Gary Asay, a pork producer from Osco, Ill., an NPPC board member and a member of NPPC’s Farm Bill Policy Task Force, testified on the 2012 Farm Bill today. The second of four Farm Bill field hearings by the House Agriculture Committee was held at Carl Sandburg College, Galesburg, Ill. Asay, who testified on behalf of himself, told the committee that pork producers like him want to see addressed in the next Farm Bill: feed availability, comprehensive disease surveillance, new foreign market access, risk management and government intervention in the markets. Asay called on Congress to strongly urge USDA to work with pork producers to develop a catastrophic insurance product that meets today’s pork industry needs.
He told the committee that mandates – whether pushed by lawmakers or activists – must not stand in the way of market-based demands. He pointed out that some lawmakers are discussing banning packer ownership of livestock, eliminating forward contracts and limiting the number of hogs covered by a contract. He told the panel that pork producers would not be well served by having Congress dictate or eliminate certain types of contracting mechanisms. Doing so would force the livestock industry to revert to business model used more than half a century ago, Asay testified. He said producers also oppose federal mandates on production practices, including ones that dictate animal housing such as the “Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments” (H.R. 3798), legislation being pushed by the Humane Society of the United States that would dictate the size of cages for laying hens. Issues raised by other agriculture producers who testified included crop insurance programs, the proposed Department of Labor child farm labor rules, EPA regulations, conservation programs and the Estate Tax. To read witness testimony, click here.
Source: NPPC