Legislation Could Ban Free Range & Organic Poultry Production

[nosmokes]

some more fear-mongering tactics, anyone?
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original

Legislation Could Ban Free Range & Organic Poultry Production

2/10/06
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042
Joel Salatin, 540-885-3590
Deborah Stockton, 434-295-7176

Cornucopia Institute Opposes Virginia Poultry Proposal

Legislation Could Ban Small Scale/Humane Production

The Cornucopia Institute has announced their support for family farmers in their opposition to a legislative proposal in the state of Virginia that could eliminate the ability of the state’s residents to raise chickens and other fowl in the outdoors for eventual sale to consumers. The stated purpose of the controversial legislation, HR 982, is to control live bird markets—of which there are none in Virginia—but the Institute believes that it’s real purpose is to stop independent poultry producers from raising their flocks outdoors because federal officials are worried about an avian flu epidemic.


“This legislation is extremely troubling as consumers are increasingly hungry for organic and sustainable eggs and poultry that come from healthy birds raised outdoors,” said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based organic farming watchdog group. “The bill’s language is too vague and would allow the state’s Agricultural Commissioner to arbitrarily regulate and control small- to medium-sized poultry flocks, not just live bird markets, which currently don’t even exist in Virginia.”



Passage of the legislation by Virginia would make the state eligible for federal funding that could be used to hunt down outdoor poultry producers and lead to the shutdown of their operations.



“Nothing would make the huge poultry confinement operators happier than to squelch an increasingly popular competitor that consumers are flocking to,” Kastel added. “Consumers have discovered that the purveyors of organic and direct-market eggs and poultry raised in healthy, outdoor conditions offer a superior-tasting product, and that scares the huge confinement operations.”



Kastel noted that it was no coincidence that the bill was being pushed by the Del-Mar-Va Poultry industry, a giant industrial poultry cooperative, and by the state’s Agribusiness Council and the Farm Bureau. Organic and sustainable farming advocates are concerned that this legislative initiative in Virginia is just the first in a battle that will spread to statehouses around the nation.
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commplete article here

[Coexist]

1. Oh please - that is unreal.

I cannot believe this. I buy nothing but organic eggs. They have gotten far more common - I can get them at Publix or SuperTarget now.

This sucks.

[Redstone]

2. If they want us to take them seriously, they need to learn how to use

apostrophes: "the Institute believes that it’s real purpose is to stop..."

Pay attention to your punctuation, and I'll pay attention to your press releases.

Redstone

[nosmokes]

4. redstone, the apostrophe is correct - it's showing a possesive.

of course, i'm no english major, nosmokes. but i am much more concerned about the fate of free range poultry than the correct use of punctuation marks.

[Redstone]

5. No, it's wrong. Trust me. And I believe in free-range poultry as well,

but you have to use language correctly if you're going to get people to take you seriously.

Details are important. Sometimes you have to wear a tie, so to speak.

Redstone

[TheWebHead]

7. you're wrong

try googling both expressions:

"it's real purpose" (628 matches)
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&rls=RNWE%2CRNWE%3A2005-18%2CRNWE%3Aen&q=%22it%27s+real+purpose%22

"its real purpose" (53,400 matches)
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2005-18,RNWE:en&q=%22its+real+purpose%22

[foo_bar]

8. it's "its" not "it's"

but the Institute believes that it’s real purpose is to stop independent

Redstone is correct.

[nosmokes]

11. the apostrophe shows a possesive - how is it wrong?

but the object being referred to is not the institute but the legislation.

*...but the Institute believes that the legislation's real purpose is to stop independent...*

[foo_bar]

12. the possessive (sic) form of "it" is "its"

It's is a contraction for it is or it has.

Its is a possessive pronoun meaning, more or less, of it or belonging to it.

And there is absolutely, positively, no such word as its'.

A simple test
If you can replace it<'>s in your sentence with it is or it has, then your word is it's; otherwise, your word is its.

http://www.stormloader.com/garyes/its/#top

The word "its" signifies possession, and needs no apostrophe. (Nor do these words need one: yours, his, hers, theirs, and ours.) I guess the confusion stems from the fact that the apostrophe is used to show possession by a noun, as in "the flower's petals."

When I decided to see if this topic was being discussed on Usenet, and looked up "misuse of apostrophe" on Dejanews, I was surprised to find that there was a whole newsgroup devoted to this issue!

http://www.fred.net/kathy/its.html

[foo_bar]

13. the Usenet group:

news:alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe

[nosmokes]

14. well butter my butt and call me biscuit! thanks for the

lesson, foobar and redstone. appreciate it.

[central scrutinizer]

3. Gee, I thought capitalism was all about choices and what consumers want

Silly me - how naive

[OneBlueSky]

6. next step . . . ban all non-GM seeds and crops . . .

don't laugh . . . for all intents and purposes, they've already done it in Iraq . . .

[Tsiyu]

9. Another way to control the food supply

Already many of the older rare breeds of fowl are endangered. Factory farmers like factory birds: those are not very hardy or smart.

People all around me raise fowl, as do I, and we produce our own eggs and allow our birds free range to control pests and eat a more natural diet.

This is a big deal, even if it doesn't seem so to many people right now.

I spend at least $40 a month on feed for my chickens. Mutiply that by many owners and you are talking about a substantial part of the farm economy.

Scary times to try to raise your own food, at a time when we should all be learning how to do so.

[MadHound]

10. What insanity!

Don't they realize that confinement operations will only spread the disease faster? You have a captive population of birds that are in close proximity to each other, 24/7. Their immune system is already trashed, and they are under massive stress. Sounds like the ideal breeing ground for an epidemic.

But what this is really all about is wiping out the organic, free range poultry business. It is the last major competitor left to factory farms, and if they can rid themselves of it, they can reign supreme. And god help the poor people of Virginia, who won't have this health, tasty source of food anymore.

Next up, if this is successful, they will try to spread this nationwide, state by state. And then they'll come after organic beef and hog producers, then the organic growers as a whole. God forbid people eat food that doesn't contain fertilizer, pesticides, hormones, GM engineered, and quite frankly tastes like shit. No thanks.