Delegates to the National Pork Industry Forum, held in Dallas on March 5-7, adopted a number of resolutions during the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) annual meeting.

“The resolutions approved by NPPC producer delegates reflect the issues of concern to the U.S. pork industry and its ability to produce safe, wholesome, nutritious product and to compete in the global marketplace,” said newly elected NPPC President Don Butler. “NPPC will work with Congress, the Obama administration and the entire pork chain to address these and other matters of importance to U.S. pork producers.”

Delegate actions during the annual meeting included:

• Delegates encourage all pork producers to participate in the industry’s Pork Quality Assurance-Plus program, developed to educate producers about best management practices, including on-farm site assessments and potential third-party audits of production practices.
• Delegates asked pork processors to encourage animal transporters to become certified under the U.S. pork industry’s Transport Quality Assurance program.
• When the ethanol blender’s credit and tariff on ethanol imports expire at the end of 2010, the federal government transition to a counter-cyclical payment system that provides ethanol producers a safety net during severe economic times. Currently, ethanol producers receive a federal tax credit of $0.45 for each gallon of ethanol produced; there is a $0.54/gal. tariff on imported ethanol.
• Delegates opposed giving incentives, including subsidies, for cellulosic ethanol production from corn-ethanol co-products and to any increase in existing federal or state mandates on corn-based ethanol usage. The federal Renewable Fuels Standard calls for the production of 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2022.
• Delegates opposed increasing the percentage of ethanol that must be blended with gasoline from its current 10% rate.
• Delegates voted to oppose efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from farms.
• Supported the ongoing evaluation of economic, policy, and regulatory impact on the pork industry regarding insinuated, man-made global warming.
• Producer delegates supported improvements in unloading procedures for pigs at packing plants, including a protocol for dealing with pigs still on trucks when a plant is shut down by inspectors for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety Inspection Service.
• USDA to publish weekly pork export data.
• Delegates support increasing USDA’s Farm Service Agency loan guarantee levels to $5 million from just under $1 million. Such loans are used to purchase land, livestock, equipment, feed and seed and for building construction and farm improvements.
• NPPC to give input and provide direction to USDA to ensure that the rules for the country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law and its implementation do not cause harm to the pork industry.