Knott envisions starting mobile slaughterhouse in St. Mary’s Co.

By SEAN CLOUGHERTY
Managing Editor

MECHANICSVILLE, Md. — Johnny Knott was sitting in the sale barn at the Fredericksburg, Va., livestock auction a few years ago around Christmas when he saw a farmer bring a single cow through the ring.
“This old man came in and you could tell he was poor,” Knott said. “He brought one cow in there and he didn’t get hardly anything from that cow. He could have been trying to get some money to get his kids something for Christmas.”
Returning home from the sale, Knott said he decided to look for a way to help farmers with small livestock herds get a better price for the their animals.
He started with a plan to refurbish a tobacco barn on his 33-acre property into a slaughterhouse and meat packing facility about a year ago, but opposition from surrounding neighbors led Knott to revise the plan.
He now hopes to buy a mobile slaughter trailer which would go to other farms to slaughter livestock and bring them back to Knott’s farm for aging, butchering and packaging.
“I could go to their farm and do it,” he said. “We need something like this in (St. Mary’s County). It could be a real asset.”
Knott said he’s doesn’t want to put a farm store on his property and sell meat retail to customers.
His plans are to sell packaged meat wholesale to local restaurants and to other farmers with on-farm stores.
For Knott, the project comes at a time when Maryland and especially Southern Maryland is heavily promoting efforts to buy locally grown meats and produce.
And as many Southern Maryland farmers who accepted the tobacco buyout reach the end of their payments, Knott said this could offer an opportunity for them to keep their farms viable.
“The farmers have got to figure out another way to survive or they’re going to have to sell,” he said.
Knott has a small herd of beef cattle at the 33-acre Mechanicsville property and owns more cattle with his father, John Knott Sr., in Hollywood, Md.
“We’ve raised cattle all my life,” he said.
This year, he said he hopes to have his farm certified for organic production. Knott has also practiced in real estate in the county for years.
St. Mary’s County classifies meat processing facilities as a major agricultural industry, requiring a conditional use permit from the zoning department’s Board of Appeals.
Knott’s hearing with the board is scheduled for Jan. 26 in Leonardtown.
Were it classified as a minor agricultural industry, a category that includes “minor dairy processing facilities and small scale grain mills” according to the county zoning ordinance, the project would not require an appeals board hearing and be permitted.
Knott said with the trailer he is looking at purchasing for mobile slaughter, he could kill no more than six to eight beef animals in a day and it wouldn’t be able to happen every day because he wouldn’t have room to age the meat.
Plus, he said, there isn’t enough cattle to warrant that much activity.
“If I did that everyday, all the cattle in St. Mary’s County will be gone in 30 days,” he said.