Experts hoping for stability in prices

THE positive performance of livestock prices seen in the past 12 months must continue into 2010 while wasteful farming agencies should be scrapped to ensure the UK beef industry's future success, some of the country's top farming experts have said.
By The Newsroom
Published 22nd Jan 2010, 15:11 BST
Updated 22nd Jan 2010, 15:11 BST

Alistair Mackintosh, livestock chairman of the National Farmers Union (NFU) said current market signals suggesting that prices would hold throughout the year should be heeded.

Mr Mackintosh said there was acknowledgement that beef and sheep supplies would remain tight for 2010 and this, combined with the current favourable exchange rate, meant there was good reason to believe that the outlook should be positive for the beef and lamb sectors.

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The industry needed a continued and sustained period of price stability, he said.

Meanwhile the National Beef Association has called for an end to what it called the "scandalous waste of money" from useless agencies as part of a shake up of the nation's beef industry.

Ahead of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, the NBA said the massive amount of red tape and the absorption of a huge proportion of available funds by "self-interested executive agencies and quangos" needed to be completely eliminated.

NBA director Kim-Marie Haywood said: "Easily available, direct investment funding for farmers must replace the inefficient and costly government executive agencies such as the RPA (Rural Payments Agency) and the RDA (Rural Development Agency), which are currently charged with administering Rural Development Programme funds but which have failed miserably with the deliver.

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A worried public concerned about global food shortages wanted more effective domestic production while farmers were frustrated because their ability to produce more food was being curbed by excessive regulation that was a hangover from the time food production was a secondary consideration.