Beef and sheep farmers from across the region united to reject the proposals by Red Tractor Assurance (RTA) to move to lifetime assured beef.

The farmers were united in their condemnation of the ideas at a meeting in Cullompton on Thursday and complained that the RTA was bowign to pressure from the major multiples.

They argued RTA was bowing to pressure from the major multiples and would lead to a two-tier pricing system for farm assured and non-farm assured stock.

Under the current Red Tractor rules, beef cattle need to have spent 90 days on an assured holding before slaughter in order to be considered assured.

John Dracup, St Merryn Foods livestock procurement director and chair of the British Meat Processors Association’s beef and sheep group, who said the sector had worked hard post the BSE crisis in 1996 to be at the forefront of traceability, transparency and credibility but was in danger of losing ground: “Scotch beef is already life-time assured.”

There were 230 people present at the meeting. David Kivell, director of Kivells Auctioneers, argued that it was the supermarkets and the processors were demanding change rather than wider consumers.

Mr Kivell warned that the scheme would halve the number of stock going through and cause huge problems for hill farmers. One of the options in the consultation paper would involve auctioneers having to check to see if animals were farm assured.

John Hoskin, RTA Beef and Lamb National Beef Association representative, said the consultation had led to huge disquiet from beef “finishers” up and down the country: “In the past 24 hours I’ve had four calls from farmers finishing a total of 24,000 cattle annually, saying they do not want it”.

Mr Hoskin, who farms 1,500 acres in Dorset and Cornwall, warned Mr Dracup that his supply would be hit and it would drive some of the smaller abattoirs out of business.

Under the proposals, finishers will no longer be able to buy youngstock from farms which are not assured, which could result in small producers leaving the industry and a reduction in the national herd size.

John Vanstone, Cornish farmer and South West NBA chair, tabled a paper response urging farmers to reject the RTA consultation. The paper said the scheme should be dropped, accusing it of being another tax on farmers.

RTA say in the consultation that recruitment of store/suckler producers, is essential for delivery and are proposing a Cattle Rearing Register, which could be free, for non-assured producers, which could start as early as September 2015, followed by a Cattle Rearing Scheme for launch in April 2017.

But the NBA South West said that to get on board the 14-16,000 store and suckler producers not currently assured would cost the industry £23m. It also says the Whole Live Assurance proposal should be dropped given that producers now have far more regulations to adhere to that when farm assurance started, including British Cattle Movement Service/Cattle Tracing System (BCMS/CTS), sheep movement licences, 13 statutory cross-compliance management requirements and 11 agricultural environmental conditions.