LAST Monday found me travelling down to London for a meeting. I have no great love of the metropolis – the best thing about the place is the way out of it. However, travelling by train on the east coast line afforded a fine opportunity to take stock of the farming scene on that 400-mile tip.
As we whizzed through East Linton and passed the long defunct auction mart, my thoughts turned to how many similar premises have long since ceased trading.
In Edinburgh not so many years ago there were three auction companies operating at Gorgie
. And there was Dalkeith, Haddington, Retson and Berwick-upon-Tweed. Cross over the Royal Border Bridge into Northumberland and the list goes on, with Belford, Morpeth and Tyneside no more than names from the past. The pattern continues right down the east coast. With fewer livestock and changing market patterns there is simply no requirement for small local centres.
I remain a firm supporter of the livestock auction system because it is one sure way of ascertaining the true value of cattle and sheep. Before the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001 about 2,000 prime live cattle were sold through the ring in Scotland each week. During the long months of movement restriction, all cattle had to be consigned directly to abattoirs. That was a thoroughly necessary precaution, but the price of cattle took a hammering, and the recovery has been slow.
But all the large abattoir operators watch what is happening in the ring. Auction marts have the ability to react very quickly to changes in supply and demand and that is why a further shrinkage would be bad news for the industry.
For those who question that assertion, look no further than Ireland. Very few prime cattle are sold through auction marts, with the result that the big processors – and there are some seriously large ones in Ireland – can virtually control the market. Farmers in Ireland earlier this year were so incensed at the price they were being bid that they effectively went on strike for a brief spell by withholding their cattle until the plants upped their bids.
The purpose of my trip to London was to attend a committee meeting of the Royal Smithfield Club in the appropriately named Butchers' Hall. The Smithfield Club traces its history back to 1802 and has traditionally organised an annual winter show of prime stock and machinery.
Earls Court was the venue for this great event for many years, but when the big machinery manufactures pulled out, the costs of operating a show in London were simply unsustainable.
At short notice Smithfield found a new venue on the Bath and West Agricultural Society's site at Shepton Mallet in Somerset. The first show there, in December 2006, was rated a success, but Shepton Mallet is not the easy of places to reach. Last year there was no Smithfield show on account of bluetongue disease. This year's show will go ahead, but I do wish a more accessible venue could be found – Harrogate springs to mind.
On leaving the meeting in London I asked the door porter which was the nearest underground station that would take me to Kings Cross. He quickly grasped that I was a Scot and offered to show me the plaque commemorating the death of William Wallace.
It struck me as ironic that Wallace should have been hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 August, 1305, close to Butchers' Hall and Smithfield Market!
Wallace was a brave man but it will take a different brand of courage to face the descent of this year's cereal harvest into little more than a salvage operation. However, there does seem to be something of a north-south divide. Harvesting in Scotland north of the Forth appears to have been progressing, albeit in fits and starts, but the same cannot be said for parts of the Borders, Northumberland and Durham.
Travelling back north from London I was struck by just how much harvest remains to be gathered in, all the way up from York. The crops of wheat promised much, but were clearly slower in ripening than normal, and little wonder given the lack of sunshine for months on end.
Many of those crops will have taken a real battering over the weekend and the forecasters suggest more rain is on its way.
But all may not yet be lost. Modern science has provided farmers with a wide range of chemicals, not least products to stiffen the straw and prevent crops being totally flattened. Fungicides are also used reduce moulds in the ears of the crop.
The irony is that these products, and a great many more, will be banned if the bureaucrats of Brussels have their way. The proposals are nothing short of madness and those who came up with them should perhaps be given the Wallace treatment.
Finally, the sheep world will descend on Springwood Park in Kelso on Friday for the annual ram sales. With lamb prices holding up, the prospects must be reasonable. But if it is a dry day many buyers will be keen to make their purchases quickly and get home to the business of the harvest.
The full article contains 878 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
