Daily Post

Lamb Farmers Have Spring in Their Step

GOOD weather,healthy prices and favourable exchange rates are encouraging Welsh lamb producers to hope for a bumper season. The American BSE scare has also fuelled sheep industry optimism with the prospect of consumers in the US and the Far East switching from beef to lamb.

In Search of the 'Missing' Rights of Way ; at the Heart of the Country

ALTHOUGH the Countryside Rights of Way Act will not come into force until next year, the realready is a strong sense of trepidation among farmers and landowners. One of the less widely publicised consequences of the Act, which will open up vast new areas of the countryside to walkers and other users, is the Discovering Lost Ways project, which will report back this year.

Will W Ego It Alone On Historic Sfps?

ENGLISH farmers could receive a hybrid Single Farm Payment (SFP)- opening up the possibility that Wales could go it alone with a system based on historic receipts. UK junior farm minister Lord Whitty told this week's Oxford Farming Conference the historic receipts option was not a sustainable policy in the long term.

'No Evidence That British Badgers Harbour Sars Virus'

CONSERVATIONISTS have denied that Britain's badgers can harbour the virus which gives rise to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars). According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the animals found to carry SARS-like viruses in a Chinese market in 2003 were civet cats, racoon-dogs and one ferret badger -an Asian cousin of the common British badger. As a result of China's latest outbreak of the disease, in Guangdong,10,000 civet cats are being destroyed by the authorities -and controls m...

Country Diary

JANUARY 9- 10: Soil Association's 16th annual conference, Heriot- Watt University, Edinburgh. 10: Dispersal sale,Talybont Farm Life Museum.

Memories of Rural Life Go Under the Hammer

A QUARTER of a century of collecting will end on Saturday when Gwynfor Evans puts his hoard of rural memorabilia up for auction. The sale of almost 600 items, ranging from half a dozen classic tractors to a Penny Farthingbicycle,marks the final chapter of the Talybont Farm Life Museum.

Welsh Hunts Men Will Defy Any Ban

ALMOST two-thirds of hunt supporters in Wales are prepared to defy the law if hunting with dogs is banned by Parliament,according to a new survey published today. Just over 60pc of hunt supporters questioned in a Farmers' Union of Wales poll said they would be prepared to break the law if MPs made fox hunting with dogs illegal.

Anti- Bloods Ports Campaigners On Wrecking Spree

THOUSANDS of pounds of damage was caused when antihunt vandals attacked 17 farms near Chester over Christmas and the New Year. Hunt jumps were pulled down,livestock fencing ripped out and water pipes to cattle and sheep troughs were severed.

Towing Rules

Prime Prices

Madonna Row

Sheep Vaccine

Organic Sales

Concert Says Thank You

New Chairman

French Sales Up

Washington's Cattle Sales Restart After Bse Scare

We Want People with Mud On Their Wellies in Charge

OH dear. Bit of a cock up on the crop estimation front,as Reggie Perrin would say. A computer error apparently. Have you noticed how "computer error" has replaced "administrative error" as the most oft used excuse for human shortcomings?

Turbulent Year Ahead ; Cap Reform Will Dominate Everyone's Thinking Throughout 2004but,As Andrew Forgrave ,Rural Affairs Editor, Reports,More Mundane Issues Will Also Hold Sway

WITH 2004 marking the calm before the storm of CAP reform, farmers will continue to cast anxious eyes at factors which affect them in practical way more than Franz Fischler or Carwyn Jones ever could. As always farm gate prices will set agriculture's pulse, with favourable outlooks for the sheep and beef sectors offset by another year of probable gloom for dairy producers (seepanel).

Next Generation ; Young,Gifted and Welsh

New Montgomeryshire YFC officials. From left, standing,Jonathan Pryce,Nia Lloyd,Pennant Jones, Bronwen Harding,Emma Savage; seated,Emyr Jonesand Helen Roberts ALICE Earp from Llangurig YFC triumphed at the 53rd Montgomeryshire YFC Eisteddfod. While Trefeglwys YFC were overall winners, ahead of 17 other clubs,Alice won the chair, donated by Roger Parry Chartered Surveyors, Welshpool. In the club competition,at Newtown High School, the other top five placings went to Llanfair Caereinion,Dyffryn...