Ohio House Passes Big-Ag Resolution

The Ohio House yesterday passed a resolution to put a pro-Big Ag measure on November's ballot.

The state's Senate still must vote on the resolution, which passed the House 84-13.

The measure would ask voters to approve the creation of a Livestock Care Standards Board, comprised mostly of animal exploiters.

According to the Toledo Blade, legislators moved unusually fast on this measure.

Acting at lightning speed by legislative standards, Ohio lawmakers will rush an issue to the ballot asking voters to create a state panel that would define acceptable practices for the care of livestock in the food chain.

While the resolution was clearly a response to The HSUS's interest in focusing on Ohio as the next state to ban the most extreme forms of farmed-animal confinement -- battery cages and gestation and veal crates -- some in animal "agriculture" are spinning this as a food-safety issue.

A past president of the Ohio Farm Bureau, Bob Peterson, testified before the Ohio Senate yesterday. Asked in an interview afterward why any farmer would want more regulation, he gave this response:

"We need to assure the consumer that -- I know that we produce a safe, good product -- we need to assure the consumer, and this board will allow the consumer to have more confidence in the food we produce."

In reality, though, it's about maintaining the status quo and keeping chickens, pigs and calves in cages so small they can't turn around or stretch their limbs.

"They've come out with their constitutional power grab to enshrine their own industry-dominated council in the state constitution, ensuring the foxes guard the hen house," said Paul Shapiro, senior director of the factory farming campaign of the Humane Society of the United States in Washington.

Smithfield Reneges

Illustrating why we can't leave animal care to animal exploiters, Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer and the country's largest turkey producer, said yesterday that it won't meet its plan to phase out gestation crates by 2017.

The company announced its plan in January 2007, likely to appease animal-rights groups and to prevent legislation forcing them to do away with gestation crates.

Smithfield cited financial concerns for "delaying" the phase-out. However, this is the first year in 30 years that the company has reported a net loss.

Update 11:05 a.m. June 25: Ohio's Senate voted 32-0 in favor of the resolution.

(Photo courtesy of ChooseVeg.com.)