Fallon Holds Meet & Greet Events with Focus on Agriculture

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Contact: Stacy Brenton, Communications Director 515-822-3029 (office)

April 12, 2008 - Congressional candidate, Ed Fallon, held meet and greet events on Saturday, April 12^th to engage with voters and discuss agricultural issues. The events took place today in Vinton, Williamsburg and Chariton.

Fallon served on the Iowa House Agriculture Committee for six years and believes that the rampant consolidation of the hog industry and the explosion of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are impacting family farming and rural community viability.

Fallon noted that in 1995, a bill (HF 519) changed Iowa law to enable a drastic shift in hog production from family farms to corporate giants such as Iowa Select, DeCoster, Murphy, and Premium Standard.

Fallon said, “As it happens, the President of the Iowa Senate at that time was Leonard Boswell, my opponent in this race. While I worked with fellow House Democrats to block passage of HF 519, Leonard Boswell helped get it passed in the Senate. “

Fallon says he disappointed that the Democratic Legislature in Iowa has done nothing on this issue and would recommend a moratorium at the federal level.

Fallon also wants to focus on ensuring economic opportunities for family farmers. He believes that farm payments should help family farmers, not corporate agribusiness and says, “I will support legislation to close the loopholes that allow the largest farms to get around limits.”

He would also support a ban on packer ownership of livestock. Fallon said, “I will fight to put teeth into anti-monopoly laws and strengthen protections for producers to ensure independent farmers have fair access to markets.”

Fallon says he’s eager to support policies that encourage development of organic and local agricultural markets so that small and mid-sized family farmers have more options to diversify their production.

Finally, Fallon thinks it’s critical to the future or Iowa to identify a new generation of farmers and wants to create ways for them to enter the profession. “I support legislation to identify, train, and provide incentives to new innovative farmers,” said Fallon.

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