000924 Producers Vote to Determine Pork Promotion

Peoria, IL - “The Other White Meat” campaign could be voted out of existence.

Producers begin a nationwide referendum last week on whether to retain the mandatory pork checkoff, a national industry-collected tariff on hog sales that funds research, consumer information and promotions such as the well-known “Other White Meat” campaign.

Opponents of the mandatory checkoff argue that it most benefits corporate farming interests, especially those that both grow hogs and process them for market. Defenders say the checkoff provides benefits to all producers, including small-scale independent farmers, that would not be possible without a nationally funded and directed effort.

In-person voting will take place at county Farm Service Agency offices Tuesday through Thursday, which is also the deadline for mailed ballots to be received. To qualify, producers or corporations must have sold at least one hog they owned in the 12 months before Aug. 17.

The U. S. Agriculture Department estimates about 100,000 producers will be qualified to vote. It will be months before results are tabulated and certified.

Donna Reifschneider of Belleville, Ill., a former president of the National Pork Producers Council, said the movement to hold a referendum reflects recent ups-and-down in the industry that at one point had hogs selling for as little as 8 cents a pound.

“The pork industry has been under a lot of change and a lot of stress the last few years. Change makes people nervous,” she said. “I think this is one way they can make a statement about their future.”

Under the mandatory checkoff, which replaced a voluntary system with the approval of Congress in 1986, producers pay 45 cents for every $100 worth of hogs they sell, with the money often automatically deducted at market. In 1999, the national checkoff raised more than $42 million on sales of about 96 million hogs.

The money is routed to the NPPC through the National Pork Board. The NPPC spends the money on national programs, such as the “Other White Meat” campaign, and returns a portion to state pork associations for local use.

Should the checkoff be abolished, the NPPC and its programs would dissolve.

That would be just fine as far as Martin King of Rochester, Ill., is concerned. King, a spokesman for Campaign for Family Farms, an umbrella organization of groups that oppose corporate farming, said many independent producers feel the NPPC has veered off course - shifting from research and other support geared toward all producers to favoring corporate interests.

Wayne Peugh of Dunlap, Ill., will vote to keep the checkoff, which he said isn't perfect but could be refined. Should the checkoff be abolished, he said, independent producers would soon feel the effects, especially the loss of blanket generic promotion. He said he fears corporate farming interests could advertise their own brands of market-ready pork to the exclusion of all else.

“They can afford a million dollars to run a promotion. Individual producers like myself, if we don't have a group, we can't go out and promote our product on a large scale,” he said.

Reifschneider, who supports the checkoff, said consumers eventually would feel the effects should it evaporate. She said there is no organization in place to take up the NPPC's work in helping develop products such as McDonald's McRib sandwich for groceries and restaurants.

“The consumer wouldn't see new products as quickly in fast food and retail,” she said.

Other commodity industries support similar checkoff programs that have funded other memorable advertising campaigns such as the beef industry's “Beef: It's What's for Dinner” and the popular “Got Milk?” for dairy producers.

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