We enjoy your publication very much. Our family farm is very much into producing for the local market. We grow produce for a CSA and last year we supplied 140 members for 33 weeks — even during a major drought in our area. We also attend two farmers markets weekly. Not only do we raise produce we also have all of the following: grass-fed beef, grass-fed lamb, pastured raised Tamworth pork, pasture raised chickens and turkeys. Let us not forget the free-range hens and ducks that produce the eggs. We do all of this as a family hiring no outside labor. It is just my husband, myself and our two teenage sons. Wes is 18 and Aaron is 16.
The reason I am writing this letter is to alert all of your readers to the USDA’s National Animal Identification systems draft. (www.usda.gov/nais) We must alert all farmers and all of our local food consumers of this draft and how it will negatively affect the small family farms, homesteaders, and every citizen in the United States.
I found the following article and it tells the whole story. It is titled “USDA poised to push us off our farms with the National Animal Identification System.” www.farm-garden.com//opinion/usda_nais. We have found the following web sites useful in our research on NAIS: www.nonais.org and www.stopanimalid.org.
Please help us inform other small farmers and all people who value locally raised products to stand up for our future in agriculture.
Jim and Diann Moore
Moore Family Farms
Watseka, IL