By Ewan Pate, farming editor

AUCTIONEERS ARE a pretty incorrigible bunch. Even when they should be relaxing, they cannot stop selling things.

Alan Jess, president of the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers (SAMW), was one of the speakers at the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland (IAAS) last weekend.

He was wearing a particularly dazzling tie, which he said he would sell if the proceeds went to charity.

Immediately, IAAS president Jack Clark summoned the youngest and newest member of the auctioneering fraternity to the top table to conduct an impromptu sale.

It was certainly a case of being in at the deep end for 20-year-old Greg McDougall, of John Swan Ltd, St Boswells.

He had made his auctioneering debut only the day before, selling used fence posts at a roup.

However, unfazed by the presence of the elite of the Scottish auctioneering world, he conducted himself with aplomb and soon raised a couple of hundred pounds from an enthusiastic audience.

His success should really come as no surprise. For generations agricultural auctioneers have been happily matching willing buyers and willing sellers in a public arena.

The surprise might come because they are still able to do so after a decade of trauma.

BSE in 1996 and foot-and-mouth in 2001 could easily have finished off live markets, but they didn’t.

Of the two perils, BSE was certainly the most frightening, because it involved the unknown.

All markets were suddenly closed in March 1996 without any certainty that they would ever open again.

Foot-and-mouth held its own threats and threw the spotlight on market biosecurity and unrecorded animal movements.

However, a remarkable resilience has seen the auction system not only survive but injected it with a degree of new confidence.

There are even two new markets on the drawing boards.

John Swan Ltd, with Jack Clark as managing director, has plans for a new centre at St Boswells, while United Auctions has well publicised plans for a replacement market at Stirling.

These are considerable investments in the infrastructure of Scottish agriculture, with the Stirling market likely to cost around £10 million.

Both new markets envisage rural, retail, office and catering components alongside the pens and rings of a traditional market.

These facilities should make them real hubs for the communities which they serve.

Uel Morton, chief executive of Quality Meat Scotland, had already praised the role markets play as gathering places, saying, “I am well aware of the importance of a transparent auction system which handles 170,000 prime cattle and two million sheep each year.”

The prices at auction were also a price-setting guide for prime stock sold direct to abattoirs.

Including store and pedigree sales the total numbers sold at auction swell to 600,000 cattle and three million sheep.

To rebuild the markets to that sort of scale has needed willingness to change in what had been a traditional sector.

Biosecurity officers are now appointed for each market and animal welfare is at the top of the agenda.

These measures are sensible, but they simply have to be in place due to the level of public scrutiny.

Logging livestock movements has also been a challenge for markets.

Traceability is no longer an option and market staff have had to devise foolproof methods of recording transfer of ownership on a grand scale and within the very short timeframe of a busy auction day.

Mr Morton also highlighted the importance of quality assurance.

With farms, hauliers, markets and abattoirs all assured with dedicated schemes he was sure that the food chain was more robust than it had ever been.

It isn’t all rosy. Alan Jess had already warned of the urgent need to have beef-in-the-bone regulations altered to allow cattle between 24 months and 36 months of age to be included.

SAMW are also working hard to build up a better working relationship with the Meat Hygiene Service.

However, there is relief that the red meat industry has a future and the 23 member companies of IAAS seem well placed and willing to play their part in it.