Dairy
farmers in Eastern Ontario and Quebec may get a new opportunity to sell cull
cows to a packing plant, this time in Upper New York State.
The Common
Council of Rome, N.Y., which is almost directly south of Kingston and the
Thousand Islands border crossing, has approved amendments to the city’s zoning
code that would open the door to a meat processing plant in certain industrial
zones, the Utica
Observer-Dispatch reported.
The
changes come five months after the city’s zoning board shot down a local
developer’s plan to locate a plant in a vacant manufacturing site.
Rome’s
director of community and economic development says the city would like to
support the local agricultural community with a processing plant for dairy cull
cows and needed to get rules governing such a development on its books.
The former
Levinoff-Colbex plant near Montreal has failed as has the Kitchener plant
started by Gencor, an artificial insemination business.
Cargill’s
Better Beef Ltd. plant at Guelph began taking cull cows, playing a part in the
failure of the Gencor plant.
The main
reason for the failures has been stiff competition from plants in the United
States.
