The Grange, from its inception in 1867, has been a very strong advocate of the humane treatment of animals used in agriculture. By supporting Ohio House Bill 414, which establishes requirements and responsibilities of the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, the Ohio State Grange continues to support and advocate for those core values.
The Ohio State Grange strongly opposes the proposed 2010 ballot referendum as petitioned by the animal rights front group Ohioans for Humane Farms on January 27, 2010. Slightly more than 1000 Ohio voters signed the OHF ballot initiative petition. In contrast, millions of Ohio votes spoke loud and clear in November 2009 when they adopted ISSUE 2, the Ohio constitutional amendment that authorized the creation of the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board by a two thirds majority vote.
Now it seems that the Humane Society of the United States (an extremist animal rights organization) and its Ohio front groups are telling Ohio voters – “We will not accept your decision, and we are prepared to bring our substantial national financial backing to Ohio to force you back to the ballot box to vote on this issue again!“ Ohio’s farm community provides $98 billion of economic activity to the state through jobs that Ohio cannot afford to loose just because well funded out of state extremist groups want to use Ohio’s ballot initiative process as a convenient means of generating additional financial contributions from their nationwide donor base
The Ohio Grange believes that the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board is the most prudent, reasonable, publicly accessible and transparent means of addressing legitimate care issues regarding commercial livestock production in Ohio . The Grange calls on OHF, HSUS and other animal rights activist organizations to bring their concerns, their proposals, their best scientific evidence and their most persuasive arguments regarding commercial livestock care practices and air them out publicly before the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board.
The Ohio State Grange further calls on these extremist animal rights groups to abandon their deceptive public relations strategy of portraying a misleading climate of intense political conflict between legitimate consumer questions concerning scientifically based, humane treatment of agriculture animals and our family farmers in Ohio. Instead, they should work cooperatively with agriculture interests in our state on developing and implementing scientifically based livestock best management practices through the mechanism of the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board that will not only improve the welfare of our commercial livestock but that will also reduce livestock production costs, enhance the reputation of Ohio-produced livestock products among consumers and strengthen the competitive position of Ohio livestock producers in local, national and international markets.
