You are a Swine Producer in Texas near the New Mexico border. You have roughly 500 sows in which you breed. Your herd is made up mostly of Yorkshire and Landrace crosses. You are able to get on average two litters per sow. Your sows are separated into various groups that cycle and farrow at staggered intervals to ensure you have a constant flow of piglets. Your operation is on roughly 150 acres with enough buffering of land between the highway on your right and the county road to the front and left of your property. The majority of your land is for crop production which in turn you convert to feed. You have several houses (for various animal phases), storage sheds, a building for machinery, a few other units (office, etc.), and a typical lagoon for waste. You make your profit by selling piglets to several Grower-Finisher operations in New Mexico.
You have been in operation for at least a decade and have had a positive working relation with your buyers. They purchase hogs from you due to the quality of your animals.
Recently, you started to hear rumors that a new proposition has made it to the New Mexico’s governor desk that taxes Texas swine crossing state lines so as to mitigate supposed loss New Mexico producers are experiencing. The proposition is centered around Texas Swine production and the lack of regulation for environmental concerns which is, to say the least, not true. The proposition seems designed to tax producers who are not part of green initiatives and who haven’t established green protocols (most of New Mexico producers had already established these things as they are behind the proposition). If passed, which may or may not happen, you could potentially be taxed out of the market and selling piglets across the border will be a loss instead of a gain. It is believed that as animals are shipped over, they are taking away from local producers to turn a profit and are causing market devaluation of local hogs. The operations you have been working with have been paying premiums for your hogs due to their quality. You are one of the biggest suppliers within a 100-mile radius in Texas. This information has managed to be leaked to producers in New Mexico as there are several large producers across the border. You’re essentially in a trade argument and New Mexico is trying to pass an interstate protectionist policy.
Your livelihood was built on these relationships that took the decade to build. You had purchased several small farms around you (in Texas) to reduce your own competition to sell to New Mexico. The Grower-Finisher Operations will not move to Texas because the Packers will not move. Why? Texas has a high taxation on Packing Plants with stronger regulations.
Advanced Livestock Management Systems M.Ag. | SP 2024 Swine Production
To add to this news, gas and diesel prices are beginning to skyrocket due to an overseas event that has caused oil and gas markets to drastically shift. You may now lose money when you run your semi to haul animals. As a final problem, you are facing a major drought which is causing the county to begin working on water and supply management for agricultural businesses to hopefully destabilize the growing threat of water loss.
There is still time to stop the proposition and you have contacts in both Texas and New Mexico’s State governments (lobbyists, politicians, and lawyers).
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Your task is multifaceted with several approaches, but the overarching goal is to provide a counter policy to your legislation and an argument that will force New Mexico producers to drop the policy. Provide information about existing pork initiatives to show what is being done on a national level in concerns to environmental management, provide questions about the green initiatives that New Mexico is supposedly requiring, develop a short brief of a counter initiative that could tackle the situation (1. Think about what the policy may be and 2. How to counter it), and lastly, explore hypotheticals of how you will secure your operation for years down the road for environmental conservation. This may include topics about air emissions, water, soil, feed, etc. as the whole proposition was stating that operations like yours were not meeting supposed environmental concerns.
