Farmers show their resilience

Farmers across Shropshire and Mid Wales enjoyed a welcome boost at an annual livestock sale following a tough year, writes Shropshire Star Rural Affairs Correspondent Nathan Rous.

If you were looking for metaphors of how Shropshire's farming fraternity has coped with everything 2007 has thrown at them then the twinkling fairy lights draped around the show ring were not it.

But the rural fraternity are a tough breed - tougher than most - which is why the annual Christmas sale at Market Drayton livestock auction could well be the springboard everyone has been looking for.

Despite the surrounding gloom and the movement restrictions which continue to bite in the aftermath of foot and mouth and bluetongue, yesterday's lively sale proves you cannot put a good farmer down.

As auctioneer Bernie Hutchinson attached his customary headset and clambered onto the planks which run alongside the sheep pens, he was quick to show his admiration for the men and women who had gathered below him.

"It's been a dreadful year, but the fact so many of you are here, and with big smiles, shows our agriculture industry is resilient," he said.

Whether his rallying call made any impact on the prices is incidental, but those who had gathered with their wallets at the ready saw a welcome upturn in sales.

Butcher Geoff Plant, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, has been coming to the sales since 1980 and gave me a few tips on bargain-hunting.

He has been squeezing the backs and the hind-quarters of the half-dozen sheep in Lot 30 and tells me that by not looking at the auctioneer he'll bag them with little trouble.

A short-fire burst of "one-ten, one-twelve, one-fifteen" from Bernie and, as promised, he walks away with his chosen lambs in seconds.

"The prices are good today which makes a change from the summer," he says, but scoffs when I ask why shoppers have not seen prices drop in the supermarket.

"I think you've answered your own question," he said.

Bernie continues his 100mph repartee and, between sales, speaks as rapidly to his friends as he does into the sale microphone. He maintains his gusto in the box at the centre of the show ring where he smashes the gavel with such force a new piece of wood has had to be installed.

With farmers laughing and joking in groups of three, four and sometimes more, you can see why the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001 had such a devastating impact not only on their trade, but on their contact with the outside world.

For it is here, in the hustle and bustle of auction day, farmers feel most at home.

Yet one moment stands out from the day more than any other. As each farmer watches his cows turn heads in the show ring, a fiver is held aloft for all to see - a gesture which has been part of auction tradition for centuries and is believed to bring good luck in the sale.

Given everything that has been thrown at Shropshire's farmers during 2007, I hope that they get it.