WEST Devon Borough Council is still awaiting a response following a plea for Government help to prevent a funding crisis at a major agricultural research station near Okehampton. Council leaders wrote to the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) calling for it not to cut the contracts it awards to the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER) at North Wyke, near Okehampton. Part of the institute?s £2-million shortfall will fall on the West Devon research station, which carries out extensive investigations into animal grazing behaviour, a sector for which Defra says it is no longer awarding new contracts. The move is expected to lead to job cuts at the station. North Wyke is one of four IGER sites nationally and employs a total of 80 staff. Cllr Dick Eberlie said Defra had told IGER it will stop funding research across many components of livestock in grassland systems, including the role of grazing livestock. He said: ?This is a serious change of policy. IGER has carried out so much important work in the service of farmers over the last 25 years, underpinning the change in working practices to produce sustainable and profitable goods for the market. ?Their work is endangered by a combination of government penny-pinching and an excessive preference for conservation rather than enterprise in the countryside.? Cllr Eberlie, along with the council?s other leaders, Margaret Garton and Pam Scannell, proposed the council write to Defra asking it to review the contracts decision, and MPs Geoffrey Cox and Gary Streeter to pursue the issue ?at the highest level?. The motion was backed by the full council at a meeting earlier this month. Cllr Eberlie added: ?Other research there will continue, such as that on soils, environmental quality, nutrient supplies, ammonia emissions, greenhouse gases, manure and biodiversity. Even so, the major cuts are a huge disappointment to us all.? Cllr Dilwyn Hughes said IGER?s work had been of immense value to the farming community over the years and was of international importance in agricultural research.
