We got the Juice.
Press Releases
Farm-to-Consumer Foundation
Breaking News ...
The earlier notice about the NAIS listening sessions has been amended. The new notice (published today in the federal register) states a correction for the Washington, D.C. meeting.
The correct location is the Renaissance M Street Hotel, 1143 New Hampshire Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20037. The meeting will still be on December 16th from 8 am to 4:30 pm.
On November 18, 2008, Judge Egan of the Albany County Supreme Court ruled against Steve and Barbara Smith and Meadowsweet Dairy, LLC, deciding that a "consumer" is anyone who drinks raw milk or who consumes raw dairy products, and thus anyone who "makes available" raw milk or raw dairy products to a consumer must have a permit for that activity. "We are extremely disappointed in Judge Egan's decision," said President Pete Kennedy. Kennedy said "The Judge's decision is overly broad and ignores the reality of the situation, that people who wish to consume raw milk and raw dairy products have a fundamental, inalienable right to do so free from governmental interference. Judge Egan's decision essentially treats these individuals as wards of the state and deprives them of any ability to make decisions in their own best interests."
The decision stems from a complaint filed by the Legal Defense Fund on behalf of the Smith's back in late 2007. The case was originally filed in the Seneca County Supreme Court but was transferred by the local judge to Albany County. The original complaint had asked for legal declarations that New York's dairy laws do not reach private conduct, that a group of individuals can produce and consume the foods of their own choice, that the State's police power does not extend to the inalienable right of a person to make their own healthy decisions, and that the Smiths should not be subjected to further enforcement actions by the State.
One of the laws relied on by Judge Egan states that "no person shall sell, offer for sale or otherwise make available raw milk to a consumer" without a permit. The Legal Defense Fund had argued that "consumer" meant somebody who had "purchased" the product and that since none of the LLC members had purchased anything from the LLC that a permit was not necessary. "Judge Egan's decision essentially re-writes the law, such that it now says that no person shall otherwise make available raw milk to any person without a permit," stated Kennedy. "In essence, a farmer who makes raw milk available to himself now has to get a permit for doing so. Such an interpretation of the law is incredible," said Kennedy.
The Fund will be discussing the matter at its next Board meeting and will decide whether to appeal the decision.
NAIS Complaint Announcement - September 8, 2008
FTCLDF General Counsel, Gary Cox was admitted to the District Court for the District of Columbia Bar.
Following the admission, he filed the NAIS Complaint against the USDA and Michigan Department of Agriculture.
Case Number: 1:08-cv-01546 Judge: The Honorable Rosemary M. Collyer
Complaint for Preliminary and Other Injunctive Relief
Donate Now to help STOP NAIS.
Donate to the Fund, to defray the costs of legal, legislative and lobby actions: Donate online or download the Donation Form.
In making your donation it may be helpful to consider.
Donations to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund ARE NOT tax deductible, because the primary mission of the Fund is to effect change in legal, lobby and legislative arenas. The donations received are 100% usable by the Fund for the primary mission.
Donations to the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation ARE tax deductible, because the primary mission of the Foundation is to educate and provide memberships to those in need. The Foundation is restricted in the support it can provide the Fund. The Foundation has established special pages for contribution for the legal expenses in specific cases, such as the case to stop NAIS and the AB1735 lawsuit.
If you want to donate to the Foundation, go to click here.
Legal Defense Fund Moves to Stop Animal ID Program; Files Intent to Sue USDA, Michigan Department of Agriculture
Donate Now to help STOP NAIS.
Read 10 Quick Things That You Need to Know About NAIS or read Excerpts from the Notice of Intent to Sue them in PDF format.
May 15, 2008
Excerpts from the Notice of Intent to Sue Letter to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA)
- NAIS was developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”), and is being implemented through its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (“APHIS”) and various state agencies, including the Michigan Department of Agriculture (“MDA”).
- Ironically, the USDA has claimed that NAIS is necessary to control disease in animals due to the ongoing success of existing animal disease control programs: “As diseases such as tuberculosis, brucellosis, and pseudorabies are eradicated from the United States, fewer animals are required to be officially identified under the regulations. As a result, our ability to trace diseased animals back to their herds of origin and to trace other potentially exposed animals forward is being compromised.” (See 69 Federal Register 64,644)
- In promulgating its interim rule to facilitate the development of NAIS, it concluded that “this interim rule has potential implications for small entities in the United States, both in terms of any costs they might incur to satisfy NAIS program requirements and in terms of the benefits associated with the program’s establishment,” and that “little information is available at this time about costs that may be incurred by producers.” Notwithstanding this admission that NAIS would have cost impacts, USDA refused to evaluate any such impacts based on the assumption that “participation in the NAIS is voluntary.”
- USDA is using the State of Michigan to implement NAIS in that State under the guise of eradicating TB, a disease which is not being caused by animals on farms, but rather, is being caused by wildlife in the State as well as by imported animals.
- Even though implementation of NAIS is not required by any federal or state statute or regulation, the USDA held hostage Michigan’s attempt to have its areas declared TB free unless MDA agreed to implement NAIS on a mandatory basis for all cattle.
- Another way in which NAIS will impact the environment is how it will drive small operations (which benefit the environment) out of business yet reward large operations (which burden the environment) by allowing them to proliferate. Specifically, NAIS creates incentives for confined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) but not for pasture-based farms. Therefore, compliance with NAIS will be easier for large operations but difficult for small operations.
- Large swine and poultry CAFO operation will benefit from NAIS at the expense of small farmers since the USDA allows group identification numbers can be used for animals that “typically move through the production chain as a group of animals of the same species” Small, pasture-based operations, which generally do not manage their animals in such artificial, isolated groups, will therefore be faced with having to individually tag and track each animal, a cost that USDA again failed to evaluate.
- In addition to the lack of scientific support, USDA has based NAIS on entirely unsupported assumptions about its feasibility and workability. Microchips are subject to multiple problems that make their effectiveness in a tracking system highly questionable. Microchips can be cloned or infected with computer viruses. The specific type of microchip designated by USDA for NAIS is reprogrammable making it useless against purposeful wrongdoing.
- Experience in Australia with a similar program for cattle has proven that the databases are subject to extremely high error rates making them essentially useless in cases of true emergencies.
###
Notice of Intent to Sue – Press Release, May 14, 2008
Notice of Intent to Sue – Excerpts
Notice of Intent to Sue
Notice of Intent to Sue – Executive Summary
