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| NPPC leader addresses Midwest pork producers |
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| By MEGGIE I. FOSTER
Assistant Editor
DANVILLE, Ind. — As the U.S. Senate begins to delve into the depths of the 2007 farm bill, National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) CEO Neil Dierks took a moment to discuss critical policy that will affect Midwest pork producers and processors.
In a close-knit session at the Sept. 11 Midwest Pork Conference in Danville, Dierks reviewed upcoming policy and industry issues – such as downer animals, the Mand- atory Country-of-Origin Labeling (M-COOL) law and biofuel – that will impact the growing United States pork industry.
One local producer weighed in to the importance of the farm bill, adding that “we want a farm bill that maintains and strengthens the pork industry competitiveness in the global marketplace and that doesn’t include any mischief.”
Downer animals
Dierks briefly discussed the policy statement in the farm bill that may ban sick, ill, injured or non-ambulatory animals from the food supply.
“It is likely that Congress will ban downer animals from the food supply,” said Dierks. “For the pork producers, it could be a problem because there is the issue of fatigued hogs that sometimes falls under the category of downer animals.”
He explained that “fatigued hogs” should not be categorized with “downer animals,” because fatigued hogs are “just tired and want to lay down,” they are not necessarily sick or injured.
“If they make this a law, it would affect nearly one percent of animals that aren’t even ill or injured,” he added.
Dierks said NPPC has worked tirelessly with Congress to make a “split and connect with animal rights groups” to alleviate a potentially devastating impact to the pork industry in this arena.
“Representative Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) is the main proponent of banning horse slaughter in the U.S., and he has been successful at it,” he said. “He is also working on this initiative and it’s pretty bad news for cattle producers.”
According to Dierks, Ackerman has been a key player in propelling animal welfare and rights laws on Capitol Hill.
Dierks hinted at the possibility and likelihood of downer cattle being named the primary target of the downer law, with pork producers skirting the discussion for this year’s farm bill.
Labeling law
Of particular interest to pork producers, the farm bill legislation will make much-needed changes to the Mandatory COOL law, added Dierks. He said the law was initially approved as part of the 2002 farm bill and is set to take effect Sept. 30 of this year, despite the lasting Senate session.
Changes to the bill include:
• Ease recordkeeping for verifying an animal’s country of origin by allowing existing records, such as normal business records, animal health papers and import or customs documents, to be used.
“This is neat because it allows producers to use normal business records such as Pig Champ for verification,” Dierks said. “It saves the paper trail and doesn’t cause the producer to maintain additional records.”
• Allow meat from animals born in another country but raised and slaughtered in the United States, such as Canadian feeder pigs, to be labeled products of the U.S. and the other country.
• Allow processed products to be labeled with a list of countries from which they were derived.
“There will be four different type of labels here: the U.S. label, which is meat born, raised and processed in the U.S.; the U.S. Plus label, which is meat from animals that are born in another country, but raised and slaughtered in the U.S.; the Foreign Product label, which is meat from animals born and raised outside of the U.S.; (and the) Multiple Countries label, which affects the ground beef food products,” he said.
Corn, will there be enough?
Other topics of discussion during Dierk’s legislative session and the NPPC update included his endorsement of the biofuel industry, but without concern for the amount of corn available in the future for livestock producers and, particularly, the pork industry.
“We are supporters of biofuels and alternative fuels, but our main concern is with corn, because of ethanol production there is a physical availability issue,” he admitted. “The question remains, will there physically be enough corn available for U.S. hogs?”
Dierks said the NPPC will continue to work hard to research availability issues and prepare pork producers for a
potential corn shortage in years to come.
For more information or to follow NPPC on its legislative journey through the farm bill, go online at at www.nppc.org
This farm news was published in the Sept. 19, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
| 9/19/2007 |
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