The constitutional amendment on the ballot in November would create the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board to regulate the treatment of animals raised for food.
The issue has been endorsed by most farm groups, those representing grocers and restaurants, state leaders and recently by Butler County commissioners.
If there needs to be rules about how farm animals are treated, they say those rules should be written by Ohio farmers, industry experts and veterinarians.
“The experts that live in Ohio, that know Ohio and are knowledgeable about Ohio should be the people to determine what those regulations are to establish,” said Butler County Farm Bureau Director Christy Montoya, who also is the Warren County Farm Bureau director.
They fear failure of Issue 2 would pave the way for animal rights groups to come to voters next year with a measure that would endanger the livelihood of family farmers by creating extensive new rules.
“It will definitely impact agriculture in our state, which is a number one industry in our state,” Montoya said.
Opponents of Issue 2 come in two distinct camps.
One group includes the Miami Valley Farmer’s Union, which represents hundreds of family farms in four counties, including Butler.
“A lot of people feel it’s going to raise costs, push the small farmer, which is already distressed anyway, out of business and save these large agribusiness that are going to control the process,” said Farmer’s Union President William Miller.
The other group includes the Humane Society of the United States — a national animal rights group unaffiliated with the local humane society — which has its own animal welfare measure it plans to put forward next year.
“The reason they’re going to the state constitution is they want to pre-empt anyone else trying to pass animal welfare reform efforts,” said Paul Shapiro, senior director of factory farming campaigns at the HSUS. “It gives the appearance of regulation, when in reality it is letting the foxes guard the hen house.”
Family farms central to debate over animal care
At the center of the debate over state Issue 2 are farms like the Beiser family farm. The Beisers breed pigs to sell to farmers who raise them for pork.
Despite its size — 1,400 breeding sows with thousands of young — it’s a family operation. Andy and Rita Beiser of Somverville run the whole thing, plus cattle and grain farms, with only the help of their three sons and their wives.
And if the ballot measure doesn’t pass next month, they fear farms like theirs will be driven out of business.
Andy Beiser had to raise his voice to be heard over the snorts and squeals in the gestation barn, packed with 900 pigs in various stages of pregnancy, on their hog farm just north of Camden.
“Every day we get up our goal is to make these girls as comfortable as we can and as productive as we can, and you don’t get that by abusing them,” he said.
But some opponents of Issue 2 say farmers like the Beisers are doing just that. They fear passage of the measure in November would make it harder for them to come to voters next year with a more stringent ballot measure.
Next year’s measure backed by national animal rights groups likely would outlaw “gestation crates,” among other things. Those are pens lined up hundreds deep in the barn, roughly two feet wide and seven feet deep. This is where breeding sows spend most of their lives.
They have room to move forward and back, stand up and lie down, but they can’t turn around.
This sounds cruel to the average nonfarmer, the Beisers admit. But there are economic and logistical reasons for it. They say pigs that share a pen fight, often to injury or death. Why can’t the individual pens be larger?
“They’re gonna start crapping in their trough,” Andy Beiser said frankly, and without delay. Plus, each pen in the temperature-controlled barn would have to be three times wider.
“If they weren’t comfortable they’d be fighting, they’d be rattling the gates,” said Rita Beiser, as most of the pigs around her either sat sedately or rooted through their feed. “This is much better. People just need to realize that. Ninety percent of people, after they see it, have no problem with it.”
Issue 2 would create state board
Issue 2, if passed, would create a 13-member board to set standards for livestock care.
It would consist of farm experts, food safety experts, veterinarians, a university agricultural expert and a humane society representative. They would be appointed mostly by the governor with the General Assembly appointing two “family farmer” representatives.
Proponents stress the all-volunteer board would have a minimal budget.
Some farmers, such as Bill and Bev Roe said industrywide rules are needed. There are currently few laws on the books other than those for domestic animals.
Walking amidst the suckling calves and their massive mothers on their sprawling farm in Milford Twp., the Roes speak fondly of the animals they raise.
“We actually love our animals, and we work really hard to take care of them in all kinds of weather,” said Bev Roe. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to kill them and eat them. That’s the natural order of things, but there has to be some guidelines.”
The Roes run Pedro’s Angus, where they raise more than 200 head of cattle for breeding. That puts Bill Roe on hundreds of farms over the years as he delivers breeding bulls and cows.
“We get on more farms than anybody does in the industry,” he said.
