Representative Roy Ragland, Chair of the Agriculture, Forestry, and Economic
Development committee of the Arkansas State House of Representatives has
introduced a bill to protect the rights of animal owners and prohibit any state,
city, county, or private organization from requiring animal owners to register
in any animal identification system. The bill has been referred to the
committee on Agriculture, Forestry, and Economic Development.
PLEASE let these legislators know we support this legislation that could provide
valuable protection for the rights of all animal owners in the state of Arkansas
by contacting the committee members
HB 1046, Freedom to Farm Act
http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/R/Bills/HB1046.pdf
Animal ownership by hobbyists, commercial producers, and home food providers
make valuable contributions to this state.
Animal ownership rights should be protected.
Protecting the right of ownership, production, exhibition,and sale of animals is
integral to ensuring the economic growth and general welfare of this state.
The purpose of the Freedom to Farm Act is to encourage and protect animal
ownership, animals, home food production, direct farm-to-consumer sales, hobby
production, off-farm commercial sales, animal exhibition, and businesses that
serve animal owners.
Unless otherwise required by a law or rule that was in effect before January 1,
2009, no state, county, city, or public or private agency shall require an
animal owner or real estate owner to:
(1) Register or enroll in the National Animal Identification System;
(2) Register the animal owner’s premises or property;
(3) Have a premises identification;
(4) Use an electronic identification device on or in an animal;
(5) Secure a permit or a license for ownership or production of an animal; or
(6) Report the movement, sale, or purchase of an animal.
Referred to the Committee on AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT- HOUSE
Membership of the Arkansas AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Committee - HOUSE
Vice Chair Representative Jerry Brown (870) 238-3132
Representative Curren Everett (870) 895-2164
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1 comment:
Please understand that this bill is about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) which does NOT deal with dogs, cats, etc., but with 33 other species of animals such as horses, swine, goats, sheep, fish, exotic birds, cattle, shrimp, crayfish, donkeys, etc. The definition of animals was done in the way it is due to looking to the future and wanting to sidetrack any addition of species of animals to this program or others like it. The NAIS is INTERNATIONAL, not national, and other countries such as Australia who have already instituted the program are finding that it's a nightmare. Other states besides Arkansas are working to pass laws to limit the NAIS to strictly voluntary and non-coercive. Four states have laws already - Kentucky, Nebraska, Missouri and Arizona, but the feds are moving at the federal level to stop even those laws. In January 2009, the USDA/APHIS put a "proposed rule" in the Federal Register that will effectively start us down the path to being only able to use the 15 digit ISO number for NAIS for ALL of our existing disease programs such as scrapies for goats and sheep and coggins/EIA for equines. In other words, get a coggins test done and you get signed up with a Premises ID and your animal gets a NAIS ISO number. Note that that is an INTERNATIONAL number. This is not a NATIONAL program. It's coming through our government, not from it, and has nothing to do with animal diseases or food safety. But it *will* allow agri corporations like Tyson to export and import with "open borders" instead of using the quarantine/vaccinations that we are using now. No vaccinations with NAIS - only depopulation. They have to know where your animals are in order to find them for depopulation. Please contact your state legisltors NOW and do everything you can to help stop this at the state levels and at the federal levels. There are websites galore with anti-NAIS information - NAISstinks, http://nonais.org; http://arkansasanimalproducers.8k.com for starters. Educate yourselves and everyone you know before it's too late - they already meant for this to be 100% mandatory by Jan. 2009 and we've delayed them that much...
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