OHIO: NO AGRI- COMPROMISE! HONOR THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE- HALF A MILLION SIGNATURES CAN'T BE WRONG

  • by: s sureck AnimalActionUSA
  • recipient: Gov elect John Kasich, Agric Chief James Zehringer, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
This is one more very good example of where and how the leadership fails, and contributes to the breakdown of our society. Lack of judgement  officials must  ultimately be voted out of office.  If positions are appointed, a deeper scrutiny must take place.  The mission of our country demands it.  AnimalActionUSA

The new Gov-Elect needs to respect and honor the will of the people, as they have shown on a ballot initiative. Without this understanding of basic compassion for Agricultural animals, all that will exist in this community is animal cruelty & abuse based on factory farming.
This is America.  We can do better. And if not, why not. The people have voted.
AnimalActionUSA

Ohio Officials May Scrap Agriculture Compromiseby Martin Matheny November 26, 2010 06:52 AM (PT) Topics: Factory Farming

A deal brokered between the agribusiness community, animal welfare advocates, and government officials in Ohio may be headed for the trash heap under a new Governor. The "Ohio Compromise" was an attempt to forestall a sweeping activist-powered ballot initiative that would have guaranteed more protections for animals used in agriculture.

The whole thing started in November of 2009, when Ohio voters passed Issue 2, a new law creating a Livestock Care Standards Board with sweeping powers to determine how farm animals in Ohio were treated. Animal advocates were rightly concerned that the newly-created board, made up of political appointees, would become a governmentally-sanctioned front group for factory farming.

Animal activists fought back with their own proposed law. The heavy lifting was done by Ohioans for Humane Farms, with an assist from the Humane Society of the United States. They proposed a set of common sense reforms %u2014 things like a ban on manual strangulation as a means of euthanasia, a ban on breeding pens where an animal can't even turn around, and restrictions on keeping cows who are too sick to stand out of the food supply. Despite the hand-wringing of the factory-farm crowd, it wasn't extremist. It was common sense, both in terms of humane treatment, as well as good farm management.


Ohioans for Humane Farms, along with their legions of volunteer signature gatherers, made Big Agriculture blink, especially when they got enough signatures to put their reform package on the ballot. In an attempt to forestall an electoral fight, the agriculture industry decided it was time to make a deal.

After a round of talks between animal protection advocates, agribusiness, and government, a compromise was hammered out. The long and the short of it is that animal advocates got some of what they wanted in terms of bans on gestation crates and the like, but the new standards were not to be in full effect for years. Basically, we got some change, but we'd have to wait even for that.


Now, livestock in Ohio may not get that change at all.

A lot of the glue that held the Ohio Compromise together was the political clout of Ohio Governor Ted Strickland %u2014 his guarantee that he would see the agreement become law. The problem is, Ted Strickland is no longer the Governor of Ohio; he lost his re-election bid earlier this month.

Now, Ohio's new agriculture director, and its new Governor, sound like they're about ready to throw the whole compromise out. From Business Week comes news that incoming agriculture chief James Zehringer thinks the whole deal stinks, and he's made it very clear whose side he's on. (Hint: Zehringer is a poultry farmer.) Governor-elect John Kasich seems to agree.


The problem that Zehringer and Kasich have here is that the hundreds of thousands of signatures gathered by Ohioans for Humane Farms are still valid. The proposed statewide referendum they originally wanted is still alive, and if Zehringer and Kasich want to renege on the deal, they're welcome to do so. Then, they can deal with a ballot issue backed by one of the most impressively-organized bunch of grassroots change-makers around. Ohioans for Humane Farms and their allies have proven they've got the ability to create change at the polls; they rounded up over half a million signatures in a fairly short amount of time, and they scared the agriculture industry into negotiating.


But here's the bottom line. Kasich and Zehringer don't need to scrap this deal. When the Ohio Compromise first came out, some people in the animal advocacy movement said it wasn't quite good enough. (Including yours truly, and I took some flak for it.) The fact remains that Ohio made a deal, and their new officials need to honor that.

Photo credit: Treehouse1977
AnimalActionUSA

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