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.The legal requirements for vehicles used to transport :food products

are included in various areas of legislation such as the Health & Safety and Food .Safety regulations.

'Code of practice The Ministry for Agriculture Fisheries and Foods has established a code of practice far the control of salmonella. Section 10 of this code states that when moving the raw materials for food products either the owner or the agent should inspect all vehicles before loading to ensure they are clean and dry. if vehicles are used for the carriage of other goods or materials beforehand, they should be thoroughly cleaned, sanitised and dried.

Grain passport As recently as 1 August 1996 the UK Agricultural Supply Trade Association formalised this procedure under a voluntary code. Driver and consignor are asked to sign a document confirming the inspection and any other relevant details (including the use of post-harvest pesticides—a subsequent spraying at a store could produce an unhealthy concentration, for example).

UKASTA also recommends that the following goods should not be carried prior to the carriage of agricultural produce such as grains or pulses: Bovine by-products: chemical 1,1 products including fertilisers; fishmeal; glass; livestock and poultry; manure; meat and bonemeal; scrap metal; slaughterhouse waste and offal; toxic or hazardous substances.

Under the Food Safety Act operators are required to observe "due diligence" with regard to their transport practices.

IN7 ith the harvest season corning to a close, what kind of year has it been for the hauliers who transport crops from farm to market?

The harlst of cereal crops, now being com leted over much of the eastern side of the UK, is expected to be as gcx4 if not better, than the average 21 23 million-tonne year— good news or hauliers.

Favourable weather increases yields. Anybody with a lawn to mow can bear wint,ss to the good year it's been for g-owing grass. As cows will happil them to co news for fa Bad new also meant supplemen Rising d for home-pi increase in farmers a eat this until it's time for le home, it's been good mers.

for hauliers is that this es .i; feed was required to thc. animal diet.

rriand by supermarkets tduced food has led to an .upplier agreements for stabilised production, which is certainly good news for some hauliers.

Others, however, are concerned about falling nttes as competition for parts of their busines.s appears from transport specialists in other sectors.

Meanwhile, fallout from the BSE crisis is evident in the negative influence that the general uncertainty appears to be having throughout the farming co trnunity.

CMs str poll of hauliers in the agricultura business shows the consequent f ering levels of demand for fertilis and feed: two substantial sectors of the bulk agricultural movement .ket.

Economis influences on the market include a g owth in the demand for UK produ on supermarket shelves.

Tesco pr duct spokesman David Sawyer say-: ''Three years ago there were no rgod salad suppliers in the UK. N wadays there are three factories s pplying us alone.That market has Tri iwn significantly."

This m t be good news for hauliers. H wever, this is countered by large ounts of supermarket shelf space -ontaining out-of-season products, s ch as strawberries during Dece icr, and imports from abroad. E n during the season, availability is determined by price, i says John lcolm, chief economist I of the N tonal Farmers Union. "Some app s are higher yielding in France th 1 in England because there is mo e sunshine and a longer growing se 54 al," he says. "The UK produce also has to compete with foreign imports."

With their huge volumes of apples, the Australians, South Africans and French producers export only their best. They get rid of the rest on their domestic market, as we do. Therefore, our domestic produce is seen by the consumer in competition with the finest that those countries can produce.

While this is good news for the foreign operator, it is also good news for some UK operators returning from abroad.

Agricultural bulk transport is a two-way process. Inward movements include fertiliser, seed and pesticides. Outward movements generally involve lifted or cut crops being transported for storage to mills or direct delivery to the wholesale markets.

However, falling haulage rates are never far from an operator's mind. The construction industry continues to struggle and the equipment required is very similar to that of agricutural specialists. Some fear that too many refugees crossing the border into agriculture will depress rates further.

As so many agricultural specialists have a foot in each camp, these fears will continue until legislation — or quality procedures – restrict switches from one product area to the other.

But you can bet there is an agricultural haulage specialist involved somewhere, almost every day, whether it's a question of handling produce from Kent's "Garden of England", hauling cider apples from Herefordshire and Somerset, or carrying produce to market from any one of the many fruit and vegetable growing areas around the UK.

This is what some of them have to say about their experiences so farmn 1996... • ANDREW BLACK HAULAGE & STORAGE, NORTH BERWICK III Senior partner Andrew Black runs nine bulkers that do nothing else in the potato season but carry potatoes. "The potato tonnage per acre seems to be up so I can see a surplus this year," he says. "We also do tremendous tonnages of barley, wheat and oilseed rape."

Much of this work is farm to store but he also does a lot of business delivering to the big mills in Edinburgh and Glasgow. "This side of the work has been very good too," he adds.

Black, is concerned about the influx of nonagricultural specialist hauliers from the construction market, which has an adverse influence on rates. "It's quite easy for them to adapt vehicles provided they are reasonably clean," he says. "However, in years to come I can see it becoming more dedicated, so that customers expect us to provide the best possible vehicles and know that they are dedicated to serving the flour mills."

TRANSPORT & AWED SERVICES, SWAFFHAM, NORFOLK • Managing director Mike Forder says revenue from agricultural business has been a bit higher than last year. TAS operates seven bulk tippers which haul sugarbeet from farms, as well as delivering agricultural lime. Busy times are from July through to February. Unfortunately, this year's incremental rise has "not been enough to compensate for the state of the other part of the business, which is in construction work," he says.

