Referendum to End the Mandatory Pork Checkoff

The Real Story: Producers Win Right to Vote Fair and Square

6/1/00

One of the problems with 14 years of mandatory pork checkoff payments is that the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) gets nearly all the funds (more than $500,000,000 or half a billion dollars since it started) and uses it to build a media machine with our money.

Because they do that, often what we hear in the media is the NPPC’s spin on a story. Lately, we’ve been hearing that hog farmers who signed the petition calling for a referendum to end the mandatory pork checkoff fell short of the 15% of all hog farmers needed to cause USDA to call for the vote, (and that Secretary Dan Glickman was outside of his authority and calling for the referendum on February 28, 2000).

Here’s the real story: On April 29, 1998, hog farmers with the Campaign for Family Farms launched the petition drive to call for a referendum to end the mandatory pork checkoff. Before launching the campaign, we talked extensively with the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of the USDA about the requirements of the petition drive, vote, etc. Our petition was approved by the AMS.

During the petition drive, at no time were there complaints from any quarter about how the drive was being conducted. In fact, AMS staff complimented the Campaign on how we were running the petition drive. But things changed when we actually submitted enough signatures to force a referendum. No one (except the Campaign for Family Farms) thought that could happen. What followed was a combination of long periods of delay interspersed with short periods of incompetency.

In particular, here are some basic facts about the petition signatures:

1. Less than 1% of the petition signers who were contacted by USDA during the petition verification process indicated that they were not hog farmers during the representative period (1/1/97 to 5/24/99). Do not believe the NPPC — Legitimate hog farmers called for this vote.

2. AMS threw out literally hundreds of legitimate signatures before even attempting any verification. Hog farmers’ signatures were wrongfully invalidated because, among other reasons, the petition signature was not dated, or was incorrectly dated; they printed their signature in the wrong box; they listed a business name and address that was the same as another hog farmer (usually a family member). In this last example, AMS made no attempt to find out if the petition signer also sold hogs under their own name (for example, a father and son in a family business, but one or the other also selling hogs outside of that business). In our survey of petition signers, we estimate that AMS wrongfully invalidated nearly 400 signatures through this process alone.

3. AMS proved incompetent in their verification process because they violated several basic rules of professional surveying procedures. For example, AMS hired a telemarketing firm to call, without prior notice, hog farmers who signed the petition, during harvest. The call had very little credibility with those who were surveyed, many of whom distrusted the call and gave inaccurate responses. Later, when AMS conducted a mail survey of farmers who had said on the phone either that they did not sign the petition or that they couldn’t remember if they did or not, more than 75% of the farmers who responded wrote back indicating they were hog farmers and they did sign the petition.

4. We sent our case to the Secretary in a lengthy document, making these and other points and stating what we knew to be true — that well over the required number of hog farmers had signed the petition, and that a vote was legally and rightfully called for. The document included statements from four research and survey experts, all of whom found that the vote should be called, based on their review of AMS’ process and the numbers generated from it.

In the end, Secretary Glickman was convinced that AMS had failed to show that petitioners did not represent 15% of America’s hog farmers. Rather than further delay what hog farmers were asking for — a vote on the mandatory pork checkoff — Secretary Glickman to his credit called for the vote, on the basis of the signatures that were submitted. At no time did he determine, as has been wrongly reported on AgWeb and elsewhere, that "petitioners seeking the referendum fell some 2,600 signatures short of the 15% required by law." The fact is, we hog farmers met all the requirements of the law, gathered the required number of signatures, and now have the right to vote to end the mandatory pork checkoff.

The point of all the NPPC-generated media about how terrible it is that Secretary Glickman called for the vote is simple: They don’t want anyone — especially not hog farmers — to believe that this mandatory checkoff just might be voted down. They’re trying to defeat us psychologically before we get a chance to vote — so that hog farmers who oppose the mandatory pork checkoff don’t get out to vote. NPPC has the same objective in mind with the proposed voting rules released by AMS. They want to limit the numbers of hog farmers who vote, and try to keep hog farmers from voting who would vote to end the mandatory pork checkoff.

The real story is the same as it has always been. Make your voice heard. We live in a democracy, under the rule of law, but it doesn’t work if we, the people, don’t make it work.

So send in your comments to AMS (see the attached letter and fact sheet) to fight for a fair vote. And when the vote comes — get out to vote, and turn out other hog farmers you know.

Thank you.


CONTACT: For more information on the referendum to end the mandatory pork checkoff, contact: LSP, 3203 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55407; phone: 612-722-6377; fax: 612-722-6474