1. A moratorium for three years on any new Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), facilities we call animal factories. The moratorium would cover any new operation of 50,000 broiler chickens or 1,250 hogs (over 55lbs) AND an expansion of an existing operation of a similar size.

Animal factories are so cruel, so environmental unsustainable, so dependent on social welfare to operate (from taxpayers, from family farmers, from ill people) that they should be "fundamentally reconsidered". Thus, the Maryland Sierra Club's call for a moratorium includes the funding and conduct of a comprehensive study of the economic and environmental sustainability of Maryland's current food production practices.

Our ultimate goal is to reverse the factory revolution in agriculture with its fundamental destruction of soil and water, compromising of food safety, impact on human health, wiping out of the independent family farmer through a contract growing process. Animal factories are a fundamentally wrong idea. People, when presented with the facts, understand this implicitedly. So moratorium is the first step in this "reconsideration."

2. Polluters Pay! The environmental costs of animal factory production should be fully paid for by the integrated poultry and hog corporations that own the animals. In virtually every step that government has taken, the burden has fallen of family farmers, not the corporations. This must change. We seek to reintroduce the Van Hollen bill from last year SB 413 with hogs added.

3. Right to Govern! Counties must have the right to impose stricter regulations on CAFOs, based on local campaigns, than required by state or federal law. This is an extension of the fundamental concept of local autonomy. In other states, these reasserted local powers have been the key to building political will at all levels to
animal factory craziness.

If you have comments on this three prong initiative contact Chris Bedford at the following addresses.

TESTIMONY. "We are at a turning point in the history of the popular movement to protect our environment, a moment as significant as the publishing of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson or the saving of Yosemite lead by Sierra Club founder, John Muir.

The Draft Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations represents a fundamental abandonment of the responsibility of government for environmental protection. Indeed, the Clinton/Gore Administration advertises it as such, calling it a "reinvention of government".

Well, the document I comment on today is not a "reinvention" but an "abdication of responsibility" ...a "surrender to the corporations who seek to impose their will unilaterally over the earth, its resources and its species." Let me be specific.

The Draft Strategy document says, "For the vast majority of AFOs, voluntary efforts will be the principal approach to assist owners and operators in developing and implementing Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans and in reducing water pollution and public health risks associated with AFOs."

This sounds reasonable. After all, who could be against citizens voluntarily obeying the law, doing what's right for the common good. But as Orwell pointed out in "Animal Farm", some of us are "more equal than others". The controlling force behind the current and continuing crisis with CAFOs are a few, large corporations who are imposing a factory system on American agriculture and family farmers.

The individual farmers involved in factory animal production are not free agents. Production contracts, monopoly control of processing and marketing, debt and pro-corporate agriculture bank financing ensures they are increasingly servants of the vertically integrated corporations we call "Big Pig" and "Big Chicken".

In this context, the voluntary approach proposed by EPA and USDA means agribusiness corporations will be calling the tune. And not just on the 95% of AFOs small enough to avoid the provisions of the Clean Water Act.

The recent agreement between EPA and the National Pork Producers Council extends the voluntary arrangement to all hog farms through what they call "a compliance audit program" that:

In other words, "voluntary" means the hog corporations decide what to put in secret reports about the environmental damage their animal factories produce. The recent proposal by the National Broiler Council is an effort to extend this bad idea to chicken production, as well. It is my understanding that each animal factory participating in the pork agreement, that passes the one inspection, will have a big sign in front of their operation saying, "Approved by the EPA".

This is a sad joke. For EPA was created because polluting corporations could not self-regulate the damage caused by their profit-at-any-environmental cost production approach. Animal factory production is fundamentally unsustainable. It destroys the environment. It threatens human health. And it puts family farmers either out-of-business or makes them endentured corporate serfs.

We need a federal government approach that supports family farms and environmentally sustainable agricultural production...not animal factory corporations.

Ethical production...production that respects environmental protection and economic justice...is one key to the organizing of broad coalitions to save our planet. The Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance represents an important step in that direction.

Code of Ethics for Poultry Corporations, developed by the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, is based on traditional religious beliefs in the sanctity of human life and that all people created by God should be treated with respect and dignity. We call for all poultry corporations to sign the Code of Ethics.

Treat all workers with respect and dignity; establish policies that insure a safe and humane workplace; honor the collective bargaining process for poultry workers, as well as the process that supports the practice of negotiated contracts with poultry farmers; and honor this contractual process without employing threaten tactics which intimidate poultry employees and growers who choose to exercise their basic right to collectively organize. We support national legislation such as the Family Farmer Cooperative Marketing Amendments Act (HR 2738), which will establish contractual rights of poultry growers and bargaining of contracts between family farmers and corporate agribusiness. We support company and community efforts which result in child care programs for all workers connected with the poultry industry.

We support the most recent class action lawsuit of the Public Justice Center on behalf of chicken catchers on the Delmarva Peninsula and call for poultry companies to put an end to the present system that denies chicken catchers of fair wages, overtime pay and decent working conditions. We call for the poultry companies to acknowledge their employer/employee relationship with chicken catchers and recognize that they have the right to collectively bargain without fear or intimidation.

We unite with environmentalists, poultry growers and communities concerned about nutrient pollution from concentrated livestock production to support legislation that will implement a national moratorium on new or expanded concentrated livestock operations, and legislation that clearly defines the poultry companies as owners of the chicken manure and, therefore, responsible for an environmentally sound plan of nutrient management.

We unite with environmentalists, poultry growers and the community concerned about nutrient pollution from concentrated livestock production support legislation that will implement a national moratorium on new or expanded concentrated livestock operations on the Delmarva Peninsula and clearly define the poultry companies as owners of the chicken manure and, therefore, responsible for an environmentally sound plan of nutrient management.

We support efforts to develop and implement sustainable agricultural practices that protect the environment and the economic well being of the family farmer. We support efforts that enforce laws that protect the air, water, soil, fish, and wildlife, and create legislation to protect the environment.

We are committed to building bridges between the religious community and the labor movement; fostering a better understanding of the labor movement with its goal of creating a democratic workplace; and committed to developing a cooperative agenda around economic justice and workplace safety issues common to both the religious community and labor.

We support an all out effort to establish relationships with the growing immigrant workforce along the Delmarva Peninsula; to recognize and assist in developing leadership and organizational capacities among that population; and assist them with educational opportunities that allow this population to become contributing members of the community. We support legislative efforts which will establish a more accessible and understandable system of obtaining short-term and renewable work permits for immigrant workers.

We will support legislative efforts that will result in full legal status and amnesty for all immigrant workers presently working in the Delmarva Peninsula and throughout the United States.

We expect humane treatment and husband like care of all poultry and livestock that is bred, raised,fed and slaughtered for food consumption. Animals were not created to meet market demands and we expect food animals to be grown to maintain safe and responsible breeding and genetic practices which may be harmful to animals and/or may threaten the health and welfare of consumers.

We join with consumer advocates in supporting efforts to assure food safety in the poultry industry. This effort includes the manner in which chickens and other livestock are vaccinated, fed, slaughtered, packaged, transported, and marketed.