2017 URGENT LEGISLATIVE ACTION NEEDED!!
YOUR CALLS COUNT!
We want to thank all of you who have called in to your representatives and participated in VICFA’s LOBBY DAY
The fight is not over. SB 1195 still has a chance and is on the Senate Agricultural docket for this coming Thursday the 26th, and we need to get the word out!
Please share and keep the calls coming in! Call the Senate Agricultural Committee and tell them to vote NO to SB 1195!
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PLEASE OPPOSE SB 1195
In one fell swoop SB 1195 increases Virginia Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) power to come on your land and inspect at will, endangering your Fourth Amendment rights.
If passed it also will give permission to to VDACS to increase their bureaucratic and financial power by creating an Agricultural Civil Penalties Fund garnering more tax dollars to enforce inspections of on small farms and producers.
Once this is in the law books of Virginia it will be very hard to remove.
SB 1195 Produce safety; farm inspections; Agriculture Civil Penalty Fund; penalties.
Sponsor- Senator Richard H. Stuart
SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED: Produce safety; farm inspections; Agriculture Civil Penalty Fund; penalties.
Prohibits certain farms from violating the federal regulations that set minimum standards for the safe growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of fruits and vegetables. The bill authorizes the Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services to adopt regulations to carry out the purposes of the law and gives the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services free access at all reasonable hours to any farm to inspect the farm and take samples. The Commissioner also is authorized to seize certain produce that he believes to violate the federal regulations or state law. The bill makes the act of obstructing an inspector a Class 2 misdemeanor and of violating any other provision of the law or a Board regulation a Class 1 misdemeanor. In lieu of a criminal penalty, the Board is authorized to levy a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per violation, to be deposited in an Agriculture Civil Penalty Fund that is created by the bill.full text
Actions:
PLEASE CONTACT THE SENATE AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEE
AND TELL THEM TO KILL THE BILL!
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Bullet Points in Opposition to SB 1195
Constitutional issues of search and seizure and the potential litigation liability.
Constitution of Virginia, Article I. Bill of Rights
Section 10. General warrants of search or seizure prohibited
That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.
This bill seeks to expand the powers of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) without a defined health risk.
Fresh produce is one of a very few foods not heavily regulated.
This bill would expand inspection from actual production facilities to just about anywhere.
This bill will authorize a “fishing expedition” by VDACS funded by USDA grants leading to its own source of revenue, outside of the legislature.
Just this last year, VDACS imposed new produce regulations on farmers markets without legislation.
VDACS is out of control and needs to be constrained not expanded.
The impact on orchard and vegetable farms would be dramatic, giving consumers few choices other then industrialized agriculture.
This bill will have a detrimental impact on Virginia agriculture, particularly small farms.
Small farms are failing due to over regulation.
The loss of small farms will drastically damage Virginia’s agricultural nature. This is a loss of revenue issue for the state, in that the majority of the industrialized food industry is not based in Virginia.
We need to keep Virginia’s consumers’ food purchases going to in-state producers, not to multi-national corporations.
Buy local is a major trend with food consumers.The state should be finding ways to capitalized on that market, not minimize it.
How did the people of the Commonwealth survive for the last 283 years without this legislation?
As Mark Twain observed
“No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
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Did this pass on 1/26?
yes. it passed with a vote of 25 for and 15 against.
has crossed over to the House now and passed sub committee meeting 7-0.
Please call and help us stop this evil bill.
Has this bill past? I feel it is a precursor bill for what will become illegal to even have small farms. To take control of seeds planted other than Monsanto toxic brands. Plus it introduces that the state can band curtain produce to be grown. I do not like this at all!