At its National Pork Forum held in Dallas, Texas, in March, the National Pork Producers Council complained that budget limitations are leaving it unable to meet challenges facing the pork industry, including that from animal rights activists.
For 2003, the NPPC will have an estimated budget of $4.6 million, but NPPC chief executive officer Neil Dierks claims the organization needs at least $11 million. Dierks said of the successful passage in Florida of a ban on gestation crates for pigs — and for which animal rights activists raised an estimated $3 million to push for,
It was my biggest disappointment in my tenure on your behalf at NPPC. It was a situation of either using our funding, which could have very well closed the doors at NPPC on the one issue, or we live to fight again.
[By failing to stop the measure] we’ve given the opposition a tremendous amount of oxygen.
The funding for Dierks’ organization is up in the air after U.S. District Court Judge Richard Enslen ruled that the USDA program under which the NPCC was unconstitutional.
Groups and individuals representing small and family farmers have for years complained that they are forced by the government to give a small portion of their income the NPCC, despite what they see as the NPPC’s bias in favor of large, factory farms.
Enslen agreed with these farmers that being forced to subsidize an organization which they disagreed with was a violation of their First Amendment rights. That ruling is consistent with a Supreme Court decision in which the court invalidated a similar program that applied to the mushroom industry (U.S. v. United Foods).
Dierks’ comments about the Florida initiative is a perfect example of the problem with such mandatory checkoff programs. Some of the small farmers who are assessed this fee by the government likely oppose gestation crates as well. Why should they have to fund any NPPC ad campaign against the Florida initiative?
Source:
Pork producers seek additional funds to combat activist challenges. Teresa Halvorsen, Iowa Farm Bureau, March 17, 2003.