The Indiana Meat Packers and Processors Association (IMPPA) held their annual convention last weekend in Evansville. One topic of discussion was the impact that state budget cuts could have on your local meat processors.
“It’s always a concern when we hear the words ‘budget cuts’ — and how it affects the Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH), the Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA)—and then that trickles, obviously, down to the small and very small meat processors,” says Sam Gettinger of Rush County, who is a board member and past president of IMPPA.
Just days after taking office, Indiana Governor Mike Braun asked for budget cuts of five percent “on average” across the board for all state agencies. However, Gettinger says there are concerns that cuts to the Indiana State Board of Animal Health could mean cutting staff—including the number of state meat inspectors.
“Our inspectors are typically pushed for time when they’re running around the state and trying to get to every plant that they can,” says Gettinger. “The big thing is how this directly affects our small farmers. They want to sell freezer beef at a Farmers’ Market that has to be inspected. If there isn’t enough time to inspect [the products], then as a small processor, you have to turn them away and say, ‘Hey, I’m sorry. We can’t do that,’ or you have to sell it through the custom-exempt program,” which is the the slaughter and processing of livestock back to the original owner.
Gettinger says the biggest challenge is that up to 50-percent of the funding for state meat inspectors comes from USDA—which is also experiencing their own budget cuts.
“Even though we have federal funds that come in, [BOAH] has to set a budget as a state early in the summer. The federal budget doesn’t come out until October, so until then, we’re not sure how much state funding we’re going to get.
“I think one of the big goals is how do we become more independent but still be able to use the federal programs that are out there. As of right now, we are getting into the busy season, and we cannot hire more inspectors because we don’t know how much funding we will get from USDA until later this fall. So not knowing that number—and it could be up to 50 percent—is a little discouraging and hard to plan for,” says Gettinger.
He adds that both Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith, who also serves as Indiana’s Secretary of Agriculture, and ISDA Director Don Lamb both spoke at last weekend’s IMPPA convention in Evansville and met with Indiana meat packers and processors. Gettinger says he appreciates that both Beckwith and Lamb were there to hear from IMPPA members about the issues that the state’s small meat processors are facing.
State lawmakers are working now on the state budget for the next two years during the Indiana General Assembly—which is going on now and will adjourn no later than April 29th.
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