VICFA
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Press Releases
•July 27, 2006
•Feb. 10, 2006
•Feb. 7, 2006
•Jan. 27, 2006
•Jan. 10, 2006
VICFA Press Release July 27, 2006
FROM: Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Assocation
RE: National lobby effort founded to protect Americans from the National Animal Identification System
RELEASE DATE: Immediately
CONTACT:
Joel Salatin 540.885.3590
Richard Bean, President, VICFA, 434.263.8704
Carl Little, information@smallfarmlaw.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE--A national lobby effort to protect America's food system from a proposed United States Department of Agriculture licensing program was launched today by the Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association (VICFA).
The USDA proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) would require micro-chipping with radio frequency Identification and mandatory government registration of all poultry, hogs, and cattle, and other livestock including the family chicken for breakfast eggs. Never before attempted in human history, this licensing program's protocol discriminates against small producers and many fear it will be used by industrial agriculture to further destroy local and homegrown food production.
VICFA, a statewide group of farmers and consumers established five years ago to protect consumer food choice from government intrusion, has created the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Advocates (NICFA) Fund to represent the numerous anti-NAIS constituency groups. Retaining Carl Little, legislative attorney and former chief of staff for Indiana Rep. John Hostettler, this fund creates a national political presence to protect food security in America.
"Real food security comes from community-based, bio-regional food commerce, not from transnational concentrations of production, processing, and long distance marketing," said VICFA spokesperson Joel Salatin. "The USDA already has the authority and information to deal with disease outbreaks; this is just a smokescreen to further harass people with backyard poultry flocks and a 4-H steer so the big producers can have it all," he said.
Cornucopia Institute Press Release Feb. 10, 2006
CONTACT: Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042
Cornucopia Institute Opposes Virginia Poultry Proposal
Legislation Could Ban Small Scale/Humane Production
RICHMOND--The Cornucopia Institute has announced their support for family farmers in their opposition to a legislative proposal in the state of Virginia that could eliminate the ability of the state’s residents to raise chickens and other fowl in the outdoors for eventual sale to consumers. The stated purpose of the controversial legislation, HB 982, is to control live bird markets—of which there are none in Virginia—but the Institute believes that it’s real purpose is to stop independent poultry producers from raising their flocks outdoors because federal officials are worried about an avian flu epidemic.
“This legislation is extremely troubling as consumers are increasingly hungry for organic and sustainable eggs and poultry that come from healthy birds raised outdoors,” said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based organic farming watchdog group. “The bill’s language is too vague and would allow the state’s Agricultural Commissioner to arbitrarily regulate and control small- to medium-sized poultry flocks, not just live bird markets, which currently don’t even exist in Virginia.”
Passage of the legislation by Virginia would make the state eligible for federal funding that could be used to hunt down outdoor poultry producers and lead to the shutdown of their operations.
“Nothing would make the huge poultry confinement operators happier than to squelch an increasingly popular competitor that consumers are flocking to,” Kastel added. “Consumers have discovered that the purveyors of organic and direct-market eggs and poultry raised in healthy, outdoor conditions offer a superior-tasting product, and that scares the huge confinement operations.”
Kastel noted that it was no coincidence that the bill was being pushed by the Del-Mar-Va Poultry industry, a giant industrial poultry cooperative, and by the state’s Agribusiness Council and the Farm Bureau. Organic and sustainable farming advocates are concerned that this legislative initiative in Virginia is just the first in a battle that will spread to statehouses around the nation.
Joel Salatin, a Virginia poultry farmer, is skeptical of the hype surrounding avian flu and domestic outdoor bird operations. “This has been an issue in Southeast Asia,” said Salatin, “because of the extraordinarily unsanitary conditions their fowl are raised in.” Pointing to China, Salatin explains that “because of theft, families typically confine 200 birds in an 8’ x 8’ cage with no bedding provided. The birds are living on six to eight inches of raw fecal build-up and locked in unhygienic squalor.”
