Scotlands electronic sale postponed

12 April 2001



Scotlands electronic sale postponed

By FWi staff

AN ELECTRONIC and video livestock sale to be held by Aberdeen and Northern Marts on Friday (13 April) has been put on hold until later in the month.

The sale at the Thainstone Centre, Aberdeen, was postponed after the Scottish Executive delayed a decision to relax livestock movements.

This meant that any of the 1200 cattle above a line between the rivers Forth and Clyde could not be moved to buyers farms after the sale.

Staff at the mart had been working around the clock editing video footage of the stock, which it hoped would act as a trial for other video linked sales.

Most of the livestock had been filmed on farm. Footage of the animals was going to be played to farmers at 10am before the sale began at noon.

Rather than the animals being present at the sale, the video footage would have accompanied a description of the livestock in the sale catalogue.

Brian Pack, chief executive of the ANM Group which runs Thainstone, slammed the Scottish Executives decision to maintain the movement restrictions.

“Farming is a commercial industry and this decision is strangling an industry under tremendous pressure. It is very disappointing.