THE BSE limelight seems firmly fixed on Germany at the moment, and the pressure for a ban on imports into the UK is mounting.

Ben Gill seems to be in full swing on the matter and is striving for Brussels to "do its duty and enforce" regulations designed to control BSE, similar to those which the UK has had in place for five years now.

Having discovered four batches of imported German beef which still contained the banned spinal cord, surely we should be following the shadow agricultural minister's thoughts and implement European rules allowing imports to be banned if consumer health is at risk.

But our beloved Minister, Mr Brown, said that the Government would only ban imports in the event of a recommendation by the Food Standards Agency. He also stated that "what we will not do is invent health risks as a cover for trade protectionism and a Tory trade war".

Four shipments with the spinal cord still in place is hardly inventing health risks, and instead of moaning about starting a trade war, he should be pressurizing the Food Standards Agency for their recommendation for a ban.

I feel sure that if it was British beef which had been discovered with spinal cord still in place, we would be hard pushed to export beef between counties, let alone across the waters.

On top of this, Brussels is now proposing that Ministry of Agriculture vets should test up to 65,000 extra animals for BSE if the UK is to continue serving T-bone steaks from next April.

The ludicrous thing is that they want the tests done on cattle born between August 1996 and August 1997 - animals which are not even going anywhere near the food chain.

Apparently the tests will provide valuable epidemiological information, but the UK is protesting the fact that it will do nothing to enhance consumer safety.

It all seems like a colossal waste of time and money which could be well spent elsewhere in the beef sector.

I read with despair how a Worcestershire farmer has been served an enforcement notice by the Environment Agency (EA) to remove some soil which he tipped onto a flood plain of the River Severn to strengthen a 200-year-old private flood defence

The EA claims that he acted illegally and should have obtained planning permission.

The fact that the farmer's actions saved nine properties from certain flooding seems totally irrelevant to the them!

However, local support is strong and the saved residents are backing the farmer and insisting the EA reconsider.

Let us hope that sense defeats bureaucracy.

There has hardly been a let-up in the volume of rain which has continued to fall, and industry observers are predicting that the winter crop area could be 50pc lower than its planned level because a significant proportion of the crops already in the ground look destined to fail.

There were a few optimistic folk who drilled some winter corn in the frosts in January, but I fear that some of these crops are not likely to emerge.

MAFF has shown a surprising amount of sense and sympathy and has relaxed the rules to allow farmers to put more land into set-aside, which is a consolation, but most advisers are telling farmers to focus on some good spring crops to protect incomes.

All well and good; but with spring barley seed up by £100 per ton, and the possibility of a glut in the supply of malting barley, reduced prices seem inevitable.

A small glimmer on the horizon is that MAFF IACS payments in the future could soon be despatched within a day of forms being received. A switch to computerised claims would make this possible and Nick Brown hopes to switch 95pc of claims on-line by 2004.

This is definitely a step in the right direction and would spread the farm income more evenly over the year.

This year we are able to complete IACS forms on-line and it will be interesting to see the response it gets.

My main concern with completing on-line is that once you log onto your site you must complete the return before closing down. If you have logged onto your page already you will not be able to re-access it.

If you want any help in this department, please come and ask.

The IACS deadline has been set for this year and is the familiar May 15.

With March 18 looming ever closer, latest figures reveal that over 150,000 people have registered by phone for the Countryside March, which puts the event on track for being the largest public demonstration seen in the UK during peacetime.

On top of this, on the Monday prior to the march, thousands of giant bonfires will light up the night sky both in Britain and abroad as a blaze of symbolic publicity for the Countryside Alliance's march in London.

In 1998, the Blazing Beacons initiative attracted 125,000 people who attended the 7,000 beacon or bonfire parties and the organisers are hoping for an even bigger turnout this year.

If anybody has any questions about the march, including transport to and from, please contact Stephen Rawlings in our Malton office, on (01653) 692151, who is our local representative and who is a fountain of knowledge on the event.

Strike up those matches, don the marching boots and we'll see you in London.

The market favoured a spot of fair weather for a change and trade was quite cheerful in the cattle sector.

In Jim's absence, Philip took charge and reports a good demand across the board.

There was a good show of 83 young bulls, which averaged just under 90p/kilo across the board, and Roland Mason was at the top of the charts again with a medium-weight bull which made 110p/kilo.

The 163 clean cattle on offer also met a reasonable trade and the heifers averaged a respectable 94p/kilo.

George Marwood was back at the top again with a clinking heavyweight heifer, which made 138p/kilo, and Chris Beal had the top-priced bullock, which made 116p/kilo, with an overall average of 88p/kilo.

Michael Harrison reports a very good turnout of sheep, 2,889 in total including ewes, which benefited from a greatly revitalized trade.

Hoggs averaged nearly 117p/kilo across the board, up to a top of 127p/kilo for a pen which came from Wytherstone Farms.

Ewe trade continues to soar, and the average this week was £40, up to a top of £65.50 which came from Howard Raines.

The pig shed took a sharp turn for the better this week and David Lindley lifted the average to 82p/kilo, a 10p/kilo rise on the previous week.This is one of the reasons why live marketing benefits the seller, as the dead-weight price would only equate to just over 70p/kilo.

The top price of 94p/kilo was shared jointly by David Johnson and Fred Horsley.

Updated: 10:57 Thursday, February 15, 2001