Lifting the Ban on Horse Slaughter & Child Labor Revisions

Friday Nov 25th, 2011 25 Views Northwest Report

Lifting the Ban on Horse Slaughter & Child Labor Revisions. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Now that legislation has been signed lifting the federal ban on horse slaughter - the focus among horse groups is finding suitable plants for processing. Sue Wallis - co-leader of United Horsemen and the International Equine Business Association - says they have a great network across the country looking for facilities in places where meat processing is common practice.

WALLIS: Those facilities that are existing already processing large mammals and that could be relatively quickly retrofitted for the unique characteristics of horses.

Once plants are in place - Wallis says it’ll take years to recreate the market and reverse the damage done to the welfare of horses that have been left behind.

One of my wife’s first jobs as a kid was detasseling corn, which is a form of pollination control. Across the U.S. each summer - tens of thousands of rural youth are involved in seed corn detasseling - some as young as 12 years old. That could change however - if proposed revisions to child labor laws are implemented. They might impact the types of agricultural jobs that youth under the age of 16 are allowed to perform. The deadline for submitting public comments on the proposed rule changes to the U.S. Department of Labor is December 1st.

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange report.

(Grange)

That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.