Editor:
Issue 2 — What does it do? A lot of us really don’t know. Maybe no on really knows.
The hope is it will keep animal rights legislation from changing farming in Ohio, thereby securing present methods and costs. The biggest threat such legislation can produce is the loss of yet another American industry.
We enacted laws that made it easy for foreign competition to take our industry from this country and move industrial production to China and other foreign countries. The promoters hailed a cleaner environment and safer workplace, but the sting of lost jobs is haunting America.
What we really need is a national policy that stops animal rights legislation from sending yet another industry to foreign countries — not another state-by-state “knee jerk” reaction.
Those who wish to buy meat and eggs from animals cared for in a special way should and do have the right to do so. Yes, those who treat animals poorly should be stopped and to the best of my knowledge, we already have laws to curb such violators.
Laws that mandate a particular type of animal husbandry should be found unconstitutional.
While I am not opposed to Issue 2, I am opposed to making yet another Constitutional amendment. Perhaps we should stop amending the Constitution before we lose sight of its original purpose.
Kim thinks the laws in Ohio protect everyone, I sure do wish that was true, having lived across the street just east of the North Preston site of Park Farms, I can assure her this is not true. Industrial Ag has already changed the picture in Ohio and until that issue is recognized even Farm Bureau members such as my self will pay a heavy price not only in property value loss but also health issues.
Farming as we knew it has already been changed in Ohio, Kim recognize this. The livestock industry has unfortunately chosen the road of protecting and promoting industrial livestock operations rather than creating a two tier system of animal industry and subsidizing small and medium sized farms.
Farm Bureau claims it is a grassroots organization but contact your local Farm Bureau on this issue and it is always deferred to Columbus where the decisions are made. Grassroots? Not in my book, Kim, learn what is really happening in Ohio.