Dear Mrs Beckett...

When Lord Witty wrote to all livestock farmers in the month of September he said, on behalf of DEFRA, that "we want to do our best to enable an increase in the movement of stock".

After the first seven weeks, these empty promises must come back to haunt him.

The regulations may have been too rigid in conception at a time of year when livestock in our county just has to be moved to get breeding stock to breeders and stores from farms that have run out of feed.

To many upland farmers October is their harvest month, when the lamb crop is sold and the breeding flock replenished.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the overall movement strategy, there can however be no excuse whatever for the quite appalling manner in which your staff have administered the licencing procedure.

- We are mainly a High Risk county and within our boundary we have varying designations including Infected, Protection, and Free zones.

- In an effort to facilitate the movement of stock without endangering security, we as auctioneers set up a video auction of some 6000 sheep on October 4. Despite the uncertainty of movement, we managed to sell about half of this number and on the same day arranged for all licence applications to be submitted to DEFRA.

- On October 23, not a single licence had been issued and two members of staff rang the DEFRA headquarters in Leeds for information. They rang throughout business hours on Tuesday, October 23, in sequence and were not able to get through at any time. Either the phone gave an engaged signal or, if it rang, it rang out of time without being answered. This lack of response is unacceptable and inexcusable.

- By Thursday, October 25, three weeks after the sale date, one or two clients had their application forms returned to them because of perceived errors on completion. This time taken to return a form because of a minor query is unacceptable.

- It is laid down that blood tests have to be taken by the State Veterinary Service and we have long tried to persuade DEFRA to use independent vets in order to speed up the process. We are informed that on one particular day on three almost adjacent farms, blood-testing commenced simultaneously with four vets attending each farm. The operation took most or all of the morning and thereafter the vets departed back to headquarters. This seems a very bad distribution of scarce resources.

- As at today's date, only a handful of licences have appeared and fewer than 500 sheep will have been moved.

We are not alone in the difficulties we have had in trying to get through to DEFRA and our experience is repeated across the county with many farmers almost desperate with exasperation.

Please, can you either relax the rules so that we can move stock a little easier or alternatively provide enough staff to cope with the regulations you have imposed.

Lord Haskins report on Rural Recovery after FMD has now been published and I have a copy if anybody wants to read it.

He makes 12 recommendations, the first of which is that the continued sympathetic support of the banks is the key to rural business survival.

This seems to be stating the obvious but doesn't go anyway towards replacing the debit balances which in turn will determine the attitude of the banks to their customers.

The fifth recommendation is that an additional £40m should be injected into the Business Recovery Fund and this may be some help if it is directly given to the affected businesses and not squandered on advisory fees and the like which does nothing to put cash into the right pocket.

The ninth recommendation touches a sore spot and suggests that the Government should compensate those livestock farmers unable to sell their stores this autumn.

I wonder if that will find favour for the Government.

The tenth recommendation is that restrictions on the movements of animals should be minimised as they are seriously affecting the viability of farmers both wanting to restock and sell. Although there is little comfort for livestock markets, Lord Haskins does restrict his comments to suggesting changes which make markets more effective and better regulated.

With her newly-created environmental hat on, our minister announced plans to make farmers liable for ammonia emissions from farmyard manure!

According to environmentalists, the ammonia released from manure is a serious threat to wildlife, habitats and plant life; and farmers may be forced to either dig the manure into soil or pay for chemical treatment. Margaret Beckett's audience were quick to point out that if there was to be a tax on "bull shit" then it would only be fair if it covered the verbal emissions of the Labour Government also!

Herewith some short news items for the week:

- Store cattle auctions have been going on for a month in Scotland with both numbers and confidence increasing. Prices have also been buoyant, with some heifers up to 20pc more valuable than last year.

- The contrast in fat stock prices north and south of the border is equally interesting, with the deadweight cattle trade in Scotland averaging around 176p/kilo compared to England at 156p/kilo.

- The Freedom Food Scheme which was set up by the RSPCA is now being criticised by its own members as ineffective. The scheme, which was predicted to be self-financing, has cost the charity more than £12m since 1994.

- Paul Jackson, who is the council officer for the Howardian Hills, has written to me about a new grant of £20,000 which can be given for landscape and conservation work not able to be otherwise funded during the crisis.

- A farmer rang to tell me that his insurance premim had been increased by over 30pc and that he had subsequently achieved parity by getting competitive quotes.

- Finally, a dig at the valuation system which has got a lot of stick and to some extent brought the valuation profession into question.This story concerns a small holder at Skipton who had three Suffolk ewes who were elderly. Last autumn he had sent three similar sheep into Skipton Market and received £1 a head for them. The three remaining culls were slaughtered under the FMD scheme and the MAFF vet, without consulting a professional valuer, suggested and paid compensation at the rate of £400 per head with no prompting from the surprised farmer.

As I write this article we are about to start the second video auction of store lambs and cattle. There has been a tremendous enquiry and given even reasonable cooperation from DEFRA I am sure this might be the way forward for us in the next couple of months.

I think the fat trade in all sections may have bottomed out and this week we are starting to see the first stirrings of more demand. The clearest indication has been with sheep where numbers are short. Those farmers who have been in a "forced sale" position have already done so and those remaining with stocks of sheep are holding onto them for trade to improve.

The market price has lifted to 155-158p/kilo already and could well go further at a rapid rate.

Cattle, I sincerely hope, have turned the corner with the miserable levels of this last month behind us.

'R' grade bulls are running from 156-162p/kilo with clean cattle around 4p dearer. There is still a chasm between the general level of trade and the retail end where prices of 175-185p are achievable. The black and white and breaking up market is still pretty dead with prices from 130-145p/kilo.

Pigs are pretty steady but baconeers holding at 88-95p/kilo and the lighter weights making over 100p.

Help us to help you and ring our help lines at Malton on (01653) 697820/692151 and York on (01904) 489731.

Updated: 09:25 Thursday, November 01, 2001