Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Appalling scenes at livestock market
Country Notebook
OVER the years there have been occasions when I have truly despaired of the British farming community. And I have reached one such point yet again after reading of the appalling scenes at Sedgemoor livestock market.
Social distancing rules ignored, farmers refusing to wear face masks and the whole Covid issue being treated as some kind of a joke. No wonder the authorities have threatened to close the place down – and I cannot blame them.
We have had to lobby hard to keep livestock markets going during lockdown and have only been able to do so by applying strict regulations: farmers can drop off animals but then sales are conducted remotely.
But obviously those attending Sedgemoor auction centre don’t consider that the rules apply to them.
No blame can be attached to the auctioneers. They have done their utmost to keep the place safe with notices plastered everywhere, hand sanitisers at every turn and systems in place to try to ensure social distancing is maintained.
But at the end of the day what auctioneer is going to take on a truculent farmer and insist on him wearing a mask?
No, regrettably the fault lies entirely on the farming side – and there is evidence to back up that assertion. I was speaking to a feed merchant who was absolutely disgusted at farmer clients wandering in unmasked – and retorting to his suggestion that they might like to put one on by telling him that if he starts getting funny about the matter there are other merchants they can take their business to.
I’m afraid this whole issue is another symptom of an inward-looking farming community which over the years has been a law unto itself and repeatedly contributed to the negative image so many members of the public now hold of the industry as a whole.
Don’t those attending Sedgemoor realise the damage they are doing? Don’t they read the papers or listen to or watch the news? Haven’t they realised that there is currently a disturbing and escalating anti-farmer sentiment in this country?
Conducting themselves at an auction centre in the manner, as one inspecting official put it, ‘of a rugby scrum’ is only going to further damage the industry’s reputation
Worse than that, it is simply going to provide more ammunition for the likes of the supermarkets which have been trying to persuade the Government for years that livestock markets aren’t necessary.
There is nothing they would like to see more than their general demise because that would shift the trade to deadweight and give the retailers almost total control over the meat sector.
Given the retailers’ lobbying power and given the growing antifarmer sentiment among the population in general, livestock farmers are treading on very thin ice at the moment and need to be conscious of that – not stupidly flouting every last regulation.
My late and much-missed old friend Derek Mead did the livestock sector a huge favour when he achieved his ambition of providing the South West with the country’s most up-to-date livestock market at Sedgemoor.
It appalls and infuriates me to think that its very existence is now threatened by thoughtless, arrogant individuals who appear to believe that they know better not only than the Government but than some of the best scientific minds in the country.
What auctioneer is going to take on a truculent farmer and insist on him wearing a mask
DOVE of peace? Well, not quite in my garden.
I have a pair of collared doves that feed under the peanut hanger halfway down the lawn and they defend their stomping ground as best they can.
You wouldn’t bet on a slim and delicate dove seeing off a swaggering magpie, but I was surprised to see one dove raising its wings and stomping across to move on the bulkier corvid intruder. It sheepishly retreated.
The peanut hanger is positioned in my apple tree and attracts a typical assortment of garden birds, with the star visitor being a male great spotted woodpecker. A bird with the ‘wow’ factor.
Whenever he hacks into the peanuts, all the crumbs tumble down on to the grass below. The doves must think it rains food when woodpeckers are around.
I’m pleased to also see reed buntings are back this year – very similar in appearance to house sparrows, but the males have much more black on the head and both sexes have white outer tail feathers. Some years they are around, others not and I feared they had gone for good.
The other bird worthy of mention that joins the doves under the peanut hanger is a grey wagtail. This is a bit of a misnamed bird, given it has a bright lemon belly and looks far more colourful than the drab ‘grey’ suggests. However, it does have a grey back, and the name ‘yellow wagtail’ has already been taken by a closely related summer visitor.
Pied wagtails are common garden visitors, but the grey wagtail, a species closely associated with freshwater, less so and has undoubtedly been attracted by the stream that cuts down to the neighbouring field. It is the waggiest of the wagtails, beating out baton rhythms with its long tail, possibly as a form of communication or to flush out insect prey, it remains something of a mystery.