FARFA's main focus is on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).  NAIS poses a grave threat to independent agriculture and needs a full-time group fighting it!  Yet no single issue can define the future of independent agriculture, and FARFA is working on additional issues  as they arise, based on our members' input.  You can find information on food safety bills, genetically modified foods, and raw milk in our main menu.  Below are additional issues that we have taken positions on.

Preventing Imports of Poultry Processed in China

FARFA signed on to a letter by Food and Water Watch to urge Cogress to continue to prohibit funding for USDA"s program to allow the the importation of processed poultry from China.  Read the full letter here. 

Competition in the Livestock Industry

FARFA is supporting several reforms to current law to increase competition in the livestock industry.  FARFA signed on to a coalition effort to encourage the Senate Agriculture Committee to include these reforms in the 2007 Farm Bill, many of which succeeded.  You can read the letter at www.sustainableagriculture.net/CompConc2007.php  Stay tuned for what happens in conference committee!

Federal Preemption of State and Local Food Laws

A provision in the draft House version of the Farm Bill that would have pre-empted state and local regulation of agriculture and food, preventing local governments from providing more protection than the USDA.  FARFA alerted our members and lobbied the House Agriculture Committee to remove the provision, which it did.

The Trans-Texas Corridor/ NAFTA Superhighway

On March 2, 2007, FARFA cooperated with many groups and people fighting the Corridor to sponsor the "Don't Tage Texas"rally.  Thousands of people marched up the streets of Austin -- some on foot, some on horseback, some in tractors or carrying chickens -- to protest the government-corproate plans that threaten rural Texas and, ultimately, all of us.   

Websites for more information:

Corridor Watch:

Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom

Independent Texans

Blackland Coalition 

Keep Texas Moving: The government's website on TTC