Potential Slaughter Ban Concerns Ag Industry

The city and county of Denver, Colorado will have a ballot initiative this November aimed at banning the slaughter of animals, specifically targeting superior farms, which is a sheep and land processing facility. However, the agricultural community is expressing significant concern that this measure could set a precedent, potentially expanding to other counties, states and livestock operations, R-CALF, United Stock Growers of America, CEO, Bill Bullard.

“There are now already fewer markets available for those sheep producers who are left in the United States, and this action will deprive producers of yet another marketing outlet with no prospects of that operation being displaced or replaced in some other close region. So we think it would have a devastating impact on land prices, and it will certainly have a devastating impact on producers who may now have to ship land much further distances in order to bring them to market.”

Bullard says, if this can happen in sheep, it can happen in every other species of livestock.

“What they're producing is a valuable protein that's absolutely essential to sustaining life, and when we continue to dismantle and destroy our production capacity in the United States, what that means is we're going to become dependent on imported products.”

R-CALF USA’s, Bill Bullard.