United Kingdom-Farming in Wiltshire.

Record livestock prices are giving farmers a welcome respite after years of making ends meet.

Prices at Frome market, which caters for many farmers and buyers in Wiltshire, have risen by almost a third over the last four to six months.

And auctioneer Peter Kingwill says the reasons for the rise is the traditional economic theory of supply and demand.

He said: "Frome market is enjoying a real buzz at the moment with record numbers of sheep and cattle at our Wednesday and Friday markets, with record prices being recorded.

"This is fundamentally down to supply and demand. A lot of livestock farmers have given up over the last few years because of falling prices and rising costs. The watershed was the BSE crisis.

"The value of sterling has now dropped like a stone, which has really taken imports out of the picture, and there are fewer beef producers around than there used to be. So naturally prices are going up.

"This is a legacy of the consumer boom. Meat has been too cheap for too long and now we are looking at the prospect of it becoming too dear."

But higher prices for meat producers is not necessarily the salvation of the hard-pressed Wiltshire farming community.

Muriel Naughton, who farms with her husband Cameron at Bishops Cannings, near Devizes, said prices would need to stay up for a good length of time to make a real difference.

She said: "This is what we have been saying for some time. We warned that if pig farmers were driven out of business by prices that were too low to make it viable there would be knock-on effect later on.

"Although the higher prices will make life vastly easier for us, many pig producers have had to keep their heads above water with lots of extra borrowing.

"People have been putting investment on hold but you can only do that for so long before buildings start falling down and machinery packs in.

"So the higher prices will have to be sustained for quite a way into the future before farmers are back on an even keel."

While livestock prices have been soaring, arable prices have dropped. Mrs Naughton said: "We can survive if one set of prices stays high. As long as they both don’t slump at the same time."

Curiously enough, at least at a local level, the rise in prices has not kept customers away from butchers shops.

Steve Cook, director of Walter Rose & Son in Devizes, said: "We have just had our best January and February ever. I can’t put my finger on it. With prices going up at market, you would expect business to slow down and it hasn’t happened.

"We import very little stuff. Most of it is local and there is always a demand for good local produce."