The Countryside Alliance, which has organised the march, is expecting up to 16,000 people to join the demonstration in Bournemouth.

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The figure represents the number of jobs the alliance says will be lost if hunting is abolished.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised a vote on ending hunting with hounds, a Labour manifesto commitment.

The alliance organised the countryside march last year

He said in July he hoped to find time in the coming parliamentary session for the vote.

But pro-hunting campaigners say a ban would lead to a way of life being destroyed.

The demonstration follows Monday's rally by farmers, angry at the crisis suffered by the agriculture industry and rural communities.

The Countryside Alliance has attacked the government for neglecting rural concerns.

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The alliance organised last year's countryside march, when 200,000 people gathered in London, and Tuesday's march is part of a programme of demonstrations leading up to the Queen's Speech on 17 November.

Last week, the prime minister said the hunting lobby had sought to muddy the waters by painting Labour as an "anti-countryside" party.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he wrote: "The truth is the Countryside Alliance is an organisation created primarily to defend hunting with hounds.

"That's fine. But their priorities should not be confused with the real priorities of those who live in rural areas."

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Mr Blair says the hunting lobby has also terrorised rural voters with "scare stories" about ramblers trampling across their gardens and the countryside disappearing beneath millions of new homes.

A vote in the forthcoming parliamentary session, would be the second time this Parliament has considered banning hunting with hounds.