TP NIVEN, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY • Proprietor Jim Niven runs milk tankers in the main but has two vehicles regularly committed to general farm work. Their busy time is usually after Christmas when stocks of fertiliser are built up. Ile brings the fertiliser up as a return load from Ellesmere Port. That goes on until the spring and work peaks around March and April time.

"Tonnages are down slightly," he reports. Work normally slows by about. June but it tailed off much quicker this year, although it has now picked up a little again.'

MARSTON & SONS, SHREWSBURY, SHROPSHIRE • Proprietor Derek Marston is one of hundreds of hauliers around the country who will be carrying sugarbeet from now until early February next year The company organises collections each day from nine local farms until the four-month harvesting season ends in February. The work is a succession of short hops, up to five loads in a day. "Some of it will be lifted and clamped (stored)

until it's

required by the British Sugar factory at Alscott near Telford. It takes sugarbeet deliveries only as it needs them, and this year it looks to be a reasonable crop. I don't expect to be doing much less than last year."

However, Manton also moves timber which is used in the erection of farm buildings and that sector of the agricultural supply industry was severely hit during the early part of the year. "The farm building side has slowed up," he says. "They (the suppliers) have been on a go-slow at work because the farmers haven't got the money to invest."

DENNIS OATES TRANSPORT, PENZANCE, CORNWALL • Dennis Oates has vehicles committed to vegetables from April to November. "It's mainly cauliflowers, spring greens and brassica crops, with some flower bulbs," he says. "We're also busy with potatoes around the second week in May, which goes on until the end of June. We go to all the principal markets." At the moment, Oates is concentrating on its international fish transport while the UK business is quiet. He suspects that while there has been little difference in the vegetable volumes moved this year, the BSE crisis could have a big knock-on effect across the board in terms of demand for vegetables, but not because people are switching from meat to vegetables. 'People have vegetables with roast beef dinners. If they don't have the roast beef they might not want the cauliflower and the cabbages that go with them," he says.

Mind you, the BSE problem has also tipped extra work in his direction. "We are carrying a lot of skimmed milk which is going into intervention stores because it can't be exported," he adds.

DAVID NAYLOR, ASHBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE

• David Naylor's business has missed out on straw haulage this year both because of the larger amounts of hay and because the farmers are short of cash.

"Last year I moved a lot of straw from Norfolk up into Derbyshire," he says. "This year rve moved none because the farmers don't want it. It's a bill they have to pay after 30 days but it sits there until the winter—it's an outlay they can do without."

Most of the work for his 11 vehicles is in the haulage of fertiliser and feed. He confirms a change in the demand in both.

"At this time of year farmers normally start buying fertiliser for next year," he says, "but they are not coming forward. If they are, they are not buying as much because they don't know where they stand."

JAMES MCKINNON JNR, KILMARNOCK

• Managing director Bob McKinnon is national chairman of the Road Haulage Association. Of his 32 vehicles, 14 are fitted with feed blowers and work for these has dipped this year after a busy time during the drought last year.

"The favourable weather this year means there is more grass around, and while the farmers have too many animals on the farms, the grass is quite sufficient to keep them all alive," he says. "Normally they would be topping that up with a diet of compounded feed but they are cutting back on that."

BARNET & GRAHAM, PENRITH, CUMBRIA

• Arthur Hewetson is managing director of Penrith-based Barnet & Graham, which specialises in moving raw materials for bulk cattle feed to the mixing mills for manufacturers such as Cuddle Billington, Cargills and AF Feeds Barnet runs 30 tippers and engages 20 subcontractors on a regular basis.

Hewetson says: "We are normally busier in the winter time when the cattle are laid in. When the cows are out to grass in the summer, work is relatively quiet. "We don't seem to be sending out as many vehicles at all this year," he adds, "and work is definitely down on last year. I'm not ure if it's anything to do with the BSE crisis or not."

DARLINGTO IS, MERSEYSIDE • August uric September are the busiest months in the agricultural year for Paul Snead, transpc manager at Darlingtons on Merseyside. A typical 3: iedule involves Five out of his 10 vehicles loading barley from the Lancashire arer. running down into Shropshire or Staffordshire and reloading there with rapeseed for the mills in Preston.

Snead saystt at work in 1 996 has been pretty good so far with vehicle utilisation rates high thanks to good crop yields. But while he describes current haulage rates as "reasonable", plenty of hard work is still required by agricultural hauliers who want to achieve a solid operational pay-out.

"You have to do at least two loads a day plus a set-up, because many of the mills we deliver to close I:y 4pm," he says, "The bonus ir that the Farmers are easy going and will usually load either very early morning or late Evening," he concludes. MANSEL DAVIES, PEMBROKESHIRE • Nearly all the farms sur

rounding Pembrokeshire haulier Man sel Davies spe cialise in dairy produce. Managing director Stephen Mansel Davies runs a fleet of 130 vehicles with about 60 dedicated to feed and fertiliser, 30 in milk haulage and the remainder in construction work.

"During last year's drought the grass was poor so the farmers had to buy in more animal feed to supplement it," says Davies.

"We're quieter now than we were this time last year," he adds, "because there is less compound feed being brought in."

Davis suggests that because of the current uncertainty over the future, many farmers are not fattening up cows which are likely to be victims of BSE culls: "The farmers have a cashflow problem because they are unable to sell the cattle and are obviously cutting back on their spending."