Agricultural News
From the 2011 American Farmers & Ranchers Convention- State Representative Lesley Osborn Defends Animal Agriculture
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 4:34:05 CST
State Representative Lesley Osborn of Tuttle strongly defended animal agriculture on several fronts as she discussed legislative priorities for 2011 at the American Farmers & Ranchers Convention that was held in Norman over this past weekend.
Representative Osborn told AFR that she is supportive of a couple of Senate bills that will offer a positive impact to livestock producers in the state. One is Senate Bill 530. This legislation is being advanced by the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association and the Oklahoma Farm Bureau in an effort to ensure livestock producers maintain a security interest in livestock they sell until such time as the proceeds from the sale clear the bank. This is in response to the recent Eastern Livestock Bankruptcy which left some producers holding hot checks. The weekly OCA newsletter reports they anticipate easy passage of this measure as it has been shared with the banking community, the livestock marketing communities and others. Representative Osborn says that his measure won't help those already stung by Eastern Livestock this past fall when they got checks for cattle they sold to Eastern- and found those checks were worthless as Eastern's Bank, Fifth Third Bank, had decided to freeze their account during the height of the fall stocker cattle run of last fall.
Osborn also spoke of the need to set the bar as high as possible for groups like HSUS to come into Oklahoma and use the Initiative Petition process to force a popular vote on how we handle livestock in this state. The Humane Society of the US has used that tool to force votes in other states and dictate the livestock practices they deem correct- not based on sound animal husbandry practices and research. Osborn is working with Senator Mike Schulz of Altus on this measure, which would require signatures from all five Oklahoma Congressional Districts on a weighted basis in order to land a proposal on a general election ballot.
Rep. Osborn is now in her second term in the Oklahoma State House. She is serving as the Vice- Chair of the Natural Resources & Regulatory Services Appropriations Subcommittee and also is a member of the Agriculture, Judiciary and Economic Development Committees. For the past two years she has been Deputy Majority Whip.
We talked with this rising star in the State Legislature after her presentation at the 2011 AFR meeting in Norman on Saturday morning.
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