(Toledo, OH)  --   Voters in Ohio next Tuesday will be asked to decide the fate of Issue 2, an issue that has created some heat between the Humane Society and the Farm Bureau.  According the Ohio Far Bureau Federation, Issue 2 would create a livestock advisory board, to be called an "animal care" board that would decide what type of treatment is acceptable for farm animals and livestock in Ohio. The measure would create the board as part of the Ohio Constitution and is seen by the opponents as a power grab by the big money agri-business interests and large corporate farms to wrest control of the issue away from the legislature or the voters.  Farm Bureau spokesman, Joe Cornely says "activists are expected to come into the state" and try to pass a measure in the coming year to create standards for animal treatment. Cornely and other proponents of Issue 2 admit this is a way to keep the so-called "outside interests" from influencing Ohio farm policy.  If passed, the Animal Care Board would consist of 13 members, many of them from the corporate and farming interests, with only one representative from the Humane Society.  John Dinon, the executive Director of the Toledo Humane Society sees that as a "token appointment" and questions the wisdom of creating the board as part of the constitution. Dinon says  "it is the wrong way to approach this" and that a "lot of the stakeholders were left out of the formation" of the board. Dinon says he would have preferred that the Farm Bureau and the Humane Society tried to reach an agreement on a a phased in set of standards for animal care, similar to what has happened recently in Michigan. 

Dinon says of most concern is the confinement of animals on so-called factory farms. On many eggs farms, chickens are confined to a about a one square foot area for their entire lives and merely sit in the spot and lay eggs. Similar conditions exist in many hog and dairy farms where animals are no longer allowed to roam freely in pastures.