Ohio Pork Producers on Capitol Hill

The Ohio Pork Pro­duc­ers Coun­cil recently trav­eled to Wash­ing­ton D.C., as part of the National Pork Pro­duc­ers Council’s Leg­isla­tive Action Con­fer­ence. Six­teen pork pro­duc­ers, from across the state, rep­re­sented Ohio’s pork indus­try; call­ing on sen­a­tors and con­gress­men, and voic­ing both appre­ci­a­tion and con­cern regard­ing recent polit­i­cal issues, as well as hear­ing from National Pork Pro­duc­ers Coun­cil staff.

Main issues of con­cern for the group included free trade agree­ments, GIPSA and Mex­i­can truck­ing laws.

Sen­a­tor Rob Port­man was on the docket as one of the 18 sched­uled vis­its the pork pro­duc­ers made on “the hill.” The pork pro­duc­ers were invited to lis­ten in on a ses­sion as Port­man spoke, about the free trade agree­ments, on the sen­ate floor.

”I will tell you, this morn­ing we had one of our weekly cof­fees and the Ohio Pork Pro­duc­ers came, there were about 12 from around the State of Ohio. Do you know what the No. 1 issue was they raised with me? Trade and get­ting these trade agree­ments done. Why? Because it affects their prices directly. They have to have these inter­na­tional sales in order to make ends meet. Par­tic­u­larly with the price of feed going up, they have to have these for­eign mar­kets” Port­man said.

The con­fer­ence included the “Rack of Pork” con­gres­sional recep­tion on Capi­tol Hill. Guests, includ­ing con­gress­men, con­gres­sional staff and pork pro­duc­ers, enjoyed an array of pork dishes and used the time to dis­cuss cur­rent issues with con­gress­men and other pro­duc­ers from around the nation.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Oct 15 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.