Create the Perfect Local Bill Format for Animal Science with Ease

Local bill format for Animal science

my name is Matt niece I'm the policy coordinator for South Carolina for cfsa and I'm Jalen Cates I work in the policy shop in North Carolina for cfsa and one of the issues that we've been hearing a lot about from our members in the past couple of years around the bottlenecks and obstacles in the meat and poultry processing industry uh so Matt can we get into a little bit about meat today what do you want to share with us about this issue I would be happy to um it's safe to say that whenever we poll our members one of the issues that consistently ranks towards the top of their policy concerns is meat processing um why is it a concern there are massive bottlenecks and Hang-Ups and red tape around the existing meat processing industry both state and federal and so I'd like to talk just a little bit about why that is and how we got there so um basically under the current law the meat that's offered for retail sale whether it's at a farmer's market a Farm Stand a grocery store wherever you can buy meat that meat must be butchered under the supervision of USDA um or you not only a USDA food safety employee or a state equivalent food safety employee um well as most of you watching this probably know um there aren't many options out there I know down here in South Carolina there's only two and they're both on opposite sides of the state um as a result the lack of plants usually means a lack of available options and appointments for our meat producers not just in the Carolinas but Nationwide uh which what does that mean that means months long wait times a lot of these meat processors hours long drive times just to get to a facility where you could hopefully be seen um there are locations throughout the country that are known as custom exempt slaughterhouses um but essentially if they don't have USDA inspection or a state equivalent um the meat that's butchered at those custom exempt slaughterhouses has to stay with the original owner um what does that mean so think deer hunters you bring your animal to the processor they process it you receive the meat you can't then go and sell that to somebody else so as you can see it creates kind of a bottleneck with available qualifying processors that producers can take their livestock to yeah it's it's such a huge issue um at the cfsa conference this past weekend I was speaking with a board member of ours who was having to wait until next July about eight months away to schedule to process her Hogs um so it's a huge issue and I think that's even down from wait times that were like over a year um so what role does the farm bill have in this how can policy change help fix these bottlenecks and wait times Well because most of the red tape and the problems around meat processing originates at the federal level in terms of the restrictions the farm bill is the obvious choice for how we're going to try to modify these these policies or make policy change um and we're going to do that hopefully in the 2023 Farm Bill via marker bills now we've touched on marker bills in past videos um but just to refresher marker bills or bills that stand no chance of passing on their own but they're the nucleus that a lot of efforts for the policy change can kind of form around before it's then rolled into a larger Omnibus or a larger package at the farm bill um one of the most important marker bills for meat processing moving forward is called the strengthening local processing Act what is slpa slpa is a bipartisan meat processing Reform Bill that does a lot of things but essentially it increases cost share for State Meat Inspection programs um there's a grant program to expand small and very small meat processing plants there's Workforce Development grants um and more so all of this is designed to just give consumers and producers more options but also do that in a safe way that doesn't compromise food safety so there's this delicate the delicate dance that has to happen when it comes to meat processing because while the current situation is untenable for producers there has to be a reform that also takes into account food safety and producer safety and also worker safety for the meat processors to make sure that um the reform is done in a safe way and slpa is one of the best ways to do that yeah I think that's and that's just to be clear you know we're not advocating for uh reforms to regulation that makes it uh easier for you know lines to go quicker and uh for you know Meat Safety meet meet workers to be pushed harder um you know these are these are not you know we're talking about small independent slaughterhouses that are selling uh to small Independent Producers who don't have contracts and aren't vertically integrated uh and what this bill really is is putting more resources towards the development of those small Slaughter systems so like the vocational training it's a huge a huge deal and I know in the Piedmont area there's a Slaughter facility near us that works with small farmers and they are constantly having this challenge of training training workers and keeping folks um you know in the in in their kind of employment line so um so important to support these smaller lines through Investments um and through smart regulation uh so that's great so how how can our members how can Farmers how can consumers uh get involved in efforts for advocacy see around this marker bill well the best the best way to make sure slpa is rolled into a larger Farm Bill package is to make sure that they're to increase the number of sponsors as much as possible so it's currently got a bipartisan sponsorship but the Morse Congressional sponsors we get added onto this bill the higher chance it will be enrolled into a larger bill so what we need from you is to call and email your representatives call and email your senators and really put the pressure on them to sign on slpa as a sponsor because again the more we can stack the deck with sponsors on both sides of the aisle for slpa the higher chance it's going to get rolled into the farm bill for next year so we really need you to do is just reach out to your representatives reach out to your Senators um you can check in sac's website you can check cfsa's websites that's a great write-up on there as to how slpa will affect the meat processing industry and affect it in a positive way so there's plenty of talking points out there um we'll help get you marching orders and get you plugged into your your elected officials and try to stack the deck and get as many sponsors as possible awesome awesome thank you Matt well we'll include links to all those things um with this so you can get in touch and have the information and again please reach out to us and we are more than willing to help you in your advocacy support you in reaching out and and making that ask for that sponsorship which is so important uh so thank you all for watching and we'll catch you again on our next Farmdale update video bye y'all