Machines can never satisfactorily replace people, and Nick Brown's new goal of 95pc electronic transmission on subsidies and the like should be watched closely. His proposals are focused on going electronic with claims online by 2004, which is pretty ambitious.

However, to some extent this only mirrors the current project of the Livestock Auctioneers, which has been christened farmstock.net.

We are making good progress with the BCMS and the Cattle Tracing Service at Guildford, but there is a definite need when you look a the volume of paperwork building up.

Since it was made compulsory to report cattle movements to the BCMS in September 1998, some 1.2m have been notified electronically, whereas 3.5m have relied upon the handwritten postcard.

Every postcard has to be scanned and there is a high rate of rejection mainly because the machines cannot cope with the calligraphic variations flowing from the farmer's pen! Every '0' failing to complete the circle or '6' with a short tail will be thrown out and gone through manually by a team of civil servants.

There has got to be an upgrade on this system, but we mustn't get rid of our Regional Service Centres altogether. They are needed as an advisory service to help us get through this plethora of paper spewing out of Brussels. Holgate Illingworth sent me a cutting with a few facts and figures.

The number of regulations, directives and legal acts issued by the EU has increased more than tenfold since Britain joined, and there are now over 25,000 in force.

They seem to spend most effort on the least important subjects. For comparison, the Ten Commandments run to 300 words and the American Declaration of Independence to just over 1,300; whereas the EU directive on the export of duck eggs runs to 26,900 words!

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I got my BSE news this week and the figures for the half year show 600 cases confirmed compared to over 1,000 a week at the height of the epidemic in 1992.

More worrying is that CJD cases have risen by around 20pc.

However tragic, we need to keep these statistics in perspective as there has only been a total of 76 cases since the disease was first identified.

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On the beef export front, it is now a year since the ban was lifted, and we have managed to export 500 tonnes with a value of around £5 million.

The European Court of Justice has rejected France's claim to keep out our beef, but we do need to make a lot more progress over the next year if it is to be meaningful.

We must not forget that there is still a large reservoir of over 30-month-old stock which is going to the burner and needs to be brought back into the system at some stage.

To date, there have been just over five million cattle slaughtered and burnt, for which we as tax payers are paying and getting no benefit.

The time has come for the overall strategy to be reviewed, and to state that cattle born after a certain date can come back into the food chain, whatever their age.

Meanwhile, there are two more pressing matters to deal with:

We only have two abattoirs that deal with exports because currently the rules require any export abattoir to be dedicated only to the date based export scheme and it is not allowed to put cattle into the home food chain. This needs redressing.

The Intervention Board cut the number of abattoirs dealing with OTMS cattle earlier this year, which has meant animals travelling much longer distances; and this week they have announced that they are reducing the incineration plants from 19 to 14 as a result of their latest tender.

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With the vague possibility that there might be a link between BSE in cattle and scrapie in sheep, MAFF have announced that they intend to have a campaign to eradicate sheep scrapie over the next few years.

For once, it looks sensible in objective and execution.

Apparently, scientists have found that some breeds of sheep have a greater genetic resistance to scrapie than others. It is planned to introduce a voluntary genotyping scheme for rams and ram lambs to select these resistant animals for breeding. By using the resistant terminal sires, the whole of our national flock will be gradually affected and in the long term scrapie will disappear.

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Congratulations to all those involved with the 'Dying Breed' programme. It is never easy to go about one's daily business followed by a camera team, and I think all the participants deserve applause.

The last programme was as poignant as any so far, and the Blakey experience of Ken Hornby illustrated precisely the black hole we face in the uplands.

Channel 4 asked me to stand by for an internet chat show after the programme finished along with the producer and director, who were also on the same telephone line.

For 45 minutes I fielded questions from viewers, all of whom were from outside farming circles. There were no adverse comments only questions as to how they could help.

Supermarkets, foreign meat and government policy all came in for strong criticism. It was a fascinating experience, and you may be interested in the mechanics of it. A lady called Ros from Channel 4 rang up the producer, the director and myself and we were linked on a teleconference line together. Ros was logged onto the Channel 4 website and questions were sent in from anywhere around the country via the internet.

Ros relayed the questions to me; I answered and she entered my reply onto the internet.

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Tuesday was a real harvest day and numbers were affected with only 153 cattle on offer, 460 sheep and 260 pigs (over twodays).

The cattle trade itself held up pretty well, although maybe a shade less than last week. Continentals would average around 96p per kilo with the best heavy weight bull coming from Alice Thompson at 113p per kilo. Stuart Hardy was close behind at 112p.

Amongst the clean cattle, the best Intervention type steers were making over 100p, and Paul Sanderson had a magnificent heavyweight which made 116p per kilo.

I know he won't thank me for saying it, but George Marwood had a stunning consignment of heifers which topped the averaged in all 3 categories - his lightweight heifer made 114p, medium weight 119p and heavyweight 126p. It really is some achievement.

Sheep prices, thankfully, are recovering a little, but numbers may have something to do with it.

Lamb prices averaged over 83p per kilo with a top price of 90p from Brian Jefferson.

The pig trade is steadily running between 75p and 78p per kilo.

Top price on Monday was 85p from Jack Horsley and just short of 80p from David Johnson on Tuesday.

Last Saturday heralded the early sheep fair on the Show Field, and despite the harvest weather 4,800 sheep turned up.

Against all predictions, trade was better, especially in the Suffolk Cross breeding section, where purchasers were looking for a few early lambers.

The best of the Suffolk ewes made up to £59 from Chris Dale and averaged £34 per head including all the broken-mouthed old ladies.

Amongst the gimmer shearlings, Raymond Twiddle took the first prize and made £88 with the whole section averaging £61 per head.

It is not really the time of year yet for mules, and this was the only poor demand of the day with gimmers making up to £40.50 and ewes up to £38.00.

Amongst the tups it was Simon Hunter with a Charolais that topped the day at 380 guineas, followed by a Texel from Colin Milburn at 345 guineas, and a Suffolk from Mark Bulmer at 290 guineas.

Store lambs were in demand, and Pete Hunter topped this section at £33.50 with an average of £27 across the board. All in all it was a good day and one which gave sheep producers a little more heart.