WELSH farmers have told army chiefs that they will block military manoeuvres on their land if fox hunting is banned. Farm union leaders yesterday told the land commander-in-chief General Sir Timothy Granville Chapman that soldiers will be refused access to thousands of agricultural acres for training. They have also demanded the army buy more Welsh beef and lamb to feed troops. Farmers Union of Wales (FUW) president Gareth Vaughan, who briefed Gen Chapman and Wales commander Brigadier Ian Cholerton in a three-hour meeting in Brecon, said the talks had been "very productive". The army spends the equivalent of 300,000 staff days training in Wales and is understood to be extremely concerned by the farmers' threat.. Ten landowners near Warminster have already withdrawn access to 35,000 acres of land used by the MoD on Salisbury Plain. An army memo revealed many training exercises have been called off or modified. Mr Vaughan said: "The FUW accepts the army needs land for training purposes. "But it is also important the views of those individual farmers who are unhappy about the proposed hunting ban are expressed via the army to the government." In recent times farmers withdrew land in protest against the MoD's use of foreign meat. The army changed its policy but the proportion of British produce bought by the military is still small, claim the FUW. | 
