Livestock farmers left to deal with large numbers of dead sheep and lambs following the cold weather have said the government has failed to enact measures to help them.
After a week of negotiations with Defra officials, the NFU has written to Secretary of State Owen Paterson to appeal again for financial help to allow the free collection and professional disposal of dead animals that are now beginning to be stacked up in farm yards as the snow thaws.
Farmers have been battling to save sheep where possible but many are now at a low-ebb, emotionally and financially.
Some have lost up to half of their breeding stock and the lack of grass and feed to sustain the rest is a real concern.
Although Defra has announced a limited relaxation of the rules to allow farmers to burn or bury dead stock on farm, the NFU says Defra has so far refused to take the one single action that would really help farmers by committing to a package to collect those dead animals and dispose of them responsibly.
This has left farmers to shoulder the burden of cleaning up these animals which may end up costing thousands of pounds.
NFU livestock board chairman Charles Sercombe said: "In some areas of the country, we could be talking of huge losses for individual farms. No-one wants to see piles of burning animals in the countryside - it is not practical or desirable to dig pits to bury large numbers on-farm. It also flies in the face of what we have been told over the past few years from government about dealing with dead livestock responsibly.
"The only other options are for the farmers to pay someone to collect their dead sheep, or for them to load up their own lifeless flock into farm trailers and drive miles across the countryside to the knackers yard. This is yet another pressure for farmers who have been brought to their knees by a year that has seen upland livestock farm incomes halved, topped by the worst spring snow in living memory.
"It is not fair or reasonable for government to expect families who have spent the past week digging their animals out of the snow to deal with the clean up entirely by themselves. We are not ungrateful for the measures that Government have announced but they are requiring farmers to do things which are simply not practical in the situation which they face.
"No-one is asking for compensation for their loss but we urge Defra and the National Fallen Stock Company to make an effort to help with the real costs of clean up by offering a free collection service to dispose of the animals killed in this natural disaster."
The Scottish Government announced a £500,000 package to help meet exceptional costs that some farmers face in dgisposing of sheep, lambs and calves that perished in the snow last week.
Total losses in Dumfries and Galloway, South Ayrshire, Arran and Kintyre are unlikely to be finalised until a significant thaw takes place but the industry anticipates that for some businesses these will be considerable.
That support to have fallen stock collected is welcome and the Union has asked the Cabinet Secretary to give consideration to other financial measures that would assist the whole farming community.
The desperately poor weather of 2012 has been followed by a long, cold winter and the list of problems for farmers is growing – cash flow, additional feed and fuel bills, late drilling of spring cereals and so on.
"The last few days have been catastrophic on some farms, but we are now entering a phase when income losses and increasing costs will combine to create a perfect storm that will threaten the very existence of many otherwise robust units" said NFU Scotland President Nigel Miller.
"The financial pressures will build day by day across much of Scotland, but without grabbing the headlines. The legacy of 2012 and the prolonged winter of 2013 will affect all areas of Scotland. The longer the severe weather goes on, the more extreme and widespread the impacts are going to be."
