Proposed livestock-standards board in Ky. would only be advisory, under new version of bill

UPDATE, April 2: The final version of the legislation, contained in House Bill 398, has been passed and sent to Gov. Steve Beshear.

A new board dominated by farm interests would only recommend, not establish, standards for care of farm animals in Kentucky, under a new version of a Senate bill approved by a House committee yesterday. The state is one of several moving such bills to head off legislation that would establish strict standards like those enacted by a voter initiative in California in 2008. Kentucky, however, is not an initiative state.

The new board would recommend standards to the existing State Board of Agriculture, most of whom must be "experienced and practical farmers or agriculturalists" appointed by the governor, according to a 50-year-old law. That law does not require board members to be engaged in specific types of farming, as Senate Bill 105 would require for five of the 13 members of the new Kentucky Livestock Care Standards Commission.

One commission member each would have to be an active producer of beef, pork, poultry, horses and sheep or goats. The original version would have allowed industry lobbyists to fill those slots. Other members would represent the Kentucky Farm Bureau, the Kentucky County Judge-Executives Association, the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association and one of the state's two university veterinary centers. The other members would be the elected agriculture commissioner, the ag dean at the University of Kentucky and the chair of the Animal Control Advisory Board, or their designees.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. David Givens, R-Greensburg, told Janet Patton of the Lexington Herald-Leader that it had to be changed to get through the Democratic-controlled House. He told the Agriculture and Small Business Committee that it would still protect animals from "bad actors" and the industry from animal-welfare groups that "wish to see all animal production done away with. . . . The goal is to protect our livestock-production industry from the extremes on both ends." (Read more)