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Texas
Agriculture Archive
October 4, 2002
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling for an end to a program that allows Lindenwood University students to help pay tuition with market pork.
For several years, the St. Charles, Mo., school has accepted pork in lieu of cash, then served the meat in the school cafeteria. Lindenwood President Dennis Spellmann began the program to help family farmers send their children to college.
Bruce Friedrich, PETA's director of vegan outreach, sent a letter to Spellmann suggesting that Jesus had been an ethical vegetarian and that the school should reconsider the program because of its Christian heritage. He added that the program promotes factory farming that mutilates the animals and confines them to small crates.
Spellmann said he has no intention of suspending the program,
recalling jokes about Lindenwood students eating high on the hog. "Well,
they'll continue to eat that way," he said.
Source: AFBF Executive Newswatch, Sept. 25, 2002
The American Farm Bureau supports a package laid out three months ago, which aims to eliminate export subsidies, reduce market barriers and curtail trade-distorting domestic policies.
Although previous trade negotiations have offered us some improvements, there is still a long way to go before the U.S. can compete on a level playing field.
Those nations that have an advantage want to keep it. Basically, Europe and Japan disapproved of the U.S. proposal. Other developed countries that are major exporters who do not rely on massive subsidization for agricultural success cautiously approve of the U.S. plan. Developing countries favor any and all reductions of trade-distorting policies, as long as they are not required to reciprocate.
Since the protectionist debacle of the 1930s that greatly contributed to the "Great Depression," the U.S. has become a very open market to foreign farm goods. On average, the U.S. imposes a 12 percent tariff on incoming goods. Yet, U.S. farm exports face additional charges of an average of 62 percent around the world and 31 percent in the European Union.
It is not fair. The U.S. trade proposal calls for nations
to cut tariffs proportionally, not just by some percentage. This would reduce
the great disparity in tariff levels we see now.
Source: AFBF Speedlines, The Ag Agenda ,October, 2002
