Vilsack offers support for new beef plant

Governor Tom Vilsack says Iowa Cattlemen won’t be able to force a meat-packing plant on any community. But Vilsack has thrown his support behind the project, and has volunteered to attend town meetings in areas under consideration as the plant site.A proposed “state-of-the-art” meatpacking plant would be managed by the Excel Corporation, and Iowa cattle producers would have 50-percent ownership. Vilsack says it would be a plant that world has never seen before.Vilsack says “the time is now” for the state to embrace this sort of initiative which gives farmers part-ownership in a processing plant.