News

HSUS focuses aim on Ohio

The Humane Society of theUnited States plans to take its animal agriculture restrictions campaign to Ohio. HSUS leaders, including the group’s president, Wayne Pacelle, met with the Ohio Veterinary Medical Association and some farm groups to let them know of their plans, according to a story from VIN News.

The animal rights group’s intent is apparently a November 2010 ballot initiative banning sow gestation stalls, veal crates and layer hen battery cages, a measure similar to Proposition 2, which HSUS passed this past November in California. But before that happens, they’ve said they’dlike to talk. Ohio Farm Bureau spokesman Joe Cornely has been part of the initial conversations.

“It never hurts to talk to people and to hear their views and to listen and to convey your opinions,” Cornely told Brownfield Tuesday, “but we in agriculturecertainly are a long way from deciding precisely how we’re going to respond to the initial conversations we’ve had.”

HSUS Factory Farming Campaign Director Paul Shapiro cites the group’s undefeated record with voters, suggesting that it’s in Ohio agriculture’s bestinterest to compromise.

Cornely, on the other hand, tells Brownfield that any agreement reached with the HSUS may leave livestock producers suspicious.

“The end game for many of these organizations is to take meat off our plates, that wasn’tdiscussed specifically in the conversation (with HSUS officials), I need to be clear about that,” Cornely said, “but I need to be equally clear, there’s no doubt in mind what their end game is.”

By the process of ballot initiatives, HSUS has gotten whatthey’ve wanted in five states so far, restricting some long established livestock production practices.

Ohio is the nation’s second largest egg producer and number nine in pig production.