10/10/2009

Associated Press

Eastern Oregon ranchers are considering a mobile slaughtering plant in Baker County to process beef that's now hauled out of state.

Financial and environmental hurdles impede a fixed meat processing plant in Oregon, said Dan Forsea, president of the Baker County Livestock Association.

Over the last 30 years, he says, dozens of Oregon plants have been shut down.

But Forsea says a rancher near Walla Walla, Washington, has built one of the first mobile slaughtering plants the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved.

He says that could be a model for one in Oregon.

Forsea says that the closest place now to get cattle slaughtered is near Boise.

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Information from: Baker City Herald, http://www.bakercityherald.com/