Pork Congress 2012 - Iowa Pork Producers Association

the visual portion of the awards
program at the Iowa Pork Congress
Banquet.
Holden announced his retirement
from the program last year and
IPPA presented him with a
Distinguished Service Award at the
2012 banquet in January.
Dr. Palmer Holden (left) receives IPPA
Distinguished Service Award from
2012 IPPA President Bill Tentinger.
He retired from Iowa State University
in 2002, but continued to serve the
Master Pork Producer program
and IPPA. ”He has maintained a
commitment even after retirement to
ensure proper recognition of Iowa’s
Master Pork Producers because he
believes in the program’s merits and
enjoys meeting new Master Pork
Producers each year,” said 2011 IPPA
President Leon Sheets in presenting
the award.
Holden plans to fully retire to Iowa
City to enjoy life with family and
grandchildren.
EPA announces plans to
revise CAFO regulations
On March 15, 2011, a fifth circuit
federal court of appeals in the
National Pork Producers Council
v. EPA case struck down a federal
EPA rule that required discharge
permits (National Pollution Discharge
Elimination System or NPDES
permits) for CAFOs that proposed to
discharge manure or other pollutants
into the waters of the U.S. The court
found that an NPDES permit cannot
be required unless there is an actual
discharge.
In a Dec. 8, 2011, memo to all 10 U.S.
EPA regional offices, the national
director of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s Office of
Wastewater Management stated: “In
response to NPPC, which applies
nationally, we will revise the CAFO
regulations to remove from the federal
regulations the requirement that
CAFOs that ‘propose to discharge’
have NPDES permits.” Because Iowa
law states that any NPDES permit
requirements for confinement
operations cannot be more strict than
federal EPA rules, Iowa DNR rules
adopted in the future cannot include
the propose-to-discharge standard.
EPA also reiterated that “CAFOs that
have discharged without a permit
only cease to be in violation of the
Act when circumstances that led to
their discharge have changed or been
corrected.” That is, if the cause of an
accidental discharge is changed or
corrected, then an NPDES permit is
not required.
McDonald’s joins HSUS in
calling for end to g-stalls
The McDonald’s Corp. announced
Feb. 13 that it’s requiring its U.S. pork
suppliers to outline plans to phase out
use of gestation stalls, according to
a statement that carried both the
McDonald’s and the Humane Society
of the United States’ logos. The move
is supported by HSUS, which has been
pressuring the pork industry for years
to end the use of g-stalls.
“McDonald’s believes gestation stalls
are not a sustainable production
system for the future,” said Dan
Gorsky, senior vice president of
McDonald’s North America Supply
Chain Management. “There are
alternatives that we think are better for
the welfare of sows. McDonald’s wants
to see the end of sow confinement in
gestation stalls in our supply chain.”
McDonald’s expects to receive the
results of the assessment of its U.S.
pork suppliers in May and then share
the results and its next steps.
“We are pleased to see a number of our
U.S. suppliers adopting commercially
viable alternatives,” Gorsky
said. “For example, Smithfield Foods
and Cargill have made significant
progress in this area. We applaud these
and future efforts.”
March 2012
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