Sir,

Interesting to read Scott Donaldson's take on today's auction system, that he is so sure that this system at present gives a fair price to the producer?

He should take a stroll through island and Highland auctions to see for himself how animals are sold for a 'fair' price!

It is a very well known fact that in our world of capital system, that 'Cartels' are illegal – it stifles competition, yet we know that there is no competition when one buyer is allowed to bid and that one person is buying for up to twenty businesses. Is this fair on the producer in a supposed competitive market?

We producers have the heavy end of the stick. We birth, put the paperwork on the animal, all the rest are percentage takers until the consumers eat it, yet we get the least for what we produce. Is this fair?

My view is that Mr Donaldson is feeling a cold wind coming into the business of selling animals by auction, this is why he put pen to paper, but if he was fair he would make the marts competitive again and squeeze out the cartels, and maybe the prime producers would get a better price!

Like one farmer from the Aberdeenshire area told me when tracing an animal, I told him he didn’t pay much for it: "I would have paid much more but I was the last bidder.”

Great fleecing system

Angus A Macdonald,

Balivanich,

Benbecula