IF we do not put a stop to it, there is no doubt that British farmers will be regulated out of existence before long by over-officious bureaucrats who implement their own narrow, biased interpretation of the law; but this is in stark contrast to what happens overseas, and on Tuesday a Malton market client handed me the latest revelations in a double page spread from the Express newspaper.

The Express investigator purposely set up a deal with a large continental meat supplier who said "that the cattle were very old but that the paperwork would show they were under 30 months".

He went on to say that "the fixing of the paperwork was widespread" although, if caught, the guilty trader could serve two years in jail.

There seems little likelihood of this, however, as the law requires the meat dealers to police themselves, a quite ridiculous state of affairs that Government agencies admit makes it almost impossible to enforce. This particular batch of strip loins had apparently been sourced from cattle over five years old, and had already been rejected once by UK authorities.

The problem lies in the de-boning and packaging of the meat which is taking place on the continent and the subsequent boxed beef is fraudulently passed into the UK food chain under false papers.

For some reason, beyond my comprehension, our Government seems prepared to allow continental operators to walk all over us in this manner and it is quite scandalous.

This loophole could quite easily be closed by insisting that all imported meat came in carcass form, properly labelled with its country of origin. This simple requirement would prevent the fraudsters from dumping boxes of anonymous boned-out meat into our food chain and surely we need to insist that the Government now police the whole system properly. It cannot be left to the self-regulation of meat traders.

This whole question of labelling is an emotive issue but many producers view the cynical attitude towards labelling by processors as little better than straight deception. I understand that imported pork processed at Malton goes out under the British flag and it would be nice to hear someone from our factory confirm or deny this. Last week, farmers broke into the St Merryn meat plant because of their justifiable suspicions that Irish container beef was coming in.

Robert Persey, a Devon pig farmer, has won his case against Tesco which had mis-labelled Danish bacon as "meeting British & Tesco welfare codes of practice". The supermarket giant has been forced to call in all this line and re-label it because the pigs are not reared in conditions which meet our own welfare code.

It's time to put a stop to these unfair and fraudulent practices which are crippling British farmers.

We can all vote with our purses by buying from known local sources. Brian Glaves, Frank Turner and the like will be able to tell you which farm their beef came from never mind the flipping country.

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As the 60-day cooling off period reaches an end, farmers' leaders and hauliers are joining forces to demand a 15p/litre immediate cut in the price of fuel. The deadline for action expires on Monday, November 13, and plans are afoot for a massive demonstration in Hyde Park on that day.

The dearest fuel prices in the world are affecting us all, but the heaviest burden has to be on those not able to use public transport and rely on fuel to keep their businesses going.

I spent the weekend looking at Cleveland stallions around the country and my fellow inspector had a local aerial contracting business which enabled him to keep his 60-acre holding on the moors. His fuel bill has now risen to over £200 per month and may well be the catalyst which forces closure.

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There are a few interesting bullet points for this week.

The post mortem on the Cattle Count has shown a good response from producers with 77,000 forms being returned (70pc). From my point of view, what was more interesting is the revelation that only 3,000 of these forms were transmitted electronically and a large percentage of these must have come from this area where between York and Malton we processed well over 10,000 cattle.

OP dips for sheep have been given the all-clear by the Government and, ironically, at the same time the unfortunate farmers who suffered from using these same chemicals have been told to abandon their compensation claims by their legal advisors. These poor people, many with their lives ruined, used the OP dip according to Government instructions and yet seem unable to get a penny of compensation. I can't help but contrast this with the £27m that has been spent on the BSE Inquiry and the forecast that further millions are to be handed out to CJD victims on very slim scientific evidence.

Stocking density rates under the Extensification Premium Scheme have been announced - below 1.6 livestock units/hectare £41.36; and below 2 livestock units/hectare £20.68.

July 1999 saw the abandonment of the Calf Slaughter Scheme with all sorts of predictions of gloom and doom for the trade. Now, 15 months down the line, the average price for Continental bull calves is around £10 up on last year; and the black & white bull calves have maintained an average of £11.38 in September, compared to £9.87 a year ago.

Sheep slaughterings are down in the third quarter of the year, which is indicative there may be less about. It's most dramatic in Scotland, where slaughterings are down 25pc, whereas south of the Border they were just down 1pc.

Tesco was a major sponsor of the Millennium Dome and I spotted a paragraph which reported that they still owed £500,000 - such an honourable outfit.

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Tuesday was a good day for Malton market, at least for cattle and pigs.

We had a very respectable 204 cattle, of which I sold 90 bulls, with the Continentals averaging around 97p/kilo up to a top of 116p achieved by D E Harrison & Sons of Rudston, closely followed by David Sunley at 115p/kilo.

Just as significant was the improved trade for black & white cattle, which hovered around 84p/kilo with the odd old-fashioned Friesian almost touching 90p.

Clean cattle with flesh were good to sell and best steer of the day made 110p/kilo from Brian Gray of Fryup. As ever, the retail butcher heifers stole the limelight and George Marwood topped the section with a staggering 138p. Brigitte Raby also deserves mention for her persistent pursuit of quality and this week she achieved her personal best at 133p/kilo.

There were just over 700 sheep in the market, but the trade was perhaps a little disappointing at 76p, although Jim Dodsworth would be well pleased with the top price of 98p/kilo.

I often think that those in the Meteorological Office would be ideally suited to forecasting pig prices and the current buoyancy of the market is totally against the predictions of the professional analysts.

We had around 300 pigs on the two days which averaged 83p/kilo up to a top of 96p for some lightweight gilts from David Johnson of Chop Gate. Any pig producers wanting to recoup some of their losses would be well advised to send a few to Malton.

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Don't forget, it's Ryedale Farmers Market this Saturday and Charlie Breese tells me he has yet another record entry of producers' stalls for you. He is also staging an interesting auction including poultry and garden equipment. The market opens at 8 am.