some more fear-mongering tactics, anyone?
--###--
originalLegislation Could Ban Free Range & Organic Poultry Production
2/10/06
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042
Joel Salatin, 540-885-3590
Deborah Stockton, 434-295-7176
Cornucopia Institute Opposes Virginia Poultry Proposal
Legislation Could Ban Small Scale/Humane Production 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, HR 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.
~snip~
.
.
.
--###--
commplete article
here