Source:  Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 11/4/09

Voters in Ohio are expected to pass a statewide referendum creating a board of experts to oversee livestock care in the state. With about half of precincts reporting, media reports indicate that about two-thirds of voters approved the measure.

The Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board will be chaired by the Director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture and will comprise 13 Ohioans: The department director, three family farmers, two veterinarians (including the state veterinarian), a food safety expert, a representative of a local humane society, two members representing statewide farm organizations, the dean of an Ohio agriculture college and two members representing Ohio consumers.

The initiative was backed by Ohio Pork Producers Council and the Ohio Association of Meat Processors, among 31 business and agricultural organizations and more than 100 legislators, including the governor, the lieutenant governor, and U.S. Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), as listed on the coalition's Web site, safelocalohiofood.org.

HSUS

The measure was roundly criticized by the Humane Society of the United States, which deemed it an attempt by agriculture businesses to short-circuit the group's own efforts at monitoring the treatment of animals being raised for food.

"By packaging Issue 2 as pro-animal welfare and pro-food safety, the architects of the ballot measure went a long way to assure its passage," HSUS President Wayne Pacelle said in a statement on the organization's Web site. "We have not viewed Issue 2 as a poisonous package, but rather an empty one. The Ohio Farm Bureau and other agribusiness lobby groups cooked it up in an effort to block real reform."

"Now that the Issue 2 campaign is over, we can get on with such real reform – a measure to phase out the extreme confinement of animals in veal crates, gestation crates, and battery cages," the statement said.

Last year HSUS introduced and was instrumental in the passage of Proposition 2 in California, which phases in regulations that prohibit the confinement of farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up and fully extend their limbs.

For more stories, go to www.meatingplace.com.