At the market - Another European fraud scandal

It is hugely expensive to operate, it is autocratic to the point of arrogance in its attitude to any form of democratic control, and its incredibly complicated regulations appear to be a fertile seed bed for frustration and now abuse.

Over the years, we have had scandals, unwanted olives, huge herds of mythical goats, and human excreta in French animal feed; and I suppose it was not to be unexpected that there should be another smear which will cost us all a lot of money.

The Mafia heritage in southern Italy has combined to produce over 16,000 tonnes of butter which isn't really butter at all as it contains no dairy products whatever.

This ingenious product has been analysed by officials and it contains such substances as beef tallow, vegetable materials and synthetic laboratory-sourced ingredients, but no trace of a cow in the chain.

It is being distributed into the food manufacturing industry in Italy, France and Belgium.

Not unexpectedly, the whole process is driven by greed and around £22m of subsidies were paid out by Brussels to their Italian clients for this "butter" mountain.

I find it particularly galling because, in this country, we have had to suffer pretty near total purgatory at the hands of our various enforcement agencies who seem to start from the premise that we are all members of that same Mafia clan.

British agriculture on the whole is as clean as a whistle, compared to some other parts of Europe, and it must be high time that those countries with a long track record of ignoring the rules should be brought to task.

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On a slightly similar note, the French government has now ordered the slaughter of a further 400 cattle after discovering cases of BSE in three more herds and this is before they announce the first results of their national BSE tests in September.

Meanwhile, back in Britain, our detection and enforcement regime rolls on with a continuing decline in the number of confirmed cases.

To June this year, we have had 468 cases of BSE and, to put this in context, the epidemic at its height was uncovering 1,000 cases per week in 1992 and overall we have declared 178,000 cases.

Realistically, BSE has not been confined to these shores and there will have been large numbers of cases remaining undetected in Europe and will continue to be so until a detection agency similar to our own is put in place.

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We are still fighting to get proper labelling on our meat so that all of us know the country of origin and other necessary details when we want to choose what we eat.

Franz Fischler reluctantly agreed to support the growing industry demand for labelling but put his own twist in the tail by adding a requirement that every piece of meat had to state whether it came from a steer, bull, heifer or cow !

UK experts estimated that this would add approximately £25-50 per animal to the processing cost and, thankfully, last week common sense prevailed when the European Parliament voted decisively to throw out Fischler's fantasies but still to keep the workable part of the beef labelling proposals intact.

As with all these things, there is no need to panic as they are to be introduced gradually over the next 18 months!

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Don't forget, this week it's the Farmers' Market at Malton and Charlie Breese is expecting a good entry for his auction as well as the usual high quality stalls from local producers.

The event is being staged again in the Sheep Market at Malton and it is worth a visit.

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The long-awaited Channel 4 documentary on the realities of farming today will be shown on TV at 8pm on three consecutive Sundays, July 23 and 30, and August 6.

It is now over 18 months since a young man called Nic Guttridge first approached us to see if we would allow them to film some of the tribulations through which farmers were going in the darkest hours of the crisis.

I have always had a warped view of the media - apart, of course, from the Gazette & Herald - and was somewhat blunt in the response; but Nic was genuinely persistent and seemed to want to portray the real situation.

I only hope the result will be as promised and I look forward with concerned anticipation to this Sunday's first programme.

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Monday and Tuesday saw two good days trading for Malton Market, with 250 cattle, 1,120 sheep and 330 pigs being sold.

I looked after the 106 young bulls and there was distinctly more interest, with trade for the best continentals hovering around 100p/kg.

The best price, of 114p/kg, was shared by Dick Johnson and David Windress, with Ian Rooke hard on their heels at 112p/kg.

The black and whites, provided they carried some flesh and weight, could still make around 85p/kg but the lighter hat-rack models were difficult to deal with !

Michael sold the clean cattle, which were extremely fiery, averaging 98p through the whole market, which means that the better continentals were making well in excess of 100p.

The intervention type steer was making from 105-110p/kg and this section was headed by Andrew Marson with a bullock at 115p/kg.

Top-priced steer of the day was a mediumweight from Nim Marwood at 122p/kg.

The retail butcher heifers starred again and it was Edward Hardwick who came out on top at 131p/kg for a quite magnificent show-quality continental heifer.

The live market will take a lot of beating at the moment.

Lamb trade recovered again to average around 87p/kg with a top price of 102p for Ron Green.

This is certainly better news and most encouraging when lambs are back to averaging £37-£42 per head.

The pig trade on both days was pretty level at just under 78p/kg working up to a top of 82p shared by Dennis Wardell and Brian Kinghorn.

Accidents are not to look for but the one that befell Charles Brader at the weekend when his tractor rolled over was particularly horrific.

The thoughts and prayers of a lot of rural Ryedale have been with Charles in his battle in the intensive care unit at Leeds.

His wife, Gilda, wishes everybody to know that he is progressing as well as can be expected; and is officially reported as "very poorly but stable".