Mohesky

TUCSON, AZ, November 7—The U.S. Meat Export Federation elected its officers for 2003-2004 on Friday at the USMEF Board of Directors Meeting in Tucson, Az.:

R.H. “Moe” Mohesky, a pork producer from Wilson County, North Carolina was elected USMEF Chairman.

• Alan Smith of the Texas Beef Council was named Chairman-Elect.
• John W. Bellinger of Agri-West International, Inc. was named Vice-Chairman.
• Dennis Erpelding of Elanco Animal Health is the new Secretary/Treasurer

On his election, Mohesky said that USMEF was a “great organization that had been instrumental in more than 20 years of growth in U.S. beef and pork exports.”

In his Chairman’s Address, Mohesky said that “the U.S. red meat industry was facing many challenges, but the challenges could be turned into opportunities if USMEF remains focused on its mission.”

Mohesky, the chief executive of Clover M Farms in Wilson County, North Carolina, is a past president of the National Pork Producers Council and a past president of the Carolina Feed Industries Association.

At the annual meeting, the board of directors resolved to “work with industry partners to ask the U.S. government to pursue FTA and multilateral negotiations that will assure that U.S. pork exports are allowed into foreign markets, such as Japan, under conditions no less favorable then those granted to third countries.”

In response to the European Union’s (EU) repeated refusals to comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) rulings and a recent call by the EU for the U.S. to lift its WTO-sanctioned retaliatory tariffs, the board passed a resolution to encourage the U.S. government to implement current law and begin “carousel” retaliation against the EU. Carousel retaliation — regularly changing the target of retaliatory tariffs — has never been implemented by the U.S. government. The resolution also called for the U.S. government to “seek immediate compensation from the current and future loss of business within the ten countries soon to accede to the EU.”

The growing importance of China as a market for U.S. pork offals and its non-science based pathogen testing is reflected in a third resolution passed at the meeting “that USMEF work closely and expediently with FAS, FSIS and APHIS in order to address and influence the Chinese government to re-evaluate and address the inequities in China’s non-scientific standards for zero tolerance regulation for the presence of common pathogens (such as salmonella and listeria) on fresh U.S. pork.”

A final resolution called for USMEF to assist the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Checkoff Working Group, which was set up to explore alternatives to and modifications of the beef checkoff in the event of a future court ruling terminating it.

The U.S. Meat Export Federation is the trade association responsible for developing international markets for the   U.S. red meat industry and is funded by USDA, exporting companies, and the beef, pork, corn, sorghum and soybean checkoff programs.

— USMEF —