Glickman Orders Pork Checkoff Vote: NPPC `Appalled’

February 29, 2000

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman will order the Agricultural Marketing Service to conduct a referendum on whether the pork promotion order should be continued. The National Pork Producers Council is "appalled" and finds it "unbelievable that the law was somehow bent" in favor of politics.

In remarks Monday at the National Farmers Union 98^th anniversary convention in Salt Lake City, UT, Glickman announced the referendum, a move certain to remain controversial regardless of the outcome. "As a matter of basic fairness, I believe that producers deserve the opportunity to vote on this checkoff program," said Glickman. "It is, after all, a mandatory assessment, akin to a tax, that all producers must pay even if they disagree with it."

The announcement angered the NPPC. NPPC President John McNutt, Iowa City, IA, said, "It is unbelievable that the law was somehow bent in favor of apparent political interests who, in many cases, aren’t even pork producers; while punishing bonafide pork producers who created a program that truly works to benefit pork producers of all types and sizes."

NPPC said the referendum was called without the required 15% of bonafide pork producers favoring the vote. At a public meeting Jan. 5, USDA said it appeared the petitioners did not have enough legitimate signatures of bonafide pork producers, said NPPC, but were 2,600 signatures short. Of the petition signatures USDA attempted to validate, many responded they did not sign the petition, said NPPC.

"We are deeply concerned that people not legitimately in the business of raising pigs are making the decisions for those of us who try to make a livelihood from pork production," McNutt said.

Opponents of the checkoff program hailed the announcement, claiming a "significant victory" in their fight to eliminate the program. The Campaign for Family Farms had presented USDA will some 19,000 signatures calling for a referendum. The group also had the support of Farm Aid, the organization headed by country-western signer Willie Nelson.

"In the past decade," said Nelson, "we’ve lost more than half of the independent pork producers in this country. These farmers have pressed the USDA for years to give them a voice in their own economic futures. Today they can claim victory in Secretary Glickman’s decision. This referendum means that family farmers will finally be heard on the issue of the mandatory pork tax."

No date was announced for the vote.