WITH reference to the letter from Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association chief executive Charlotte Morton (AD technology helps keep farmers farming, January 29), and Cllr Greenow’s statement that organic power is “ruining our dairy farmers” (Hereford Times, January 29), can I remind Cllr Greenow that he voted in favour of the anaerobic digester (April 2012) that is now operational at St Owen’s Cross.

At the planning meeting he spoke in support of the application and ignored all the letters of objection from local residents, saying we did not know what we were talking about.

In these letters we clearly pointed out that growing crops ‘to feed the beast’ would result in this very situation. This was the second or third anaerobic digester in the county; now there are 13, with more in the planning process.

Anaerobic digestion as a form of energy production is only cost-effective because of the huge government grants and feed-in tariffs that effectively pay farmers to grow electricity and not to grow crops to feed cattle and people, which is morally wrong.

Indeed the Tenant Farmers Association released a press statement in July 2013 entitled ‘Is anaerobic digestion creating more problems than it solves?’ I wonder how many anaerobic digestion plants would have been built if no financial incentives were available from central or local government.

NAME SUPPLIED St Owen’s Cross