John Yeomans

18 January 2002




John Yeomans

John Yeomans farms 89ha

(220 acres) of mixed hill

and upland near Newtown

in mid-Wales. The farm is

split between hill and

upland, with the hill land in

two blocks running up to

426m (1400ft). It is

stocked with 70 suckler

cows, including some

Limousins and 540

breeding sheep

THE first article for us of 2002 and my wishes for the new year are to get rid of 20-day movement restrictions and open markets to all classes of stock. On a personal note, I wish to lose a couple of stone off my fighting weight without amputation of body parts.

A few years ago, our trading standards here in Powys ran a pilot scheme with movement books where carbon copies were returned periodically to trading standards by post. This is something which could be implemented immediately and would be cheap and simple to run.

The 20-day standstill, 25-30 days if postage time for licences is included, must be removed as soon as possible. It is pointless having a scheme which for economic, welfare and management reasons is impractical, not to mention subsidy rule implications.

Surely a means of tracking movements which producers can work with and still stay in business is not too much to ask.

At home, the winter weather weve had was refreshing. However, we have had several days where a few hours with a hot kettle on troughs and bleeding through waxed diesel has tried my patience.

It makes me think how disorganised I am compared with other farmers, particularly in Scandanavia where they cope with much worse winters

This season, cows have received high iodine trace element boluses. We had a couple of calves which lost hair last season and although we couldnt blood test due to foot-and-mouth, iodine deficiency was the most obvious reason. I have thought about taking a couple myself.

Lambs sold just before new year averaged 205p/kg at 19.8kg deadweight. Hopefully, we will shortly be scrapie testing rams and ram lambs under the National Scrapie Plan. I say hopefully because NSP performance to date has not filled me with confidence.

Four different testing dates, not communicated within the NSP department, have left me unimpressed. All the staff Ive spoken to have been polite and friendly, but organisation must improve.

Teething troubles are to be expected, but to take the industry with them, the government must improve things and perhaps offer compensation for sheep needing to be culled due to undesirable genes. Wake me up, Im dreaming. &#42


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