Pork Act Delegates Meet in St. Louis

March 19, 2008 — 

Pork Act Delegates conducted elections for new members of both the National Pork Board and the Pork Board Nominating Committee and dealt with industry-related advisements and resolutions during their annual business meeting, March 6-8 in St. Louis, Mo., during the National Pork Industry Forum.

Each year, Pork Act Delegates have three specific duties under the Pork Act including recommending the rate of the Checkoff, setting the percentage of Checkoff that is returned to states, and nominating producers and/or importers for appointment to the National Pork Board and to the Checkoff Nominating Committee. The recommendations for appointments to the National Pork Board are made to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, who makes the final determination.

In voting on National Pork Board members, eight pork producers were ranked for consideration by the Secretary of Agriculture. The Secretary will appoint five producers to serve three-year terms. The Secretary's appointments typically are announced during the summer. The nominees, as ranked by the delegates, are:

• Roy Henry, Kansas
• Conley Nelson, Iowa
• Alan Wilhoite, Indiana
• Brian Zimmerman, Nebraska
• Karen Richter, Minnesota
• Dale Norton, Michigan
• Jamey Tosh, Tennessee
• Curtis Meier, Iowa

Pork Act Delegates also elected two members to two-year terms on the Pork Board Nominating Committee. They are Wayne Peugh (Illinois) and William Kessler (Missouri).

"The Pork Act assigns the National Pork Board full responsibility for managing all Checkoff related matters except those assigned to Pork Act Delegates," stated Lynn Harrison, president of the National Pork Checkoff Board. "However, the Pork Board has invited Pork Act Delegates to provide input and advice to the board on any Checkoff-related matter. All motions related to Pork Board-managed programs are called 'Pork Act Delegate Advisements,' since they are advisory only and not binding to the board."

Pork Act Delegates adopted advisements asking the National Pork Board to:

• Adopt the document "Ethical Principles for U.S. Pork Producers".
• Move rapidly to address misinformation on the pork industry in the media.
• Seek out additional funding opportunities for educational activities.
• Endorse the long-range goal for agricultural education to create new programs in communities not yet served by agricultural education and FFA.
• Support all Pork Quality Assurance Plus? (PQA Plus?) swine production practices and vigorously advocate those swine production practices in a cooperative manner with industry partners.
• Support the use of sound science to serve as the basis for developing standards for animal husbandry; and asks all producers to complete the PQA Plus program over the next three years.
• Support scientific studies that include on-farm research and focus on wells and potential contamination issues.
• Implement programming to work toward increasing domestic pork expenditures over the next three years.
• Request that the USDA develop a process whereby the Secretary of Agriculture can approve Pork Act Alternates at the same time the secretary appoints the Pork Act Delegates.

A resolution to increase the national rate of the Pork Checkoff was debated. It was moved to refer the Checkoff-rate resolution to a working group formed by the National Pork Board to consider the issue and ensure that the question of a Checkoff rate increase be brought before the various states for their review prior to this issue being brought before the 2009 Pork Act Delegate body.

Pork Act Delegates are pork producers or importers nominated by their state pork producer associations or individually, then appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture. Each of the 50 states may be represented by at least two Pork Act Delegates. The number of delegates and the voting "power" of each delegate are determined by the amount of Checkoff collected from the state they represent.