WE are approaching the end of the local show season. Some have held livestock classes and others have deemed the regulations forced on them by DEFRA too onerous to comply with and haven't. The shows with the livestock have, it seems, been far better supported. This seems to me to endorse the fact that agriculture is still very much the mainstay of the county show.

Some concessions have been won by the NFU with the 20-day standstill ruling, whereby any animal purchased by a farmer would instigate a 20-day period when he would be unable to sell any livestock off the farm other than animals directly to an abattoir for slaughter. This ruling has crucified the store cattle and lamb producer and made their business unworkable. If you had purchased a calf today you would not be able to sell any livestock whatever for 20 days off your farm. Under the new rules breeding stock brought on to farm are now exempt, subject to a 20-day quarantine, which should help to relieve the pressure in the autumn breeding sales period.

Bureaucracy and paperwork are becoming the farmer's biggest nightmare. I've just spent three hours preparing the necessary paperwork to send off 14 cull cows to slaughter. There is a barrowful of paper for each animal and just one digit out of place and the Rural Payment Agency will refuse to pay for the animals. Harvest is well under way and the weather seems to have settled again which helps a great deal, although farmers are in a very subdued mood with regards to the prospective prices for cereals. Cereals and milk are being sold at below the cost of production, pig and poultry producers are being driven out of business by cheap imports and, as I have just said, bureaucracy and legislation is strangling the whole industry.

I believe the NFU should become more forceful and militant in its approach to improving farmers returns from the market place, farmers have been receiving the least return from the food chain for a long time now.

PAUL THOMAS, Vice-chairman, Herefordshire NFU.