Livestock Amendment Could Help Animals, Raise Food Prices

COLUMBUS, Ohio --

Seven-hundred fifty pigs share space in a huge barn on Bryan Black's farm in Fairfield County. Since pigs don't sweat, the barn has to be air conditioned. Even on a 90-degree day, temperatures were much cooler in the barn as an NBC 4 crew walked in for a tour.

"I don't see any way that's any more responsible than the type of technology and facilities that we have today," says Black, a fourth-generation farmer.

Like hundreds of other Ohio livestock farms, Black's farm claims to treat animals safely and ethically. And the Humane Society of the United States wants to make sure there are consequences for any farm that doesn't.

HSUS is the main sponsor of a constitutional amendment that would set new rules for Ohio livestock production.

"We have well over 450,000 Ohioans who've signed this petition to put it on the ballot this November," says HSUS Ohio State Director Karen Minton. "Ohioans, we believe that all animals, including animals raised for food, deserve humane treatment in their lifetime."

Supporters are required to collect at least 402,275 valid signatures with a distribution from across the state. They plan to continue collecting signatures past the June 30th deadline in order to replace any that might be ruled invalid.

The proposed amendment would require the State Livestock Board approved by Ohio voters last November to create new rules governing the treatment of farm animals. Under the amendment, the Board would have six years to create the new rules and set minimum standards.

It would prohibit extreme confinement that keeps animals "from lying down, standing up, fully extending his or her limbs, or turning around freely." For egg-producing hens that means "fully spreading both wings without touching the side of an enclosure or another egg-laying hen." The anti-confinement language does not apply to rodeos, county fairs, 4-H programs, agricultural research or during slaughter.

The amendment would require euthanasia of sick or injured cows and pigs to "be performed in a humane manner using methods explicitly deemed 'Acceptable' by the American Veterinary Medical Association."

Farms also would be prohibited from selling "downer" cows into the human food supply if they are "too sick or injured to stand and walk."

The full text of the amendment is downloadable as a .pdf file here.

Minton calls the proposal "a common sense, modest measure."

Black says it would drive up food costs without helping the animals. He says many farms would have to, at least, double the size of their barns, pens, cages and paddocks. When asked what would happen to family farms, he says many would be in trouble.

"For most of them, it'll be so economically detrimental that they'll have to close," he says. "It's not just the livestock producer that it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt grain farmers. It's going to hurt the local feed store you drove by. It's going to hurt the equipment dealers."

Minton cites a California study that found, under similar requirements, egg prices went up about a penny per egg.

An Ohio State University Agricultural Economist predicts dire consequences for the farming community if the amendment passes.

In a report released June 18, 2009, Emeritus Chaired Professor Luther Tweeten looked at several studies and concluded that, "Eggs produced under conventional cage systems in surrounding states would have a 20 percent or more cost advantage over Ohio's farms producing under [California] Prop 2-type regulations. Ohio laying hen producers would not be competitive."

"Ohio would lose: laborers, livestock and crop producers, and the economy as a whole," Tweeten's report continues. He says the Ohio egg-producing industry would be "decimated" and "other states would gain jobs and income at Ohio's expense as animal products consumed in Ohio would be produced elsewhere."

"It's really the animals that are paying the price as far as inhumane treatment and the consumers with the food safety risk," says HSUS's Minton.