On the surface, state Issue 2 looks like a good idea..
It's goal proponents say is to “maintain food safety, encourage locally grown and raised food and protect Ohio farms and families.”
Gosh, and wherever you go, there are signs telling you to vote for Issue 2. None of the controversy you see with Issue 3, the gambling measure.
Proponents say it is good for the animals and assures continued production of quality, affordable food.
What could be better?
Plus groups like the Ohio Poultry Association, Ohio Pork Producers Council, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Grocers Association are all for it.
And if you read the Star Beacon Wednesday farm page, it seems every week someone writing there is urging us to vote for Issue 2 and stop the radical animal-welfare groups.
Well, I see a few problems with Issue 2. First off, certainly you know there is an Ohio Constitution, just like a U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution, as our civics lessons tell us, include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, the right to vote when reaching age 18, the right of assembly and more. It details how are government is set up, all sorts of good stuff.
If Issue 2 passes, the Ohio Constitution gets bogged down in the creation of a Livestock Care Standards Board, mostly appointed by the governor and subject to Senate approval.
This board would determine confinements and treatment of farm animals. Many on the board would be from agricultural backgrounds.
The number and details of this board and how it operates could not be changed without a constitutional amendment.
Now why ingrain such a measure into the constitution, where changes would be difficult to make?
Well, I have a theory and it involves a group called the Humane Society of the United States. Now certain farm page columns paint this group as extreme activists trying to take away your right to bite into a steak and radically change your lifestyle.
The Humane Society, if you check out its Web site, humanesociety.org, is all about stopping cruelty to animals, including domestic pets, animals in the wild and animals produced for food. If you check a pig or a cow or a chicken, you will find they have no wallet, they have no cash. There is no money in it for the Humane Society. It is the opponents, Big Agriculture, that paint the group as villains. Big Agriculture has big financial interests. That alone should make you suspicious.
Now the Humane Society, working through agriculture groups, has gotten anti-cruelty legislation passed in Michigan, California, Arizona, Florida, Maine, Colorado and Oregon.
Banned in many instances are veal crates for calves, gestation crates for breeding pigs and battery cages for laying hens. These animals live terrible lives in cages so small, they can't move, they can't turn around, they cannot lie down. They live in filthy conditions, pumped with antibiotics until their short, cruel lives end.
Is this the way animals on small Ashtabula County farms live? I don't think so. I have visited some local farms and have never seen anything like that. It is the big, anything-for-a-profit factory farms that operate in this manner and would benefit from Issue 2, not small, family farms. But frankly, big farms are where we get a majority of our meat, because we want it abundant and we want it cheap, antibiotics and all.
So in Ohio's case, Big Agriculture saw what happened in those other states and decided to take alternate action to assure such reforms don't happen in Ohio. And what better way than to form a board made up of mostly agricultural interests to decide how animals will be treated? And to insulate it all, make it part of the Ohio Constitution, then call groups opposed to it radicals, extremists and part of conspiracies.
Keith Stimpert of the Farm Bureau states, “In the end, their ultimate goal is a vegan or vegetarian society and I really don't think their interests are the interests of Ohioans.”
Yes, this vegetarian conspiracy keeps popping up. First off, is any group going to force you to become vegetarian? Has Michigan, California and those other states suddenly become islands of non-meat eaters? No. It's a ploy to paint the opposition as radicals and out of the fringe.
I hope I don't live in a country where treating all animals as humanely as possible is a radical idea. I hope the average person doesn't think banning battery cages that confine laying hens in pens about the size of a shoebox or veal crates that constrain calves and keep them from developing tough, sinewy muscle or pig-sized gestation cages that immobilize pregnant breeder sows for months and months is an extreme idea.
Could some changes for the good come out of such a board under Issue 2? Maybe some initial lip service. But in the long run, positive results will be very doubtful. Otherwise, why would Big Agriculture rush to get a constitutional amendment passed to assure its people have the final word?
What Issue 2 comes down to is what is more important, the physical and mental well-being of animals or Ohio's farmers and their ability to maximize profits.
You don't have to be a vegetarian to vote against Issue 2, although if everyone stayed away from animal products, many doctors (including some at the Cleveland Clinic) say strokes, heart attacks, many kinds of diabetes and cancers would be wiped out. Producing food from animals is terrible on our environment and grains used to feed these animals could be freed up and better assure the world has enough food to go around.
That said, it will cause few people from going vegetarian. No humane or agriculture group is going to make that decision.
Among those opposing Issue 2 are the Ohio Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters, the Columbus Dispatch, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Akron Beacon Journal and the Dayton Daily News. Hardly radical groups.
In other states, including Michigan, the humane groups have worked with agriculture to find a workable, common ground that will allow protect animals as much as possible and not hurt the farmer.
That's what Ohio should be striving for, but it won't happen if Issue 2 is passed.
Lebzelter is special section editor. E-mail him at bobleb@starbeacon.com. Read past columns at bobleb.blogspot.com.
