Stunning views of Britain's livestock markets - a photo essay
It's a Thursday morning, and the auction house in Hereford is busy. The steep steps surrounding the ring have been filling for an hour, and there is anticipation in the air. This morning trade was good with both commercial buyers and farmers selling to each other.
The first batches were barren cows and cows with calves , but the following are mostly bullocks, varying from a paddock of three small Highlands with russet bangs and handlebar horns to a truck-sized Charolais.
While everyone is left in the circle of straw below in the auctioneers' stand, the mood changes a little, hardens.
Every week, every four corners of the country, at the gates of cities, cattle markets still sell animals. They mainly trade in sheep and cattle, although some sell pedigree animals, pigs or poultry. The risk of bird flu means that all sales of live birds in the UK are currently banned.
The majority of animals sold for meat in Britain are sold directly from farms to slaughterhouses, which then supply supermarkets, who now control around 90% of the UK meat trade, so markets like these exist to serve the farmer-to-farmer, farmer-to-small-scale trade. sformer, and any trade deficit from farmer to slaughterhouse.
By the 1960s, these proportions were reversed. In 1963, 95% of the meat trade went through auctions. At the end of the millennium, two things changed that almost o...
It's a Thursday morning, and the auction house in Hereford is busy. The steep steps surrounding the ring have been filling for an hour, and there is anticipation in the air. This morning trade was good with both commercial buyers and farmers selling to each other.
The first batches were barren cows and cows with calves , but the following are mostly bullocks, varying from a paddock of three small Highlands with russet bangs and handlebar horns to a truck-sized Charolais.
While everyone is left in the circle of straw below in the auctioneers' stand, the mood changes a little, hardens.
Every week, every four corners of the country, at the gates of cities, cattle markets still sell animals. They mainly trade in sheep and cattle, although some sell pedigree animals, pigs or poultry. The risk of bird flu means that all sales of live birds in the UK are currently banned.
The majority of animals sold for meat in Britain are sold directly from farms to slaughterhouses, which then supply supermarkets, who now control around 90% of the UK meat trade, so markets like these exist to serve the farmer-to-farmer, farmer-to-small-scale trade. sformer, and any trade deficit from farmer to slaughterhouse.
By the 1960s, these proportions were reversed. In 1963, 95% of the meat trade went through auctions. At the end of the millennium, two things changed that almost o...
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