Your voice is crucial in protecting small farms and local food systems from burdensome federal regulations!

We're asking you to please take immediate action against the USDA's Animal ID mandate that will go into effect in only twelve weeks if we don’t act, which threatens to impose costly and unnecessary requirements on small-scale farmers and ranchers.

What You Can Do to Help:

1. Request an In-District Meeting

Contact your Congressmember's office and ask for an in-district meeting to discuss your concern and opposition to the USDA Animal ID mandate.  Meeting with your representative or their staff face-to-face makes the greatest impact, ensuring that they understand the negative impacts this policy would have on your farm, your community, and our local food systems.  And the legislators are all back in their home districts for the summer recess, until September 9. If you simply cannot do an in-person meeting, then ask for a phone call with their staff.

2. Locate Your Representative and Their District Office

Find Your U.S. Representative

In order to set up a meeting with your Representative in-district, it’s preferable you call their District office closest to where you live, and not their DC office. Any number with a (202) area code will direct you to their DC office.  When you look up your Representative, you will see a list of office locations and phone numbers.

3. Discuss the Key Points:

• Impact on Small Farmers: Explain how the USDA's Animal ID mandate would impose heavy financial burdens on small farmers, requiring costly electronic tracking systems that could put many out of business.
• Threat to Local Food Systems: Emphasize that this mandate disproportionately affects small-scale operations, which are vital to maintaining local food systems, food security, and biodiversity.
• Call for Exemptions: Urge your Congressmember to support H.J. Res. 167 that eliminates this mandate.

Your action can make a difference! Meeting with your Representative in person is one of the most effective ways to influence their stance on this issue. We encourage you to take a few moments to set up your meeting today!

We thank you for standing up for small farmers and local food systems! They truly need your commitment to get Congress to stop the USDA's electronic animal ID mandate.

And...if you represent a farm organization or are on the staff or board of a farm organization, we want to know! We are looking for farm orgs to be part of our national sign-on letter to STOP electronic animal ID. If you are authorized to make statements on behalf of your organization, we urge you to sign on to our organizational sign-on letter here. Let's make our combined voices heard.

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For more information on mandatory electronic Animal ID, go to  Mandatory Animal ID Programs - Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance