Farmers who want to process their cattle into meat they can sell on the market have to travel two hours away to do so.
Johnny Knott, president of the St. Mary’s County Farm Bureau, wants to start a mobile meat-processing facility, certified by the USDA, on his farm in Mechanicsville, but neighbors near Reeves Road are concerned.
The St. Mary’s County Board of Appeals will hear the case on Thursday, Jan. 26.
Knott said cattle won’t be slaughtered at his farm. He intends to take the mobile unit to a customer’s farm and kill the animals there. “There, it’s a butcher shop. But when it leaves and comes back to my farm, it’s a meat processing facility,” he said.
Some slaughterhouses process thousands of cattle a day. “I’m not doing that,” he said. His operation would be on a small scale.
The refrigerator in the meat processing unit can only hold eight to 10 carcasses at a time, he said.
After an animal is killed, its carcass would be taken back to his Mechanicsville farm to be hung for curing, which takes between 10 to 21 days. Then the meat would be processed.
If the project gets approval, there will be “no smell, no odor, no traffic, no effect on their property,” Knott said of his neighbors. The Cedar Grove Farm subdivision adjoins one side of Knott’s farm.
Knott said he hasn’t bought the mobile precessing unit yet.
The closest USDA-certified slaughterhouses to St. Mary’s are in Hagerstown and Fauquier County, Va., he said.
Farmers can take their livestock to a local butcher shop, but they can’t sell the meat. USDA approval is required for that.
Since most St. Mary’s County tobacco farmers took a state buyout about a decade ago to stop growing their cash crop, they need to find other ways to stay in business.
“If this ain’t helping the farmer, I don’t know what is,” Knott said.
With USDA certification, “The customer gets piece of mind and it allows the meat to be sold in a retail setting,” said Donna Sasscer, agricultural specialist with the St. Mary’s County Department of Economic and Community Development.
If the mobile meat-processing facility is approved, “he cuts it up, wraps it up like a grocery store,” she said, and any waste is picked up by a rendering company.
“What a wonderful contribution to agriculture it would be to have a USDA facility here in our county,” Joseph Wood, past president of the St. Mary’s County Farm Bureau, to the board of appeals in December.
The case was postponed last month because new members were coming to the appeals board this month.
The county’s agriculture, seafood and forestry commission supports Knott’s project as well. “It is critical to have a local USDA facility available for those wishing to produce and consume local meats,” wrote member John Parlett to the board of appeals.
“There should be no adverse effects on Mr. Knott’s current farming operation or his surrounding neighbors,” Parlett wrote.
Knott raises cattle at a Hollywood farm (his father’s) and his Mechanicsville farm. The 34 head of cattle in Mechanicsville aren’t ready to go to the market so they won’t be slaughtered anytime soon, Knott said.
Why doesn’t Knott plan to process cattle at the Hollywood farm? “That farm belongs to my father. That’s not my farm,” he said.
jbabcock@somdews.com
