DAVID RICHARDSON
DAVID RICHARDSON
Any plans DEFRA
officials may have to
abandon traditional
markets will have
a serious impact on
the social lives of
producers
fire. So, father decided to have a walk round the farm instead. It was a gorgeous warm June morning so the walk was an attractive change of routine. And he set off with his Lurcher bitch called Fly to walk the crops. After a while he came to a field of wheat infested with wild oats. Chemical control of such weeds had not even been dreamed of in those days and that morning he had sent one of the men to start pulling them by hand.
But there was no sign of the man who should have been there. Wondering if something might be wrong father set off across the field. In the middle of it was a pond – or pit, as we call them in Norfolk – surrounded by trees. When he got close to it he saw the wild oat puller, fast asleep under the shade of a tree. Fly saw him, too, and bounded across to the prostrate figure and licked his face. As my father caught up with the dog, the man woke, pushed the affectionate bitch away, blinked his eyes and saw him standing there.
"What are you doin here?" he said truculently "You should ha been in Norwich."
The rest of the conversation is not recorded but whatever it contained the experience did not change fathers habit of going to market on Saturdays. It was an essential part of his way of life, valuable as much for the contact with contemporaries as for the deals he did or the market information he picked up.
Today we dont have cattle or sheep on this farm and, by using the various published and electronic sources of arable crop intelligence that are available, I do not feel the need to go to market regularly. But I do meet an old farming friend for lunch most Saturdays when we talk over the past week and the next week and anything else that is current. Weve been doing it for more than 40 years and I know we would both miss it if it stopped. For, just like those who still go to market each week, we value the contact and the chat as much as the friendship.
Everyone needs friends to whom they can speak freely and who, often by simply listening, can help resolve problems that may have arisen in their lives. That, after all, is the basis of the Samaritans philosophy. And for many farmers the market is the most natural place for that to happen.
So, the rumours coming out of DEFRA in the wake of foot-and-mouth disease, that officials would like to close most markets, are of great concern. Unfortunately, because resourceful auctioneers, faced with empty pens and movement restrictions, have introduced other temporary ways of trading animals, DEFRA and its advisers seem to believe traditional markets are unnecessary. In any case they blame the rapid spread of F&M around the country on the movement of stock that had passed through markets and this cannot be denied. But they put forward the view that the removal of markets would avoid such spread in future. What they should, of course, be tackling is the root of the problem – the importation of infected meat.
Just how the DEFRA people think market values might be established in the absence of auctions is not clear. After all, most direct-to-abattoir sales are based on prices first established at markets. Nor is it obvious how the ownership of store stock, reared in the hills and traditionally sold to lowland farmers for finishing, could be transferred. Indeed there are so many services rendered by auction markets for which there are no viable alternatives that it is impossible to envisage the livestock industry without them. Yet again, by promoting their demise DEFRA betrays its ignorance of how our industry works and what makes farmers tick.
But, as I have suggested, the social significance of markets is at least as important as their role in the auctioning of livestock. The government would like to believe that the answer to every problem could be found in information technology; that farmers could just as easily run their businesses, buy their requirements and market their produce via the internet. In theory, that may be possible in some cases. But that impersonal, electronic concept ignores the lonely life of many modern farmers. It takes no account of their need for contact and conversation with others with similar problems. The permanent removal of the market from their lives could prove to be the last straw for some. It must not be allowed to happen. *
MY late father went to Norwich Market virtually every Saturday of his working life, whether or not he needed to buy or sell anything. One Saturday many years ago, when farmworkers normally did a six day week, he set the men to their jobs, had his breakfast and got in the car to go to market. But the car, an ancient Standard with inadequate brakes and the registration number VG8329, wouldnt start, a not uncommon occurrence in those days as older readers may remember.
He tried cranking; he tried pushing. But the engine would not fire. So, father decided to have a walk round the farm instead. It was a gorgeous warm June morning so the walk was an attractive change of routine. And he set off with his Lurcher bitch called Fly to walk the crops. After a while he came to a field of wheat infested with wild oats. Chemical control of such weeds had not even been dreamed of in those days and that morning he had sent one of the men to start pulling them by hand.
But there was no sign of the man who should have been there. Wondering if something might be wrong father set off across the field. In the middle of it was a pond – or pit, as we call them in Norfolk – surrounded by trees. When he got close to it he saw the wild oat puller, fast asleep under the shade of a tree. Fly saw him, too, and bounded across to the prostrate figure and licked his face. As my father caught up with the dog, the man woke, pushed the affectionate bitch away, blinked his eyes and saw him standing there.
"What are you doin here?" he said truculently "You should ha been in Norwich."
The rest of the conversation is not recorded but whatever it contained the experience did not change fathers habit of going to market on Saturdays. It was an essential part of his way of life, valuable as much for the contact with contemporaries as for the deals he did or the market information he picked up.
Today we dont have cattle or sheep on this farm and, by using the various published and electronic sources of arable crop intelligence that are available, I do not feel the need to go to market regularly. But I do meet an old farming friend for lunch most Saturdays when we talk over the past week and the next week and anything else that is current. Weve been doing it for more than 40 years and I know we would both miss it if it stopped. For, just like those who still go to market each week, we value the contact and the chat as much as the friendship.
Everyone needs friends to whom they can speak freely and who, often by simply listening, can help resolve problems that may have arisen in their lives. That, after all, is the basis of the Samaritans philosophy. And for many farmers the market is the most natural place for that to happen.
So, the rumours coming out of DEFRA in the wake of foot-and-mouth disease, that officials would like to close most markets, are of great concern. Unfortunately, because resourceful auctioneers, faced with empty pens and movement restrictions, have introduced other temporary ways of trading animals, DEFRA and its advisers seem to believe traditional markets are unnecessary. In any case they blame the rapid spread of F&M around the country on the movement of stock that had passed through markets and this cannot be denied. But they put forward the view that the removal of markets would avoid such spread in future. What they should, of course, be tackling is the root of the problem – the importation of infected meat.
Just how the DEFRA people think market values might be established in the absence of auctions is not clear. After all, most direct-to-abattoir sales are based on prices first established at markets. Nor is it obvious how the ownership of store stock, reared in the hills and traditionally sold to lowland farmers for finishing, could be transferred. Indeed there are so many services rendered by auction markets for which there are no viable alternatives that it is impossible to envisage the livestock industry without them. Yet again, by promoting their demise DEFRA betrays its ignorance of how our industry works and what makes farmers tick.
But, as I have suggested, the social significance of markets is at least as important as their role in the auctioning of livestock. The government would like to believe that the answer to every problem could be found in information technology; that farmers could just as easily run their businesses, buy their requirements and market their produce via the internet. In theory, that may be possible in some cases. But that impersonal, electronic concept ignores the lonely life of many modern farmers. It takes no account of their need for contact and conversation with others with similar problems. The permanent removal of the market from their lives could prove to be the last straw for some. It must not be allowed to happen. *
The social
significance of markets is at least as important as their role in the auctioning of
livestock