These conditions in foreign lands stand in marked contrast to the way organic and sustainable growers raise poultry in the United States. Salatin calls his birds “pastured poultry” because his thousands of chickens and turkeys are moved on a daily basis to fresh pasture paddocks and allowed to exhibit their natural, instinctive behaviors. Salatin, who has raised poultry for 50 years, strongly criticizes regulators and health experts for failing to grasp this different agricultural style: “Nobody—not the World Health Organization, the European Union, or the USDA—has been willing to articulate the difference between clean outdoor housing and unhygienic outdoor housing.”
“Virginians should reject this ill-framed poultry proposal and allow its consumers and citizens freedom of choice in the food they want,” Salatin added.
If federal experts are truly concerned about an avian flu outbreak in poultry flocks, Kastel suggests they look elsewhere. “Historically,” Kastel observed, “Avian flu outbreaks have been concentrated in large, confinement, industrial-scale poultry facilities, where management is theoretically practicing stringent bio-security measures.”
Even before the latest flu scare, poultry industry lobbyists were advocating the change of organic poultry standards at the National Organic Standards Board by seeking removal of the federal requirement that organic birds have access to the outdoors. “Trade lobbyists were trying to gut federal law so that their clients can use their confinement practices,” noted Kastel. “Should the Virginia proposal pass, we think these same powerful forces will use it as a model for other states and try to achieve through the backdoor—and under cover of the avian flu scare—what they’ve been unable to get from the National Organic Standards Board.”
Consumers and farmers interested in more information on this issue, and contact information for sending messages to the Virginia legislature, can visit Cornucopia’s Web page at www.cornucopia.org.
*****
The Cornucopia Institute is a farm policy research group, based in Cornucopia, Wisconsin. Its mission is dedicated to promoting economic justice for family-scale farmers and ranchers.
VICFA Press Release Feb. 7, 2006
CONTACT: Joel Salatin 540-885-3590
RE:Virginia House Bill Authorizes Ag Commissioner to Eliminate Backyard Poultry Flocks
RICHMOND--A Virginia House Bill already passed by the House of Delegates authorizes the agriculture commissioner to regulate and control backyard poultry flocks without public participation in the licensing procedure.
Titled House Bill 982, it ostensibly was promulgated by the state veterinarian's office to control live bird markets, which are
considered to be a potential vector for spreading avian influenza.
Although Virginia has none of these markets and state vet officials do not anticipate any coming to the state, this bill is considered a preemptive strike against a potential hazard. Live bird markets exist in large metropolitan centers with heavy ethnic populations.
Because the bill loosely defines "live-bird markets" to include anyone who sells live birds, many independent poultry owners and breeders in the state believe the bill is a thinly disguised authorization to eliminate home flocks. They cite the section that reads "the Commissioner shall be exempt from the Administrative Process Act and from public participation guidelines" in promulgating the licensing system.
"If they really want to control just live-bird markets, why not use the definition from the federal guidelines (APHIS 91-55-076) and keep home-owned flocks out of the picture?" queried Joel Salatin, president of the Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association.
The bill will now go before the Senate Agriculture Committee.
VICFA Press Release Jan. 27, 2006”
CONTACT: Joel Salatin 540-885-3590
RE: HOUSE BILL MAY OUTLAW BACKYARD CHICKEN FLOCKS
RICHMOND--A house bill authorizing the Commissioner of Agriculture to license backyard poultry flocks without "public participation" has raised the hackles on many small farmers and poultry enthusiasts.
House Bill 982 titled "Control of Avian Influenza" empowers the commissioner to "adopt regulations to prevent and control avian influenza in commercial and noncommercial poultry" and to "establish by regulation a registration or licensing system to regulate . . .
all persons who operate a live-bird market, production unit, or distribution unit." The bill specifically exempts the regulations from "public participation guidelines" and the "Administrative Process Act."
The "registration or licensing system may include, but not be limited to, the granting, denial, suspension, or revocation of any registration or license," according to the bill.
Submitted by Del. Lynwood Lewis Jr. (D) from the Eastern Shore,
the bill originated from Secretary of Agriculture Robert Bloxom.
