MOST of us had fun and games getting the harvest in and are now having fun with the grain merchants. The grain merchants themselves, I don't think are too bad, but it is the feed mills pulling some wonderful stunts especially on wheat.

The message I'm getting from farmers is that those who have a temporary grain store and can't store beyond that because they use the sheds for livestock are the ones getting punished. As soon as these mills see the temporary grain passports they complain the bushel weight or the moisture is not quite right - and they are trying to take several pounds off when we know these mills do not dry below 16 per cent. So if you are 0.7 or 0.8 above 15 per cent they are trying to get £5 or £6 off. I think it is about time we shut our stores and said "on your bike" or we will not grow it next year - and that is exactly what we will be doing!

We will not be doing any wheat next year, one mill has taken our wheat and wants more while the other said the moisture and weight weren't right on exactly the same crop - so I have stood up and gone for independent testing. Something I hope any of you with the same problem will also do.

Moving on, we have had some ding- dongs with Defra on the lifting of the OTMS. I hope things are moving forward and we should be able to announce some good news shortly. The one thing I have pressed for is the price of OTMS cattle to go up, when the price in southern Ireland was lower the government put our price down. Now the price has been higher for several months over there, the British farmer is losing £120 per head after the various grades and trimmings used. So the NFU has requested from Ma Beckett that this £120 is reinstated ASAP. I hope you all will support me on that side.

Eighteen months ago, I reported on a trip to France we went on, looking at BSE testing. We have just had a study tour, sponsored mainly by EBLEX partially by the NFU, and I managed to persuade half of my livestock board to come and be educated. We also had a member of the NSA and NBA and EBLEX staff with us as well as an interpreter to help! Last time I was there, the French were looking to reduce the BSE testing from eight hours to six, and they have done that. They use a vacuum cleaner tube to remove 75 per cent (at the worst) and 95 per cent (at the best) of the spinal column. Then they split the spinal column with a circular saw, they do not cut the vertebrae out any more. They then use another hand held sterile vacuum cleaner to make sure all the spinal cord is removed and finally another sterile vacuum is used to remove any bone chip from the saw off the spinal column.

This may sound all very advanced, but what was even more incredible was that all the equipment was designed by the MLC and not taken up by our meat industry, Government or even worse the meat hygiene services. In the UK, we would have to dump the carcase before and the two after if we had a positive negative test for BSE in a carcase. In France now, because of this system, they only dump the positive negative.

While we were there we were allowed to look at the Danish system for electronic/mechanical grading of carcasses, which I don't think was as impressive as the French one I saw 18 months earlier. The Danish one was on trial, but it all leads to the inconsistency of the eye being taken out of the system. The difference and the quality of the work in the abattoirs in the last 18 months were fantastic and we had a lot to look at. We followed the work through to the processing side and then to the supermarket. We visited one of the largest supermarket chains in France. On the meat counter everything was clearly labelled with country of origin, where it came from, all the bits that you need. However, above the counter was a huge display card explaining to the consumer what the bar code and signs on the label meant. We went behind the scenes to their own cutting rooms - very similar to our own the meat comes in vac-packs and trays. But they are much further ahead than us in that they do the ID in their abattoirs and supermarkets to the individual animal - not batches as Tesco tell us on their website.

The main thing which helps the farmers over there is that the retailer cannot sell below the cost of production, a theory close to my heart and why the original Farmers for Action was set up initially. France, Spain and several other European countries do not sell below the cost of production. Why can't this country's farming leaders, the NFU, NBA, NSA etc be banging the table for this? This is the most frustrating thing about our industry. I can beat the table for the livestock industry but where is everyone else?

At least the team that went over with me saw with their own eyes how far behind we are.

Now we are having all these cross compliance notices come to us all for CAP changes. I don't want to shock you too much but I was seriously frightened with what we saw in France. They cannot tip on their fields more than 150 cubic metres of farmyard manure. If they do they can only leave it tipped on the field for a maximum of ten days before it has to be spread. All farmyard manure in France now has to covered and they are building sheds to put it in. That is coming our way with our cross compliance? The extra on costs of this new CAP reform to the farmer at the coal face will shock us all. We think we have good environmental workings in this country. The Danes, Holland and France are all run by environmentalists and it is getting more frightening.

After having got the five UK farming unions together over the OTMS in December the southern Irish, having seen what we have achieved, are bringing the French beef farmers union over to join us. So we are starting to make an alliance with other livestock unions to counteract those ten new countries coming into Europe. Let us hope our alliance will grow further!

Just to let you know I am stepping down from EBLEX. I think it is time for someone else to have a closer eye on the meat industry. But lookout, the big retailers - I'm watching you for this Argentinean beef and if I have to stand up and say: "Chaps, we'll have to go and investigate." Most of you know how we do that! I have just received news that Sainsbury's is dropping all its abattoirs and meat processors, except for one. It is looking to ABP, the Irish company in the UK, to supply the majority of its beef only. We have some major problems looming, I think we are moving into a winter of discontent. So whatever organisation you are with, we all need to stick together as one.