports have to come from Farm Assured stock if we are to be certain that it is fit to enter our food chain.

The thrust of my argument is that there has to be a level playing field for British and overseas producers and it has to be put in place before we strangle the life out of our own agricultural industry.

Compare for a moment the circumstances of Ryedale abattoirs where they are subjected to constant veterinary surveillance and Meat Hygiene Service supervision.

At any one time, there may be up to four, five or six officials nit picking over the practices of a slaughterman with 30 years experience. Whereas at Dover, there could be a single overworked officer trying to inspect the contents of a long line of meat trucks entering this country and destined for our dinner plates.

The whole thing is out of balance.

The farming fraternity have undergone a huge amount of pain since 1996 and we have the cleanest meat industry in the world. Now is the time for a little of that anguish to be repaid and to show that it has not been undergone needlessly. So I am afraid I have to conclude: N'interdit pas le boeuf Francais; mais fait le champs niveau au cricket!

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Following the unlikely spectacle, on Tuesday, of John Prescott introducing New Labour's panacea for rural problems, I listened to Jeremy Paxman interviewing three people.

The first was Michael Meacher, who always seems to me to be reasonably sympathetic towards country life and who explained the Government's intention to ease planning regulations for farmers wishing to diversify and to invest in rural transport.

Next came a hill farmer who argued strongly and cogently that the basic ingredient of the countryside was farming and some of New Labour's efforts would be better directed to putting money into agriculture rather than the fairly nebulous fringe benefits being promoted in the white paper.

The last participant came as a complete shock to me. She was a lady representing, purportedly, some countryside group and opened with the statement that "agriculture can never be profitable again, and we should therefore look at the post-agricultural countryside".

This is the most dangerous minority view I have heard and the more-so because it is now being given prime viewing time on TV.

The hill farmer was understandably taken aback, claiming that today's countryside had largely been fashioned by farmers who were still the unpaid stewards of the landscape. The rural scene without farmers is a new concept and those tempted into thinking it may be a good idea should first of all consider the consequences:

Farmers have never enjoyed a 40-hour week, and in the new world without agriculture we should need twice as many bodies to do the work.

The hill farmer pointed out that the average wage on his type of holding was £6,000 which is half the national average.

Thus we have twice as many people wanting twice as much money with nothing being produced to balance the expense apart from, perhaps, tourism.

At present, the UK is around 70pc self-sufficient in its food production.

This vision of Britain being converted into one huge national park is absolutely batty, but it worries me that such ill conceived policies are even entertained by the BBC as suitable material for a serious political debate.

We must never forget that agriculture is one of this country's last remaining primary resources and, as the hill farmer pointed out, it is a basic ingredient of the countryside.

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At the risk of being boring, I again urge Ryedale producers to support your local markets. This latest plea is triggered off by the plight of beef farmers in the south-west of the country who are caught in a sales trap which they must break.

The National Beef Association has recently expressed concern that the south-west region's beef market is dominated by two large abattoirs, both supplying the same supermarket chain.

These two abattoirs account for around 55pc of prime cattle produced in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall and their overwhelming dominance is enough on its own to generate concern about price competitiveness. The fact that they concentrate on just one giant retailer compounds the problem and makes beef farmers in the area extremely vulnerable to any sudden weight or sex-based changes in the buying specification.

The NBA has researched buying patterns which show independent butchers buying less than 8pc of cattle, while three medium-sized slaughterers take up another 10pc.

The chairman of NBA's regional council said: "It is no accident that prime cattle prices in the south-west are around 5p per live kilo lower than the English average"; and he called upon auction markets to play a bigger part in trying to find new buyers.

At the minute, Ryedale farmers still have quite a number of options available to them but the most precious is the independent livestock auction without which there would be little competition.

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This week's markets at Malton saw interesting and encouraging developments in trade, although the numbers of cattle were a disappointment. There were only 150 which turned up, but prices were improved on last week with Intervention-type steers making from 95-100p/kg, and the best of these at 104p came from John Clark of Duggleby.

Retail butcher heifers were led again by George Marwood, who made over 120p/kg of all his consignment up to a top of 128p/kg. There were 60 bulls and they were also better to sell, with David Barker having the highest price at 116p/kg for a nice quality heavyweight.

Most encouraging of all was the number of sheep, at 1,680, accompanied by the best average price of the year for hoggs, at 95p/kg. Top hoggs came from H W Ward & Sons at 104p/kg and it was nice to see some making £49.80 per head.

The reasons behind the improvement in trade are not hard to find, with well-finished sheep scarce following the disastrous weather; and the French disaffection with their own beef lifting the price for imported lamb.

Pig producers are also benefiting from a general uplift in European prices and we had almost 300 pigs on the two days this week to average just short of 90p/kg. The top pigs at 103p/kg were produced by Geoff Webster and Fred Horsley respectively.

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Don't forget, next week is Christmas Show day at Malton for cattle and sheep. The show will be on Tuesday in the morning and the trophies presented at noon in the main ring.