State proposes mobile trucks to do on-farm slaughtering

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP)--With few options for slaughtering their chickens, the Clarks rely on a butcher to come to their Hyde Park farm. But that means they can only sell the meat off the farm, because it's not inspected.

A state plan to bring the slaughterhouse and an inspector to the farm would help tremendously, she said.

"We have local restaurants wanting our poultry or turkey or whatever, and we can't sell it to them," said Judy Clark, of Applecheek Farm.

The state Agency of Agriculture has proposed buying a pair of mobile food-processing trucks that would travel from farm to farm, processing poultry, vegetables and fruit crops and possibly hogs, goats and sheep. The service would be a boon to farmers who live far from Vermont's few processing plants.

"We're hoping we could do it for this growing season," said Anson Tebbetts, deputy secretary of agriculture for the state.

The Clarks are not the only ones calling for it.

Only two Vermont slaughterhouses offer state-inspected processing to poultry farmers. Last July, a fire leveled Fresh Farm's Beef, in Rutland--the state's largest slaughterhouse--and left just eight slaughterhouses for cows, hogs and sheep, including one that will reopen in Grand Isle soon.

"There isn't anywhere near the capacity to handle the farmers," said Doug Flack, of Flack Family Farm in Enosburg Falls, who raises grass-fed beef and lamb in Enosburg Falls.

Gov. Jim Douglas' budget includes $100,000 for a poultry processing truck that might be retrofitted to process hogs and sheep. A second truck would process and freeze fruit and vegetable crops, Tebbett said.

The goal is to alleviate demand on slaughterhouses that are booked months in advance.

"The days are long gone when you pick up the phone and say 'I've got three beef I want to do Wednesday, and it's Tuesday,'" said John Wing, of Over the Hill Farm slaughterhouse in Benson.

He tries to get those customers in within two months, but says it's hard in the fall when demand is high.

That's a challenge for small scale farmers who have to make plans months in advance or turn to uninspected slaughtering when an animal becomes sick or injured.

"I have to book too far ahead, I have to truck too far, then I have to go back and pick it up and so it's a lot of distance, a lot of driving," said Flack.

"It's not like standing in a queue for a bus in London. When your animals are ready, you need a place to go to," he said.

Vermont Quality Meats Cooperative in North Clarendon, which markets lamb, veal, pork, poultry to New York City and Boston restaurants, drives its livestock to New York to be slaughtered now that Fresh Farms Beef isn't available and a Massachusetts slaughterhouse closed.

"It has become very difficult to get things processed as we require, in how we want it done and in terms of the volume," said Paul H. Paulsen, general manager of Vermont Quality Meats. "If I had to describe the situation now, I'd say it's tenuous."

Last month, Rebekah Bailey Murchison of Fair Wind Farm in Brattleboro drove to Maine when she couldn't find a Vermont slaughterhouse to process five lambs and pigs soon enough. Even so, she had to wait a week to get in.

But adding two mobile units is not the solution, she said. Regulatory changes are needed, too.

"Around Vermont, customers are clamoring for fresh local meat, and farmers are ready to expand their current production," she said in an e-mail. "What stands in between these two is a nightmare of restrictions: current slaughter and processing capacity, travel distance, lead time issues, scheduling and regulatory hurdles.

"If any one or two of these roadblocks were removed or lessened, production would immediately increase."

Flack wants the state to allow farmers who slaughter their cows or lambs themselves to sell their meat to the public, like small-scale chicken farmers are able to do.

"There are literally hundreds and hundreds of people who are doing what's best, on a small scale, slaughtering on farm. But the state says that's not allowed ... except for personal consumption," he said.

But for Clark, the mobile units are a step in the right direction.

"If we want to sustain farms in Vermont, we need to get this butchering taken care of to help the farmer out. We just need to do as much as we can to help farmers," she said.

5 Star OK

3/26/07

13

B

Date: 3/22/07

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