VoteKansas.org

URGENT UPCOMING MEETING

Stand up for your rights! This will not just affect animal owners, small farmers, and large producers, but every Arkansan through the food supply. If we can get enough people to this meeting, we might be able to stop the National Animal Identification System in its cradle! Senator Holt Plans on attending and we request your presence as well:

COERCIVE PROGRAM REQUIRES MICROCHIPPING OF ANIMALS
National Animal Identification System is subject of State-wide meeting this Sunday, July 9th, 4:00 pm. Sponsored by the Arkansas Animal Producers Association, a band of small farmers, the purpose of the meeting is to encourage the State of Arkansas to opt-out of the state-optional USDA program.

WHERE: Conway, Arkansas at the Agora Center at 705 E. Siebenmorgen Road (Take exit 127 from I-40, travel east on Oak St. Turn left onto Museum Road. At the stop sign turn left onto Siebenmorgen Road. Agora will be on the left.)

WHEN: This Sunday, July 9, 2006 from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm

WHO: Sponsored by the Arkansas Animal Producer's Association. Joel Gill, a cattle buyer from Pickens, Mississippi, will be the featured speaker. Arguments FOR and AGAINST the NAIS will be presented.

For more information, below is a press release we received from the Arkansas Animal Producer's Association:

ARKANSAS ANIMAL PRODUCER'S ASSOCIATION
ANIMAL OWNERS WORKING TOGETHER

PRESS RELEASE: ANIMAL OWNERS WILL GATHER IN CONWAY TO PRESERVE THEIR RIGHTS The USDA recently issued guidelines for Farm Premises Identification (FPI) and National Animal Identification Tracking System (NAIS). Independent animal owners were not invited by the USDA to help develop these guidelines. Instead, large agricultural corporations, chemical manufacturers, major packers, and manufacturers of animal tracking devices were invited to develop the guidelines.

These guidelines as proposed would require owners of cattle, bison, horses, burros, goats, sheep, alpacas, elk, deer, llamas, hogs, and poultry to make application to the USDA for Farm Premises Identification. This identification number would be their global positioning system address (GPS) that would be attached to every animal on the farm. These tracking devices would be leg bands, ear tags, or computer chip implants depending upon the species of animal tagged.

Large corporate chicken houses and hog houses would need only one tag for each load of animals leaving the farm, but the independent farmer would be required to tag every animal. Based upon the USDA guidelines, every time an animal was born, left the farm, entered the farm, or died the farm owner would be required to report this information to the USDA within 24 hours or face fines of up to $1000 per day per occurrence. Sale barn operators would be required to purchase expensive electronic devices for reading the tags and submit animal transfer reports to the USDA within 24 hours of the end of the sale or face severe fines. The USDA would place all information received on a national data base.

Each state Department of Agriculture is developing their regulations based upon the USDA guidelines. The regulations in Texas might be quite different from the Arkansas regulations.

Employees of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission are conducting meetings across the state to encourage animal owners to apply to the USDA for FPI; however, they are failing to tell these animal owners that the Arkansas regulations have not yet been written and published for all animal species or that the USDA guidelines have not yet been completed. Individuals are told that sign up is voluntary. This is very misleading because the program is coercive-not voluntary. If you do not sign up in Arkansas for FPI, according to Phil Wyrick, Executive Director of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission, you will probably be prohibited from taking an animal off of your property for any reason, including slaughter or veterinarian service, except to be tagged.

As a result of the USDA guidelines, independent animal owners in Arkansas have banded together and formed the Arkansas Animal Producer's Association (ARAPA). It is evident to these independent animal owners that these USDA guidelines as proposed will: 1) drive small producers and their supporting suppliers (feed stores, sale barns, meat processors, mom and pop stores, etc) out of existence; 2) make people abandon raising animals for their own food and as pets; 3) invade Arkansan's personal privacy to a degree never before tolerated; 4) deprive Arkansans of their property rights; 5) violate the religious freedom of Arkansans whose beliefs make it impossible for them to comply; 6) and cost the Arkansas economy far more than the regulations will deliver.

ARAPA will work at the informational and legislative level to represent the interests and to preserve the rights of all animal owners.

ARAPA will hold a state-wide meeting from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM in Conway at Agora, which is located at 705 East Siebenmorgen Road on July 9, 2006.

Joel Gill from Pickens, Mississippi, representing R-CALF USA will be the featured speaker. He will discuss issues that will significantly impact the future of the livestock industry in Arkansas and the nation, including animal ID, country-of-origin labeling, free trade agreements, and what you as an independent producer can do to affect the outcome of each.

ARAPA will vote on Proposed By Laws, elect the Steering Committee, and elect Representatives from each group of animal owners that have 10 ARAPA members and a sale barn Representative. This meeting is open to the public. Animal owners are encouraged to attend and participate in ARAPA. It may be the most important meeting that an animal owner ever attends.

If you have questions or need more information, call 479-299-4334 (after dark) or visit http://arkansasanimalproducers.8k.com. Hwy. 28, Bluffton, Arkansas 72827, Email: arapa2@lycos.com Phone: 479-299-4334 after dark

The following excerpts from a law introduced in the US House will authenticate the validity of this concern although guidelines and other major steps are already being taken by the USDA before this law is ever acted on. Republican Congressman Peter King has a bill before Congress that will mandate data collection on EVERY FARM ANIMAL go into a national database. The bill is HR 3170 though it has a couple of companion bills. The cost of this program will be more than the cost of real "disease control" measures, which was the obstensible purpose of the bill. Here are excerpts from the bill..

" (a) Establishment- There is established a board to be known as the `Livestock Identification Board'.

(b) Duties- The duties of the Board shall be to--
(1) establish and maintain an electronic livestock identification system that--
(A) is capable of tracing all livestock in the United States from the time of first movement of the livestock from its original premise to the time of slaughter of such livestock in less than 48 hours;

(B) tracks all relevant information about the livestock, including--
(i) the livestock identification number or the group or lot identification number for the livestock, as applicable;

(ii) the date the livestock identification number or the group or lot identification number was assigned;

(iii) the premise identification number;

(iv) the species of the livestock;

(v) the date of birth of the livestock, to the extent possible;

(vi) the sex of the livestock;

(vii) any other information the Board considers appropriate for animal disease surveillance; and

(viii) any other information that the person who owns or controls the livestock voluntarily submits to the Board;

(2) maintain information obtained through the livestock identification system in a centralized data system; and

(3) determine the official identification technology to be used to track animals under the livestock identification system."

The "technology" they are talking about can only be something like an RFID chip. This program is supposedly already being tested on some farms.

"Nobody ever made a greater mistake than He who did nothing because they could only do a little." - Edmund Burke