A wide coalition of family farmers, independent ranchers, organic and local food system advocates from across the country today criticized a provision to be included in the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee's markup bill that would force USDA to purchase meat for the school lunch program only from sources that are registered in the controversial National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

Barre, MA – A Massachusetts sustainable farmers group has called upon Douglas Petersen, the state’s newly appointed Commissioner of Agriculture, to halt his department’s latest attempt to turn over to the federal government data showing the locations of all livestock animals in the state.

A letter from NOFA/Mass to Commissioner Petersen, November 26, 2007.

This is the letter that the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural resources sent to farmers in November 2007. The letter was dated October 30, 2007, but many farmers received the letter on or after November 17, over two weeks after the letter was dated.

BARRE, MA - The Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts Chapter, Inc. (NOFA/Mass) called upon Senators Kerry and Kennedy this week to reject a provision in the 2008 farm bill, which recently passed out of the Senate Agriculture Committee, that would criminalize disclosure of information from the USDA's new proposed program, the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

GROTON, MA - An informational meeting on local and organic food systems in Massachusetts and threats to their survival will take place on Tuesday, October 9, 7:00pm at Historic Grange Hall, 80 Champney Street in Groton. "Organic farming is the fastest growing sector of agriculture in Massachusetts, and the food is mostly eaten in the same regions where it is grown," said Jack Kittredge, Social Action Coordinator with the Northeast Organic Farming Association, Massachusetts Chapter (NOFA/Mass), and owner of Many Hands Organic Farm in Barre.

For full photo gallery of the July 9 hearing on NAIS and GMOs:

http://pressroom.nofamass.org/image/tid/93

Dozens of farmers and consumers from around the state gathered in Amherst Monday to deliver testimony to the Massachusetts Senate and House joint agriculture committee on a range of bills related to farming. One bill would cut off further participation of Massachusetts in a controversial federal animal tracking program program that critics call costly and unnecessary. Another bill would enact a moratorium on growing genetically engineered (GE) crops until ecological and health dangers were overcome. People came from as far as Essex and Plymouth counties and even Washington DC to testify in a hot room at the UMASS campus. Many testified on both bills, and the testimony was overwhelmingly in support.

What: Legislators are responding to grassroots mobilization by hearing different bills that would 1) enact a moratorium on growing genetically engineered (GE) crops and 2) cut off funding for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in Massachusetts. 

When: Monday, July 9, 1:00 PM

Where: Cape Cod Lounge in the Student Union, UMASS Amherst

AMHERST - Nine towns passed resolutions at spring town meeting this year calling for major changes in policy on genetic engineering (GE) in food. Most towns called for mandatory labeling of GE foods and seeds and a moratorium on growing the controversial crops. The latest resolutions bring the number of Massachusetts municipalities that have approved such measures to thirty.