Hog farmers attack proposed new mandatory pork tax

CONTACT: Paul Sobocinski, hog farmer, 507-342-2323
Monica Kahout, hog farmer, 320-523-1516
Rodney Skalbeck, hog farmer, 320-765-2542


1/31/01
Minnesota hog farmers who helped lead the successful national campaign to end the mandatory pork checkoff tax reacted strongly to the Minnesota Pork Producers Association's (MPPA) announcement yesterday that it would fund an effort to establish another mandatory pork tax on Minnesota hog producers within the next six months.


"Tax, tax, tax," said Olivia, Minn., hog farmer Monica Kahout, a member of the Land Stewardship Project. "MPPA has the same obsolete ideas and the same tax and spend approach as always. Problem is, their program doesn't work. Generic commodity promotion and research doesn't help independent producers—it helps the packers and the mega-hog operations."


The Campaign for Family Farms led the nationwide effort to vote down the pork checkoff. The Land Stewardship Project is the Minnesota affiliate of the Campaign. Earlier this month, the USDA announced that the mandatory pork checkoff was voted down by U.S. hog farmers 53% to 47% in a nationwide referendum. In Minnesota, the vote was closer, with 1,477 votes to end the checkoff, and 1,593 votes to continue it.


"They are still not listening," said Land Stewardship Project member and hog farmer Rodney Skalbeck of Sacred Heart, Minn. "There is huge dissatisfaction with the mandatory pork checkoff, and with the Minnesota Pork Producers. The only checkoff that makes sense is one that is voluntary at the point of sale, and where the producer can choose what organization his or her money goes to. Instead, the MPPA wants a mandatory assessment, with all the money going to them."


The meeting held yesterday at the Minnesota Pork Congress about the proposed state checkoff was attended by only 25 people. MPPA's proposal for a Minnesota mandatory pork checkoff would collect the tax on all producers when hogs are sold, then allow producers to file a written request for a refund a limited number of times each year. That provision would also allow MPPA to use the checkoff tax revenue for political and lobbying purposes.


"MPPA consistently lobbies at the state capitol in St. Paul for corporate farming in Minnesota," said Skalbeck. "Now they want us to pay a mandatory state pork checkoff tax that would be used for lobbying. That's what this proposal is about. We're against it." In March 2000, MPPA leadership helped to lead the push to get the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) on record as supporting packer ownership of hogs at the National Pork Forum in Kansas City.


According to reports from farmers and others involved in the hog industry, contract producers, who were specifically barred from voting in the national referendum, were actually able to vote in large numbers because of the loose eligibility rules put in place by the USDA at the NPPC’s urging. Representatives of Christensen Farms (the seventh largest hog operation in the U.S.) and other big contract operators were very visible at the MPPA annual meeting in Minneapolis on Tuesday.


"This new MPPA proposal is really nothing new — it's a bunch of contract producers and large-scale operators talking about how they want to get money from the pockets of independent producers like me," said Wabasso, Minn., hog farmer and Land Stewardship Project member Paul Sobocinski.

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