USDA Announces Pork Checkoff Referendum

July 13, 2000

Pork producers who have owned and sold one or more pigs or hogs between Aug. 18, 1999, and Aug. 17, 2000, are eligible to vote in a referendum to decide if the promotion and research program will continue. Kathleen Merrigan, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service administrator, said AMS received 1,005 comments after proposed voting procedures were made public last spring.

"We have worked hard to improve the rule based on what people have told us," Merrigan said. "Our goal is to have a fair referendum."

In-person voting will be held Sept. 19-21 at Farm Service Agency county offices; absentee voting will be conducted Aug. 18-Sept. 21. Absentee ballots may be requested Aug. 1 but will not be available until Aug. 18. Importers also will be eligible to vote if they imported pigs, hogs, pork or pork products during the same one-year period required for producers. Importers will vote by mail Aug. 18-Sept. 21 and may request mail ballots from the FSA in Washington starting Aug. 1. However, ballots will not be available until Aug. 18.

The final rule will be published in the Federal Register today and be on the Internet at http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsg/mpb/pork/pkrefrule.htm.

Opposition to the checkoff program has come from producer interests who claim the promotion and research program has done little if anything to improve producer prices or profits. Instead, they charge, it benefits large hog operations at the expense of smaller family farms.

The National Pork Producers Council has advocated a "yes" vote in the referendum on whether to keep the program going. "I think it is critical that producers get informed and understand what the checkoff has done for them and can continue to do for them," said Donna Reifschneider co-chair of the "Vote Yes Task Force." "I want to encourage all pork producers to vote yes. Pork producers need to be making the decision about our future, not letting that decision be made for us," according to the Smithton, IL., pork producer.

The co-chair of the task force, Karl Johnson, said, "The pork checkoff has been a phenomenal success at what it was designed to do, build demand and address issues that individual producers couldn't do on their own. The pork checkoff is producer-driven and has evolved to meet the needs of pork producers."

According to Johnson, a Mankato, MN, pork producer, "the checkoff-funded Pork. The Other White MeatŪ advertising campaign, originally undertaken to reposition pork to U.S. consumers, has done so. Today the campaign has increased U.S. pork demand, reversing a dramatic decline from 1979 to 1985."