Ohio voters agreed yesterday to create a state board to protect the state's $93 billion-a-year agribusiness industry.
State Issue 2, a constitutional amendment to establish the 13-member Livestock Care Standards Board, was being approved by about 64 percent of voters, according to partial, unofficial results last night from the Ohio secretary of state.
The Issue 2 vote was a big victory for farmers and business interests -- along with Gov. Ted Strickland -- who campaigned hard for it in hopes of blocking liberal animal-care reforms advocated by the Humane Society of the United States.
But Ohioans might get to do it all again next year.
Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States, said he expected to lose but reaffirmed what he'd said before: They'll be back.
"We just needed to see this issue resolved before we launch reform efforts in Ohio to phase out the confinement of animals on factory farms," he said. "We haven't made the final decision to do that, but it's very likely."
Strickland would oppose such a move.
"I think the people have spoken, and we could make the argument that the issue had been taken to the people in the form of a ballot initiative and they had expressed their desires," he said yesterday.
Athens County was the only county to defeat Issue 2. Franklin County voters gave it one of the most narrow margins -- 56 percent to 44 percent.
To many farmers, it came down to a choice between coping with new state regulations or reforms initiated by outside interests that could threaten the economic future of Ohio's livestock industry.
John Lumpe, executive director of the Ohio Soybean Association and president of Ohioans for Livestock Care, said the vote represented "Ohio taking care of Ohio."
Ohio Agriculture Director Robert Boggs, who will be chairman of the new board, promised it will "serve Ohio's citizens in a way that will be transparent and open." It was a setback for the Humane Society, which came to Ohio this year hoping to work out compromise legislation calling for new "confinement standards" for breeding pigs, egg-laying hens and veal calves. Instead, agribusiness leaders moved quickly to persuade the legislature to put the constitutional issue on the ballot.
