\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/strong>April 9, 2006\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Contact: Judith McGeary\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/strong>Executive Director\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Email: jmcgeary@att.net<\/a><\/p>\n Phone: (512) 243-2706\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Leading the Fight Against NAIS\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA), a newly-created nonprofit organization, will lobby on behalf of independent farmers and ranchers.\u00c2\u00a0 For too long, legislators and agency bureaucrats have heard only from large, corporate producers.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, independent producers have been largely unrepresented.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n This lack of representation has culminated in the current problem: the creation and pending implementation of a national animal identification system (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153NAIS\u00e2\u20ac\u009d).\u00c2\u00a0 NAIS poses a serious threat to all farmers, ranchers, livestock owners, and companion-animal owners, whether they are organic or conventional, small or large, involved with animals for business or for pleasure.\u00c2\u00a0 Across the country, every person with even one<\/u> horse, cow, chicken, pig, goat, sheep, exotic animal or virtually any other livestock animal on their premises, will be required to register their homes and property into a database and subject their property and animals to government surveillance.<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Each animal would be individually identified, physically tagged (in many cases with radio frequency tags or microchips), and every \u00e2\u20ac\u0153event\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the animal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life (including birth, movement to and from premises, and death) reported to the government or to a private industry database that the government has the power to access. The only exception from individual identification and tracking is that large industrial agricultural producers will be able to use just one group number for an entire confinement house of poultry or swine.\u00c2\u00a0 Small producers, who do not manage their animals in isolated groups, will not qualify for this convenience.<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n NAIS does not distinguish between large corporate factory farms and the smallest family producer, hobby farmer, or the grandmother with a few laying hens.\u00c2\u00a0 Many families may be made criminals due to their religious convictions and concerns over privacy and property rights.\u00c2\u00a0 Small and medium-size farmers and ranchers will be driven out of business, and the consolidation of our food supply into the hands of a few large, multinational corporations will continue.\u00c2\u00a0 NAIS must be stopped, and FARFA will lead the fight, first in Texas and then at the national level.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond the immediate problem of NAIS, FARFA will continue to serve as the voice of non-corporate agriculture.\u00c2\u00a0 The issues are many and varied: land use regulations, land valuation issues, condemnation of land for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153public purposes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d protection of Constitutional rights and liberties, funding for research, regulation of marketing, and many others.\u00c2\u00a0 Priorities will be based both on threats (such as NAIS) and on recognizing, and even creating, opportunities for independent ranchers and farmers, whose work guarantees America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s food supply.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Visit FARFA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s website at http:\/\/www.farmandranchfreedom.org<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 For more information concerning NAIS or FARFA, contact Judith McGeary at jmcgeary@att.net<\/a> or (512) 243-2706. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00c2\u00a0 For Immediate Release:\u00c2\u00a0 April 9, 2006\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 Contact: Judith McGeary\u00c2\u00a0 Executive Director\u00c2\u00a0 Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance\u00c2\u00a0 Email: jmcgeary@att.net Phone: (512) 243-2706\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 Leading the Fight Against NAIS\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 The Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA), a newly-created nonprofit organization, will lobby on behalf of independent farmers and ranchers.\u00c2\u00a0 For too long, legislators and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,14,21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-industry","category-rfid","category-watching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ebarrelracing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/u><\/h1>\n