The decisive votes to confirm or reject the proposed Waterford Foods/Avonmore merger will be held today at separate meetings, in Waterford and Kilkenny, of farmer shareholders in the two co-ops. Several thousand farmers are expected to attend the special general meeting of Waterford Co-op, which will be the decisive one in determining whether or not the £1 billion merger will proceed.

The approval of the Avonmore shareholders is not thought to be in doubt.

If the merger deal - already passed by special meetings of the two co-ops on

July 11th - is to be formally ratified, these confirmatory meetings must produce a 75 per cent vote in favour by those attending and voting.

Almost 3,200 Waterford shareholders who attended the July 11th meeting voted by a majority of 83.2 per cent to support the proposal - 8 per cent more than the required 75 per cent majority.

However, Waterford's management has expressed concern that a lower turn out for the confirmatory meeting might jeopardise the final endorsement of the deal by the required 3:1 majority. The Waterford chief executive, Mr Matt Walsh, and the chairman, Mr John Dowley, along with the major farming organisations, have appealed to members to turn out in force again today.

Special traffic management plans will be in operation in and around Waterford for the meeting, which begins at noon.

The ICOS will oversee the registration and voting, and the outcome should be known by mid-afternoon.

If the merger is ratified, the enlarged business will rank as the largest dairy processor in Britain and Ireland, and one of the largest in Europe. The two groups will have a combined milk pool of 990 million gallons.

The Avonmore proposal has offered shareholders several financial benefits, including milk price increases of 4.2p per gallon from August 1st and a £

35 million share "spin out" to Waterford shareholders.

Opposition to the merger has focussed on the reduction of farmer control of the new company from 67 per cent to 55 per cent and has warned that a merged

Avonmore/Waterford Group would not necessarily continue to pay a better milk price.

Mr Walsh this week stressed that the major benefits of participating in a larger and stronger business structure offer compelling business logic, and that the savings arising from the merger will provide the scope to be a leading payer for milk into the future.