Following up on the request by nine governors and pork industry giants for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to spend $50 million on excess pork products, Radio Iowa reported on Tuesday that the USDA can't help right now:
"We are down to our last $7 or 8 million because there's been such a demand for so many kinds of commodities, including pork. I think in the last fiscal year $62 million worth of pork purchases have been made," [Secretary of Agriculture Tom] Vilsack says. "...So we are trying to meet the demands of everyone."
Vilsack says there may be more money in the pipeline this fall. "When October 1 comes, when the new fiscal year starts, we have a little greater flexibility and at that time we are taking a look at all these requests," Vilsack says, "and we will make determinations at that point in time in terms of what is being requested of us and what we think makes sense." [...]
"We are very sensitive to the concerns of the pork industry. We have tried to respond by asking our institutional purchasers like the Department of Defense and others to purchase more pork products. We'll continue to do that," Vilsack says. "But I think we are stuck by virtue of the amount of money left in the account that we use to do this, but in October 1 it gets replenished and we'll be in a different position."
Meanwhile, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement makes it easy for Iowans to e-mail Governor Chet Culver to tell him they oppose taxpayer-funded bailouts of factory farms. Consider contacting your governor with a similar message if you live in Nebraska, Colorado, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Illinois or Oklahoma. |
