Ricketts calls USDA meeting with animal rights groups at livestock research facility a 'wasted' effo
Source: Omaha World Herald
By Joe Duggan
LINCOLN — Gov. Pete Ricketts wrote the nation’s agriculture secretary this week to express concern over a meeting with animal rights organizations that have called for wholesale changes at a federal livestock research facility near Clay Center, Nebraska.
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday’s tour and listening session at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center was held to start a discussion with groups that reacted strongly to allegations of livestock abuse leveled at the facility earlier this year.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the governor predicted that the meeting would fail to sway animal rights groups.
“I respectfully submit that an open-door effort will be wasted on groups whose main goal is the complete destruction of food animal agriculture,” Ricketts said in his letter. “The feedback you will receive from these groups will be continued unwarranted criticism of the fine men and women at MARC and their research.”
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cattle at the Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska.
Read more: http://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/ricketts-calls-usda-meeting-with-animal-rights-groups-at-livestock/article_4f3ec11d-36f1-5def-9efa-33cd70359027.html
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