Originally from: mark purdey
                        
For Gee –

You obviously hold a rigid mindset over the BCMS issue and appear to be incapable of reading what i am actually saying here.

I reiterate for the last time that I did send in my last batch of calf passports on time ,and that the post had delayed the delivery by five days – also admitted by BCMS themselves.

I will also reiterate for the last time , that, like you, I do support the basic set up of calf passports and have no intention of disrupting this system by my actions. My issue is with the maladministration of this system by some of its officials and their intransigent position that they have adopted towards resolving some of its problems – most especially the working towards the most appropriate form of penalty for late applications. No one in their right mind could agree on a penalty which ends up depriving the community of a supply of food. The offender should recieve the punishment, not the global community.

Why is the farmer who registers 1000 calves a year so much more 'professional' in the mind of Gee than the farmer who only registers 35. The obvious difference is that the famer who is registering 1000 calves a year is going to employ labour – probably a farm secretary – who will take care of all of the bureaucratic work without ever being required to go outside and get their hands mucky.

Put yourself in a day of my life and you would find yourself needing about three bodies to cope with the seven days a week of working to keep my show on the road. Apart from having eight demanding children to bring up ( most of them teenagers who need taxiing around ) , over recent weeks I have been running the farm single handedly ( milking twice daily / organising TB testing / pulling turnips ), building an extension bedroom onto my barn conversion, refurbishing the milking parlour, building a further cattle yard, writing / editing and peer reviewing my own and other people's medical journal articles, writing a book, delivering visiting lectures at various Uni departments, organising the microprobe analysis of my samples, applying for a patent, carrying out a field study in Sicily, filling out single farm payment forms, filling out research grant applications, filling out family income supplement benefit forms.......... and now organising a court case to achieve my legal right to a cattle passport etc. Much that I like doing things and running a full life, I do not particularly like having to waste my time with the petty bureaucratic wrangles over the passport of one calf .

Best,

mark