Hello and welcome to the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance e-news alert. We know you want to stay informed about what is happening with the National Animal Identification System and how you can make a difference. Feel free to forward this email to your friends and acquaintances.

In this Update:

    * State bills filed to stop NAIS
    * Agriculture Information Survey
    * Rally on Friday, March 2
    * Join FARFA

State bills filed to stop NAIS

Thanks to the grassroots movement, state legislators across the country are introducing bills to stop NAIS at the state level! Bills have already been filed in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington. More anti-NAIS bills are in the works in Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.

FARFA will email state-specific alerts for its state chapters: Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas. Texans, watch for alert, coming soon! For the other states, please check the State Activities page on the Liberty Ark website. The Washington bill is basically a concise version of the model anti-NAIS legislation developed by Liberty Ark, so we know we’re being heard!

If your state has not yet introduced legislation to stop NAIS, there’s still time! Email judith@farmandranchfreedom.org, and we can help you with a plan of action for talking with your legislators, lobbying materials, and sample bill language.

Agriculture Information Survey

Many people have contacted us about a recent survey from the USDA/ NASS. With NAIS being implemented, any request by the USDA for people’s information understandably causes concern! As explained below, the two are not supposed to be linked. This alert provides what we have determined about this survey, based on current information. This is not legal advice. It is provided for your information only, please consult an attorney in your state if you have any legal questions.

Statute: The USDA is required by statute to conduct a census of agriculture every five years. It applies to anyone with a farm, defined as “any place that produced and sold, or normally would produce and sell, $1,000 or more of agricultural products during the census year.” (7 USC section 2204g and 71 Fed. Reg. 7004.)

Penalties: There are limited penalties for not complying. A person who “refuses or willfully neglects to answer a question” faces fines of up to $100 A person “who willfully gives an answer that is false to a question” faces fines of up to $500 (7 USC section 2204g(d)).

Use: The statute states that the information gathered “may not be used for any purpose other than the statistical purposes for which the information is supplied.” (7 USC Section 2204g(f) (3).) If the USDA complies with the statute, your information should not be placed into NAIS.

More Information: The regulations governing the National Agricultural Statistics Service branch of the USDA can be found at http://www.nass.usda.gov/About_Nass/Regulations_G uiding_NASS/index.asp.

Again, this is not legal advice. It is merely information about the statutory authority for the census.

Rally on Friday, March 2, 2007

After announcing our plans to hold a rally in late February, we talked with other organizations who were making plans to protest the Trans-Texas Corridor, and we are combining our efforts. So mark your calendar for Friday, March 2. We will gather people, tractors, and horses at a spot in downtown Austin, and then drive, ride, and walk up Congress Avenue to the Capitol for a rally on the steps. We have already lined up Michael Badnarik, the 2004 Libertarian Candidate for President, and Liz McIntyre, the author of Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move, to speak at the rally, and we have some other great speakers in the works!

Join us with your tractor, horse, or on foot! Let’s show the legislators how many people oppose the NAIS!!! For Texans, we will have talking points available to help you effectively lobby your elected officials while you are in Austin. If you can’t come, you can still help in other ways. Stay posted for more information in the coming weeks.

Join FARFA

If you are not yet a member of FARFA, please consider joining us!

Membership comes with a quarterly hard-copy newsletter and knowing that you are helping to protect our rights and our food supply! Becoming a member of FARFA helps the fight against the NAIS. Your membership dues help fund FARFA's work - but even more importantly, more members means the government pays more attention to what we have to say.

When FARFA testified before the Texas Senate Subcommittee on Agriculture, one of the first questions the Senator asked was: "How many members do you have?" In other words, he wanted to know why he and other senators should listen to us. We have the truth and facts on our side. BUT WE NEED MEMBERS TO CONVINCE THE LEGISLATORS THAT THEY SHOULD LISTEN TO THOSE FACTS!

And, of course, we need money to continue our education and lobbying efforts. We had a wonderful outpouring of response to our December drive, totaling over $1,600 in new members and donations from existing members! Please keep it going!!

We have seen successes in getting legislation introduced to stop NAIS, but we still have to get those bills adopted! We have a long way to go this fight. Please help us to continue this important work by joining today. Visit our membership page.

Working together, we can make our voices heard.

Sincerely,

Judith McGeary
Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
email: judith@farmandranchfreedom.org
phone: 866-687-6452
web: http://www.farmandranchfreedom.org