Calling it a “tough but fair rule” that sets a high environmental standard for livestock producers, the National Pork Producer Council today praised the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its new regulation for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
“The CAFO regulation issued today is a tough but fair rule and sets a standard that the U.S. pork industry has been and will continue living up to,” said NPPC Environment Committee Chairman Randy Spronk, a pork producer from Edgerton, Minn. “Pork producers are ready to comply with the new regulation.”
The new rule is the product of more than 10 years of work to overhaul the federal Clean Water Act rules applicable to livestock operations.
“Looking back to where we were in federal policy in 1998, when this all started, through the 2001 proposed rule, the 2003 final rule, a 2005 federal court decision and now this 2008 final rule, EPA is making sweeping policy changes that affect all aspects of pork operations and water quality,” Spronk said.
Before the 2003 rulemaking, most CAFOs were in practice not liable under the Clean Water Act for discharges from their operations, but now they are. And prior to 2003, the land application of manure for crop production was not regulated under federal law; now it is.
The regulation requires National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits only for CAFOs that discharge or propose to do so. The new rule effectively sets a “zero-discharge” standard for all livestock operations. Non-permitted operations must use sound management practices to avoid all discharges or face stiff penalties. Permit holders, likewise, must use similar practices to meet the zero-discharge standard. Violations of the new CAFO rule carry penalties of up to $32,500 a day.
“With or without a permit, swine operations that are not well managed and have discharges are facing severe penalties,” said Michael Formica, NPPC environmental policy counsel. “These rules really raise the water quality bar for us, but despite this challenge, producers are going to make this rule work.”
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After meetings this week with Mexican government officials on market access issues, the National Pork Producers Council urged the U.S. government to make a top priority completion of risk assessments for Classical Swine Fever in a number of Mexican states.
On behalf of its pork producers, Mexican officials in Washington raised concerns about reciprocal market access to the U.S. pork market because some Mexican states have yet to be declared disease-free by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Mexican government has said the states are free of Classical Swine Fever, or hog cholera, a highly contagious viral disease of pigs.
USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has cleared a number of Mexican states and is conducting risk assessments on eight others that have pork operations.
“NPPC supports a science-based decision regarding the importation of Mexican pork and pork products into the United States, and we have urged APHIS to make completion of its risk assessments for the remaining Mexican states a high priority,” said NPPC President Bryan Black, a pork producer from Canal Winchester, Ohio. “We also have urged APHIS to quickly begin the rule-making process to allow Mexican pork imports once the risk assessments have been completed.”
In 2007, Mexico exported $34.5 million of pork products to the United States, while the U.S. shipped nearly $450 million of pork to Mexico, making the country the No. 3 destination for U.S. pork. Through August of this year U.S. pork exports to Mexico were $417 million.
NPPC is a consistent and strong supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement and supports science-based decisions related to international animal health and food safety issues.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture today issued a final regulation for implementing a program in which producers may participate to certify that their pork is free of trichinae, a move that should allay concerns of U.S. trading partners and help boost U.S. pork exports, according to the National Pork Producers Council, which worked to get the program included in the 2008 Farm Bill.
Although the occurrence of Trichinella spiralis in the U.S. commercial herd is extraordinarily rare, a national voluntary certification program, says NPPC, will confirm that fact and will address concerns raised by many of the United States’ biggest trading partners, including the European Union, Russia, Chile and Singapore, about the possible presence of trichinae in U.S. pork. Those countries require testing for trichinae of all fresh and chilled pork imports from the United States, tests that are expensive and that act as a significant barrier to U.S. pork exports.
“The trichinae certification program will give our trading partners evidence of what USDA and every U.S. pork producer has known for years – trichinae is not a problem in U.S. pork,” said NPPC President Bryan Black, a pork producer from Canal Winchester, Ohio. “We expect this program to expand U.S. pork exports.”
The U.S. pork industry has worked for more than 13 years with U.S. and international agencies to formulate a National Trichinae Certification Program that will significantly increase the U.S. pork industry’s global market access. Producers in a number of states have participated in voluntary pilot programs in 1995, 1997 and 2000. The certification program includes on-farm production practices – which producers helped develop – that will mitigate the negligible risks of exposure to Trichinella spiralis.
The Farm Bill includes authorization of $1.5 million annually over five years for the program. NPPC was instrumental in getting the authorizing language added to the bill.
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