When asked who wrote the bill, Bloxom responded: "I don't know."
When asked where it originated, he answered: "It just appeared on my desk."
Today, Del. Lewis received a faxed letter from Christine Solem, spokesperson for the Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Assocation (VICFA) citing three sections in the Code of Virginia that authorize emergency regulations involving an "imminent threat to public health and safety."
When asked about these current provisions, Bloxom said that the Virginia Board of Agriculture may not be able to convene a quorum in a timely enough manner to deal with the emergency.
"Because the bill empowers the commissioner to enter 'other premises subject to regulation hereunder' and does not define 'production unit' it could easily extend registration requirements to any home flock in the Commonwealth," said Joel Salatin, president of VICFA. "And then to specifically exempt all this new power from public participation, without even a Governor's signature, is incomprehensible. After all, this isn't a police state---yet," he said.
Dr. Richard Wilkes, Virginia State Veterinarian, said although he did not write the bill, he conceived it as a protection against "live bird markets" that exist primarily in ethnic quarters of New York and New Jersey. "We do not have any of those in Virginia and I don't expect we will have any," he said.
"Then why authorize the Commissioner, free from public input, to outlaw any and all poultry flocks in the Commonwealth?" an incredulous Salatin wants to know.
VICFA Press Release Jan. 10, 2006”
CONTACT: Joel Salatin 540-885-3590
RE: VIRGINIA REGULATORS NIX ON-FARM SALES
RICHMOND—Farmers and consumers should not be allowed to transact food sales without regulatory oversight, according to a joint report recently released by Virginia's Secretary of Agriculture Robert S. Bloxom and Secretary of Health Jane H. Woods.
The study was requested in last year’s legislative session by Sen. Charles Hawkins, chairman of the Senate Agriculture committee, following the narrow defeat of HB-2903 which would have allowed significant relaxing of regulations that prohibit farmers from selling the products they grow and process to their neighbors.
This legislation, which passed handily in the House, would have allowed farmers to sell unregulated and un-inspected products grown on their farms if they met certain broad conditions. It was put forth by then Del. Albert Pollard, who argued that overburdensome regulatory requirements destroy local food commerce, which is key to revitalizing local food networks, consumer food choice, and farm income. "To me, food laws which prevent direct 'farmer to fork' sales are more about protectionism than public safety. With only .19 of every food dollar going to the farm, we need laws to benefit the farmer not the the distributor," said Pollard.
The workgroup, which held two days of listening sessions, noted that “a growing number of consumers believe it is their right to choose where and from whom they purchase their food.” But this right, according to the report, cannot be allowed due to food safety issues.
The workgroup also found that relaxing regulations would increase farm sales, which would “put more money into the local economy, help farmers diversity production and provide consumers locally grown produce and other farm products.” But here again, the committee came down solidly on the side of alleged food safety issues.
“This battle for food choice and the freedom to opt out of government food will continue,” said Joel Salatin, president of the Virginia Independent Farmers and Consumers Association, which lobbied for the house bill. “A government that can’t be trusted to pick my religion, can’t be trusted to pick my food,” he added.
News Links
•Raw-milk sales issue
•Buying Organic-Consumer Reports
•The supersizing of America's livestock farms
•The War on Good Food
Richmond Times Dispatch article link:
Raw-milk sales issue resurfaces in assembly
Farmers want legalization, but state officials warn of risks to consumers
Consumer Reports article link:
When it pays to buy organic
Dayton Daily News article link:
The supersizing of America's livestock farms
Lew Rockwell article link:
The War on Good Food
Articles & Commentary
•The Fourth Branch
•Carlos B. Arostegui ~ A Citizen's Presentation
•Biosecurity and The Food Supply
•NAIS-The Mark of the Beast
•Articles by Joel Salatin
Coming Events
•
Farm Food Voices, DC 2007
National Grassroots Small-farm Lobby Day, February 14th
[No experience needed!]
Joel Salatin, Speaker
Anti-NAIS, pro small/sustainable/independent agriculture
For full Information alert and event flyer click here