990808 Pork Producers Ask for Farm Aid FairnessAugust 6, 1999Washington - The $325 million in assistance for livestock and dairy producers included in a $7.4 billion farm aid package passed by the Senate “is insufficient when compared to the $4 billion lost by pork producers” National Pork Producers Council President John McNutt said. “A farmer cannot be efficient enough or smart enough to be isolated from the effects of this devastating market condition,” McNutt told the Senate Agriculture Committee at a hearing on the U.S. farm income crisis. McNutt said leaving it up to USDA to divide $325 million among livestock and dairy producers would do nothing to halt the slide into bankruptcy predicted for up to one-third of independent pork producers by the end of 1999. He urged Committee members to support NPPC's Pork Industry Action Plan, which includes $600 million for emergency income loss assistance payments based on sales during the last quarter of 1998, with a $50,000 payment limitation applying. “We believe these payments should be available to all producers, regardless of size, exactly like payments to grain farmers,” said McNutt, a pork producer from Iowa City, Iowa. McNutt urged the Committee to also support an additional 100,000 metric-ton pork humanitarian food aid package to Russia, similar to the food aid package recently finalized; a Humanitarian Inventory Assistance Program that would reduce U.S. herds while providing needed assistance to targeted countries worldwide; financial assistance for a plan to form pork producer cooperatives to reposition producers in the pork value chain; and immediate purchases of pork and pork products for domestic feeding programs to help raise prices. McNutt called on all pork producers to use the August congressional recess to urge their representatives to support additional funding for pork producers in the farm aid package. “To have any chance at success in our effort to improve this farm aid package, all pork producers must get involved,” McNutt said.
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