America’s pork producers, currently facing declining incomes, a growing labor shortage and market volatility caused by trade disputes, don’t also need to contend with red tape and unfunded mandates from Washington, the National Pork Producers Council testified today at a congressional hearing on the impacts of regulations on small businesses and farmers.
“Regulations add to the cost of doing business. And right now, the pork industry certainly doesn’t need more costs,” NPPC Past President John Weber, a pork producer from Dysart, Iowa, told the House Committee on Small Business Subcommittee on Agriculture, Energy, and Trade. “Because of trade disputes with China and Mexico and the tariffs they’ve put on U.S. pork, hog farmers could lose $2 billion this year.”
The U.S. pork industry has had to contend with several ill-conceived, burdensome and potentially costly regulations over the past 10 years, including ones related to the buying and selling of livestock, labeling meat, trucking, air emissions, clean water, antibiotics use and organic livestock production.
“Many of the rules we’ve seen coming out of Washington have had harmful unintended consequences, including stifling innovation and impeding the inherent motivation of farmers and small business people to get better and more efficient at what they do,” said Weber.
The Trump administration and Congress have done a good job of beginning to reign in the red tape from Washington – NPPC’s written testimony mentions the White House rescinding several burdensome rules and directing agencies to eliminate two existing regulations for each new one proposed – but “more needs to be done,” Weber told the small business panel.
Click here to see more...