The National Pork Producers Council, representing conventional agriculture, called on Congress and the incoming Trump administration to overturn a new USDA animal-welfare rule for organic farms, a small part of U.S. food production. House Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway said he hoped Trump officials “will immediately withdraw this rule but stand ready with my colleagues on the Hill to roll back the regulation if necessary.”
USDA said the rule, proposed last April, “ensures that all organic animals live in pasture-based systems utilizing production practices that support their well-being and natural behavior.” The rule requires poultry farmers to provide “ready access to outdoors;” covered porches, used on some farms, don’t count as outdoors. The rule allows producers to temporarily keep birds indoors if there is a disease threat.
Elanor Starmer, head of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, said the rule sets consistent standards nationwide for organic livestock. “It ensures that everyone competes on a level field and plays by the same rules.”
The pork council called the rule “another poke in the eye to agriculture” that will add costs to production. “This is precisely the type of executive branch over-reach that Congress will rein in through regulatory reform,” said NPPC president John Weber, an Iowa hog farmer.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said the livestock rule reflected “the whims and demands of animal activists rather than talking to the industry as a whole,” or talking to consumers about what they expect organic to mean.
Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts, who made light last spring of the poultry provisions when the rule was proposed, said he would work with the Trump administration “to see what can be one to ease this over-regulation.” The senior Democrat on the committee, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, said the rule “did not address my concerns about animal health, consumer organic prices and access, or the impact on organic producers.”
The 212-page organic livestock rule is scheduled to appear in the Federal Register today and is available here.