Opposition to Pork

When we reported back on February 4th that our Governor announced that he was close to finalizing a “deal” to build a pork processing plant in Shelby many of the folks we talked to said no matter how good it sounded there would arise a big cry of opposition. True to the prediction the Tribune reported in Sunday’s paper that people were voicing “environmental” concerns with the proposal.

Sure why not? We have been against every single job creating proposal to ever hit our area. We have folks against the prison, against the Keystone pipeline, against the 4-lane road, against drilling, against mining, against farmer’s dust, against mega-loads, against logging and against virtually every single thing anyone ever thinks of to generate jobs. Anyone attempting to generate a job is sure to find opposition from some quarter. Is it any wonder we are ranked at the bottom of the economic scale?

Also one of the biggest road-blocks to any project in our area is the ego issue of “who is going to get credit?” Ego has stopped more projects in Hill County and the hi-line than any other single issue. While the Governor’s wonderful claim that he was responsible for discovering this opportunity while in China is admirable we have learned last week that the Shelby bunch has been working on bringing this venture to Shelby for over two years. The Governor jumped on their coat-tails and is now is making out like he was the brains behind the operation. Personally I don’t care who is responsible but everyone on the hi-line needs to get behind anything that will benefit our area economically and work together to put down any perceived opposition. What is so blamed hard about actually being in favor of something that will benefit all of us?

Interestingly a reader commenting on the story in Sunday’s Tribune posted a link to a similar pork processing plant in Denmark that I found highly enlightening. Go give it a read and tell us what you think.

What can we do here locally to help see this proposal become a reality?  This plant would allow local farmers to expand existing pork operations profitably which would be good for everyone on the hi-line.  Perhaps even a few of the smaller operations that aren't large enough to allow their kids to join the farm operation could actually have enough revenue to keep a few of our kids employed on their family farms.