And on those visits, he sees a variety of practices. The vast majority of farms, he said, use humane, science-driven methods, though maybe 10 percent use outdated techniques that are unnecessarily hard on the animals.
“They’re all going to beef, that’s a reality. But that does not mean they need to be treated inhumanely,” Roe said.
But they want those rules written by Ohio farmers and experts, not by groups they say are radical. And they hope if voters approve Issue 2, they’ll be less likely to back the more detailed measure next year.
“We want people in Ohio to be able to make decisions about our livestock industry and our livelihood,” Roe said. “Maybe they have good intentions, but they don’t understand (the industry).”
“I believe they (the animal rights groups) really do want to get rid of livestock, and this is their first step,” Bev Roe said.
U.S. humane society: ‘Yes’ vote bad for animals
A need for new rules is not the primary reason many local farmers support Issue 2. They admit it’s largely an effort to head off another ballot measure likely coming next year.
Backed by national animal rights groups such the Humane Society of the United States, next year’s measure would address specific practices they say are inhumane.
The groups want to prohibit confining farm animals so they can’t turn around, lie down, stand up or fully extend their limbs. Similar measures have succeeded in states including California, Michigan and Florida.
In addition to gestation crates, this is primarily meant to address practices such as veal farming, where very young calves are penned so they can barely move so their muscles stay tender; and caging egg-laying hens so they can’t spread their wings.
HSUS factory farming campaign director Paul Shapiro said this is not about doing away with livestock, it’s about setting a minimum standard on which everyone can agree.
And he said the fact that Issue 2 is openly meant to prevent a California-like measure shows the agricultural industry is not serious about improving animal welfare.
“The Ohio agribusiness lobby wants to maintain the status quo,” Shapiro said. “There are millions of animals in Ohio that are confined in cages so constrictive they can barely move an inch their entire lives.”
The passage of Issue 2, he added, doesn’t keep them from coming ahead with a ballot issue next year. It just makes it more expensive.
Farm Bureau: ‘No’ vote bad for industry
“If they came in and told us we couldn’t have gestation stalls, quite frankly, we’d go out of the hog business,” said Rita Beiser. “The way we raise our pigs is the most efficient way of raising hogs.”
Pigs are held in gestation pens, which are too narrow for them to turn around, during the roughly 114 days of their pregnancy. They’re then moved to farrowing crates, which allow them to suckle their newborns for roughly 20 days. They are then moved back into the gestation crate and inseminated again. The average sow gives birth 12 to 13 times.
Beiser said it’s not economically feasible to give each of her 1,400 pregnant pigs a large stall, and the ones who don’t understand agriculture are the ones opposed to the process.
“They need to come out and see how well we take care of our animals,” she said. “We spend a lot of hours with these animals taking good care of them.
“They don’t know what it’s about. They don’t live, eat, breathe it like we do.”
Butler County Farm Bureau President Gail Leirer said the Beisers run a model farm.
“They (the pigs) are in a clean, warm environment, they’re well taken care of, they’re well fed,” Leirer said. “And pretty much everybody I’ve seen (in Butler County) basically uses the same procedure.”
It’s not just a farming issue, Leirer said. It’s an economic issue, because one in seven Ohioans are employed by the agriculture industry. And increased rules would increase costs, sending the price of meat up.
“What we have now we want to keep in place, and the board will help us do that,” Leirer said.
Farmer’s union opposes issue, HSUS
The Miami Valley Farmer’s Union hopes voters turn down Issue 2 this year, and HSUS next year.
“We think that some of these practices need to be curtailed, and there’s no question about that,” said William Miller, president of the Miami Valley Farmer’s Union. “Our concern is that I believe that there are other ways for people to address these practices.”
Miller runs an organic farm with 65 head of cattle near Morning Sun in Preble County. He said his organization represents hundreds of small family farms in Butler, Preble, Montgomery and Hamilton counties.
He said his group represents small farmers, many of them using organic and free-range methods and not the above practices. But they don’t want to see HSUS win next year, either.
“From my perspective the voting public will get educated about some of the issues during this process and hopefully won’t be as reactionary as they were (in other states),” he said.
“The main concern (with Issue 2) was that most people felt the state and government already have a mechanism to control a lot of these negative practices, and they really didn’t see any real benefit to either voters or consumers by adding a layer of government to the whole farm industry.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2175 or jsweigart@coxohio.com.
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