I was feeling the pressure when I woke up on the morning of the Lakeland fair at Kendal auction. We have applied to be part of the new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme, including its “native breeds at risk” supplement. This means that 80% of our livestock must be native pedigrees, so we have spent thousands of pounds on pedigree belted galloway cows and pedigree sheep, in the hope that it will help with our application. We’re now trying to sell our unregistered/non-pedigree sheep, and hope to cover the cost of what we’ve already spent.
As the sun rose, I lay in bed looking out across the Howgill Fells worrying about a shortage of buyers – due to outbreaks of bluetongue among cattle in the east of England, farmers there are restricted in how far they can travel. Then there was my concern about our SFI status. For weeks the rural payments system has said “checking application”.
However, there were sheep to load and sort into batches. We had to do two trips with the cattle trailer to get them all to the auction. Once there, we sorted the sheep into groups: I was to sell in the hill sheep category (herdwicks), my son would sell the majority in the cross breed category (texel).
We went for breakfast in the auction cafe, though I only had a cup of tea as I didn’t feel like eating until I had sold the sheep. As well as a cafe there are several other farming services – agricultural suppliers, a tyre shop and a tractor dealership. There was no time for shopping though, as I had to pick up my “market stick” and get into the ring.
As the price of the first pen of sheep rose, I began to relax. The sheep would all sell well to good local homes. As the auctioneer took the bids, I tried to keep an eye on who was bidding, so that we could give them some “luck money” after the sale. This is a way of saying “thank you for buying, I hope they do well for you”. We have another 50 lambs to sell soon – to “store” to a farm with a longer growing season and better grass – and then we are ready for winter.
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