MEMBERS of Okehampton and Hatherleigh NFU will meet a representative from the Intervention Board tomorrow (Friday) to press the case for keeping a Hatherleigh abattoir in the Government's cow culling scheme.
The OTMS (Over Thirty Month Cattle Scheme) is being withdrawn from West Devon Meat at the end of December which will mean farmers having to transport their animals to Somerset and beyond to be slaughtered.
The number of abattoirs operating the scheme countrywide are being reduced by 40 to 20 to cut costs and Devon will lose its only facility for slaughtering cattle over 30 months.
James McInnes, chairman of Okehampton and Hatherleigh NFU, said the decision to take the contract away from Devon, which was the most livestock-intensive area in the country, did not make any sense.
'The extra costs to farmers will be between £15 and £20 per cow,' he said. 'Apart from the cost implications farmers are very fond of their old cows and after milking them for eight or ten years the thought of them having to travel such a long way at the end of their lives is very upsetting.'
It is feared many jobs will be lost at West Devon Meat which is Hatherleigh's largest employer with 45 staff.
Mr McInnes said losing the contract would be a major blow to Hatherleigh and agriculture in the area as a whole.
'We want to point out to the Intervention Board that the figures do not add up.
'The abattoirs which are left in the scheme will not have the capacity to deal with the amount of animals that have to be killed.'
Other NFU members from Devon will also be at the meeting with Alex Sutton from the Intervention Board tomorrow.
Four Devon and Cornwall Liberal Democrat MPs, including West Devon and Torridge MP John Burnett, are due to meet Agriculture Minister Nick Brown this week in a bid to get him to overturn the decision.