At its annual business meeting, the National Pork Industry Forum held in Dallas from 5-7 March, the NPPC adopted a number of resolutions attacking the increase in support measures.

Some of the resolutions include:

• The federal government, once the ethanol blender’s credit and tariff on ethanol imports expire at the end of 2010, to “transition” to a counter-cyclical payment system that provides ethanol producers a safety net during severe economic times. Currently, ethanol producers receive a federal tax credit of 45 cents for each gallon of ethanol produced; there is a 54-cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol.
  
  
• Opposition to giving incentives, including subsidies, for cellulosic ethanol production from corn-ethanol co-products and to any increase in existing federal or state mandates on corn-based ethanol usage. The federal Renewable Fuels Standard calls for the production of 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2022.
  
  
• Opposition to increasing the percentage of ethanol that must be blended with gasoline from its current 10 per cent rate.
  
  
• Opposition to efforts by the US Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from farms.
  
  
• Evaluating the economic, policy and regulatory impact on the US pork industry of so-called global warming.
  
  
• Improvements in unloading procedures for pigs at packing plants, including a protocol for dealing with pigs still on trucks when a plant is shut down by inspectors for the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service.
  
  
• USDA to publish weekly pork export data.
  
  
• Increasing USDA’s Farm Service Agency loan guarantee levels to $5 million from just under $1 million. Such loans are used to purchase land, livestock, equipment, feed and seed and for building construction and farm improvements.
  
  
• NPPC to give input and provide direction to USDA to ensure that the rules for the Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) law and its implementation do not cause harm to the pork industry.
  
  
• All pork producers to participate in the US pork industry’s Pork Quality Assurance-Plus program, which educates producers about best management practices and includes on-farm site assessments and potential third-party audits of production practices.
  
  
• Pork processors to encourage animal transporters to become certified under the US pork industry’s Transport Quality Assurance program.

“The resolutions approved by NPPC producer delegates reflect the issues of concern to the US pork industry and its ability to produce safe, wholesome, nutritious product and to compete in the global marketplace,” said NPPC President Don Butler. “NPPC will work with Congress, the Obama administration and the entire pork chain to address these and other matters of importance to US pork producers.”