Posted: 04.12.2010

Wisconsin pork producer leaders just wrapped up their involvement with the 2010 National Pork Producers Council Spring Legislative Action Conference. 

Pork producers from across the US traveled to DC to meet with their state Congressional delegation.  Attending the event from Wisconsin were: Bill Gnatzig, Roberts; A.V. Roth, Wauzeka; Gary Skalitzky, Waterloo; Doug Wolf, Lancaster; and Tammy Vaassen.  Issues discussed in meetings with all Wisconsin Congressional members included - antibiotic use, climate change, free trade agreements, food safety, Child Nutrition Act, Mandatory Price Reporting Reauthorization, Renewable Fuels Standard,and energy issues. 

More than 100 pork producers from more than 20 states attended the conference. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack addressed producers, discussing among other issues the agency’s efforts to expand trade, livestock competition and the need to revitalize rural communities.

Reps. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Chairman David Scott, D-Ga., spoke to producers during LAC breakfast sessions. Throughout their two days in Washington, producers received from NPPC staff updates on legislative issues, including the Child Nutrition Act, which passed the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry this week; antibiotics; reauthorization of the Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting Act, which requires packers, processors and importers to provide critical price, contracting, supply-and-demand information to the USDA; the renewable fuel standards; climate change legislation; and pending free trade agreements.

Also in town during the week were 17 pork producers participating in Public Policy Leadership Institute – including Wisconsin’s representative, AV Roth - and 11 swine veterinarians attending NPPC’s Swine Veterinarian Public Policy Advocacy Program.

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