The build-up to Christmas is well on its way and I have already notched up several carol concerts, including the highly professional performance by Chanticleer Singers at Old Malton Church on Saturday night.

A packed church listened to a delightful and varied programme, including a piece by the Rev John Manchester's favourite composer, John Rutter.

On a more secular and rustic note, our own programme at the market is set out below:

Friday, December 19 - Normal store market

Sunday, December 21 - Special farmers market

Monday, December 22 - Sale of Christmas poultry from 2pm

Tuesday, December 23 - No market

Friday, December 26 - No market

Tuesday, December 30 - Fatstock market

Thereafter, the market days are back to normal.

The farmers market promises to be a good festive occasion, and David Lindley is putting on a raffle for a special Christmas hamper. Please come along and support your local producers.

"Arbre" has been the Government's flagship for promoting renewable energy and there must have been a lot of red faces in the green corridors when the company went bust last year.

Seven months ago, Russell Tutill, from Doncaster, and a group of farmers from Derby to Flamborough got together to form "Renewable Energy Growers". There is now new life in the coppice and willow is being harvested this autumn to go to the Drax Power Station, where it will be used alongside coal.

Growing willow coppice is one of those programmes that makes environmental sense but up to now has lacked commercial realism.

Russell Tutill himself has planted some 280 acres of willow, mainly on restored gravel pits, but he believes that there is potential for a million acres, which is some change in our crop rotation.

Anyway, the news will be greeted with great relief by those who have got some ageing willow coppice on their hands.

I got a mild ear-bashing on Saturday night from Nell Trevelyan for promoting pork sausages last week - and although I have no apology to make, I print a couple of her limericks on GM foods in order to balance my unashamedly carnivorous campaign.

"And if it's safe as they say;

Can't go wrong ... but it may ...

Who then is liable

When it's not viable?

Us? ... at the end of the day?

A Luddite? You're not being fair!

Progress is fine; but to where?

The Americans say

"Come, follow our way"

Obesity? Junk Food? .. Not there."

With all the regulation, paperwork and welfare costs, it is hardly surprising that beef production is forecast to drop by around 2pc in the EU this year.

In the UK for example, we are now only about 60pc self-sufficient in beef and our imports have risen to nearly 200,000 tonnes for the first nine months of the year compared to 161,000 tonnes in the same period in 2002.

France's situation is just as bad and their beef imports have risen by 19pc as well.

As a comment, I would suggest that those who enthusiastically enforce some of the sadistic edicts emanating from Brussels should remember that eventually they are going to run out of customers on which to prey.

A lot of our small farmer customers have already got fed up with being treated like criminals and have abandoned beef production altogether.

Instead, all those people who see our countryside as a garden and seek to over-control the treatment of our animals should remember the number of food miles that will be required to get the beef on their plate from Brazil.

With sterling in strong demand, the less-developed world is keen to get hold of hard currency and will undercut the British product to achieve this.

Currently, Brazilian rumps of beef are being floated at around £1.35/lb and legs of foreign pork are down to 80p/lb.

If you want to eat British this Christmas, make sure you look at the small print on the label.

Our well-travelled correspondent from Whenby has found a columnist in the Hampshire Chronicle, who has a similar mission to the Gazette & Herald, and one of his articles recently centred on the rising consumption of venison in this country.

Once it was the meat of kings, eaten only by we peasants if we were rash enough to risk a hanging by poaching them.

Today, the quality of farm venison is rapidly gaining for itself a reputation on the best restaurant tables and interestingly enough much of it is slaughtered at Elmhirst's abattoir at Barnsley. There is plenty of grazing surrounding the abattoir where the stock can recover from the stress of travel.

Carcasses are graded on the same basis as cattle, using the EUROP grid and payment is based upon quality.

Most of the meat is sold to supermarkets through a packing plant in North Yorkshire, although there is still some local trade to pubs and restaurants.

To those like myself who are ignorant of the economics of venison, finished red deer are worth around £3/kilo deadweight, sometimes with a 50p premium for local sales.

The biggest expense is new fencing, which needs to be over 6ft high in order to keep the herd within range.

It could be an interesting diversification to consider.

Pigs are one of the casualties at Malton in the aftermarth of FMD and we no longer sell them in the market.

However, at York, we have managed to continue with the condition, even if numbers are but a shadow of their former bulk and on Monday it was the Christmas show, where 335 turned up to trot out for the prizes.

The winner of the championship was Len Otterburn, from Tollerton, whose cutter pigs went on to make a 152p a kilo, all being bought by a local West Riding butcher, Aidan Roberts.

Len also took the lightweight pork class with a pen that made 130p a kilo. For those so interested in having a few pigs to sell on the spot market, trade overall was pretty healthy and we had an average of around 95p per kilo through the market.

Forward were 152 cattle, including 30 cows and 39 bulls, 462 sheep including 108 ewes.

Light steers to 110p (J A B Barker, Snainton), average 104.8p. Medium steers to 100p (J B and K Lunn, Wilton ), average 95.6p. Medium bulls to 118p (P M Allen , Great Barugh), average 99.4p. Heavy bulls to 114p (P and I Beal, Settrington), average 97.5p. Black and white bulls to 89p (P M Allen, Great Barugh), average 83.2p. Light heifers to 135p (G I Marwood, Harome), average 104.3p. Heavy heifers to 143p (G I Marwood, Harome), average 109.3p. Standard lambs to 110p (A Gofton, East Heslerton), average 108.1p. Medium lambs to 121.4p (A M Avison, Black Bull), average 114.3p. Heavy lambs to 113.8p (N and J Helliwell, Great Edstone), average 108.4p. Overweight lambs to 103.7p (E W Stead, Lockton), average 101p. Ewes to £67 (Ian Davison, Lebberston ), average £44.60.

Finally a special thanks to all those who donated to the charity box at the Christmas fatstock show. £161 was raised and donated to the Macmillan Cancer Trust.

Updated: 12:10 Wednesday, December 17, 2003