The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) approved several public policy resolutions at its recent annual meeting in Kansas City:
- Study the value of suggesting Congress wait to write the 2007 Farm Bill until current World Trade Organization talks are completed;
- Urge pork producers to support a national animal identification system and suggest producers register their premises;
- Support an increase in funding for USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to better meet the needs of the swine industry;
- Support a USDA recommendation for reforms to the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration;
- Oppose the Captive Supply Reform Act, which would limit the types of contracts producers could enter into with packers;
- Work with USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to alleviate producer concerns about packer policies regarding condemnations;
- Seek reauthorization of the mandatory price reporting law, which expired last September, and support a study of mandatory price reporting of pork carcass cutouts to increase transparency and more accurately reflect pricing of the entire product;
- Favor legislation that would clarify that livestock manure is not a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant under certain federal environmental laws;
- Request the federal government establish a streamlined process for clearing trucks carrying hogs at border crossings between the United States and Canada;
- Support the American Association of Swine Veterinarians’ efforts to rename postweaning multi-systemic wasting syndrome to porcine circovirus-2-associated disease syndrome; and
- Support permanently adding pork and pork variety meats to USDA’s weekly export/sales report.
