Neither side seems thrilled with state animal-welfare compromise

The Ohio Farm Bureau and the Humane Society of the United States reached a compromise last week engineered by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland to keep a constitutional amendment regarding farm-animal care off the November election ballot.

But neither of the two contentious rivals is talking as if the fight is actually over, with HSUS officials pointing out that there is no expiration date on the signatures for their ballot initiative and Farm Bureau officials stating that the compromise consists only of recommendations, not set-in-stone regulations.

Strickland characterized the agreement as good for both Ohio agriculture and animal welfare in the state, but seemed to suggest a political motivation when he stated while announcing the compromise, “I just did not think it was in Ohioans’ best interests to have an acrimonious ballot issue debated.”

Local animal-rights supporter Vivian Stephenson called Strickland’s motivations purely political.

“That agreement is nothing but a handful of maybes, might be’s, could be’s, and it depends,” she said. “All of this had nothing to do with safety. It had to do with politics and profits… All this was is a political ploy. And the ones who are going to suffer are the animals.”

Stephenson said the ballot initiative was a constitutional amendment that would have forced the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, which was was voted into creation by Ohioans last November, to enact changes. The agreement that was reached, however, only provides a number of recommendations to the board, which would have to approve any actual measures.

Some of these recommendations include a ban on veal crates by 2017; a ban on new gestation crates in the state after Dec. 2010, with existing facilities grandfathered but required to cease use of such crates within 15 years; a moratorium on permits for new battery cage confinement facilities for laying hens; a ban on strangulation of farm animals; mandatory humane euthanasia methods for sick or injured animals; a ban on the transport of downer cows for slaughter; enactment of legislation establishing felony-level penalties for cockfighters; and enactment of a ban on the acquisition of dangerous exotic animals.

Standards Board spokesperson Megumi Robinson confirmed that the compromise consists of recommendations that can be considered, and possibly enacted, by the board.

“We are pleased that the involved parties are providing suggestions to the board,” she said.

The suggestions will come before the board and be discussed at their next meeting on July 27, she said. Robinson characterized the recommendations as compromises between the two entities, and said the board was already heading in that direction.

“The board will deliberate, and it will have to go through discussions,” she said. “It is really up to the board how they will respond to these (suggestions).”

But that doesn’t sit well with Stephenson, who said the board is funded by commercial farms, which it is therefore beholden to. “They’re going to do what it takes to keep the commercial farms happy,” she said.

According to Ohio’s Legislative Service Commission, the board is funded through existing monies from the state Department of Agriculture.

PAUL SHAPIRO, SENIOR DIRECTOR of the HSUS factory-farming campaign, said the agreement represents important progress for animal welfare in Ohio. He said the state has traditionally had anemic animal-welfare laws. “This is an agreement that will remedy that to some degree,” he said.

Shapiro said that the HSUS is holding onto the signatures it gathered for the ballot initiative, and noted that these signatures do not expire. “If the agreement that was reached is not actually implemented, then (bringing the ballot initiative back) is an option for us,” he said. “But we do have faith that the agreement we reached will be implemented.”

Ohio Farm Bureau spokesperson Joe Cornely said that the agreement is not how those involved in Ohio agriculture envisioned their approach to this issue in 2010.

“We, frankly, were gearing up for war,” he said. “And with this agreement, the fight with HSUS is not over by any stretch of the imagination, but we have avoided and all-in bet on a coin toss.”

He said the Farm Bureau was prepared to win the ballot measure in November.

“The philosophy behind the agreement was to find some common ground where farmers’ interests were protected without all of the costs associated with a ballot fight,” he said.

The biggest win in all of this, he said, is the acknowledgment by the HSUS that the Livestock Standards Board is the proper authority to handle these issues.

Cornely said the negotiation was based on trust and goodfaith agreements, and the Farm Bureau supports the board as the authority on animal welfare in the state. With regard to the HSUS holding onto the signatures, he said that this is a hammer they could have continued to hold even if the ballot measure had gone to voters and HSUS had lost.

“Even if they decide they want to step away from the goodfaith aspects of this and use the ballot process again, maybe having the signatures will save them some time, but it’s not like they can’t go back and collect more again,” he said.

Ohio Pork Producers Council spokesperson Jamie Banbury said that the pork industry looks at this agreement as something they can live with.

“We feel like our farmers will find new and better ways to care for their animals, especially with regard to animal housing,” she said. “There’s a long time to evaluate new technology… It’s not something that will start tomorrow. Our farmers can remain viable, and they have time to adapt their farms.”

Meanwhile, Stephenson said that the HSUS simply didn’t have the funds to carry out a full campaign this fall and used the signatures as collateral in the negotiation process.

“As far as I’m concerned, everybody got lied to,” she said.

“(HSUS President Wayne) Pacelle defrauded the citizens of Ohio by saying that he was going to do something for our animals when he knew that he didn’t even have the money to carry this through to the ballot.”

HSUS spokesperson Shapiro denied that this was the case.

He said that ballot measures have a win-or-lose outcome, and by nature cost millions of dollars.

“The HSUS has waged dozens of these campaigns nationwide,” he said. “We would have been prepared to proceed to the ballot in Ohio for this November had this agreement not been reached. None of us thought this agreement was likely, and we would have gone forward with (the ballot measure) and devoted the appropriate resources to it.”