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Your Farmer's Voice on Capital Hill

This past week I traveled to Washington DC with a group of fellow farmers and small meat companies to lobby our state's congressmen and state senators about the detrimental effects the EATS Act will have on animal welfare, family farms, and our customer's food supply long term. I was really honored to attend with a huge thank you to American’s for Family Farmers that help fund my trip and our farm team keeping up with all the farm duties in my absence. I also had the opportunity to be with other like minded small farmers and some up and coming meat companies like Butcher Box, Niman Ranch, and True Story Foods that I think are looking to reshape the food production standards in the US. The trip was my first time to D.C. and there were a few observations this country boy made that might make you laugh. #1. Pictures and movies don’t do the Capital building justice. It is beautiful, magnificent, and HUGEEE!!! #2. SO MANY all black and tinted window SUV’s! Lol #3. While, I thought I dressed up well in my nicest jeans and a button down collared shirt tucked in…I definitely felt a little underdressed at times as everyone wore slacks, suit jackets and a tie. I’ve never been somewhere where everyone dressed this way on a regular daily basis. #4. The U.S. policy's are pretty much run by 20-30 year old staffers. For whatever reason, I was expecting to see a majority of older people here in D.C. However this really wasn’t the case. The staffers actually have so much power as they are responsible for communicating with their boss (i.e. congressman or senator) our meetings and key issues that the people are presenting to them. Everything goes through a staffer before the congressman or senator hears about it. Now I give these young staffers a lot of credit in our meetings with them they were smart, well articulate in their conversation, and informed individuals. Definitely not individuals to take lightly in their ability to influence. Why Go to D.C. to oppose the EATS Act? The “Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act" (S.2019; H.R.4417) as it stands is a bit of a misleading title. Which on the face of it sounds good. However this is really Big Ag’s attempt to take more power over the agricultural industry as it would take away individual state rights and harm the niche markets that are developing to comply with animal welfare laws previous instated. They’ve been attempting something like this for years and after California’s proposition 12 and Massachusetts Question 3 were put into law recently January 1st. They feel all the more need to get this passed in the upcoming farm bill. Prop 12 and Question 3 are state laws that require mother pigs, veal, and egg laying hens have enough space to turn around and that some of these products sold in that state meet those requirements as well. Voters in these states agreed by an overwhelming majority to put these laws into effect knowing it would increase their cost on these food products, but they felt giving these animals a better living condition was essential. I learned that mother pigs in a commercial factory farm are actually put into a gestation crate to live for 4 months where they can’t turn around or walk. Here they are bred and kept while in pregnancy (gestation). Then just before farrowing (having the baby) they are moved to the farrowing crate where it's a very similar living condition, but slightly wider so the babies access the mothers milk. Prop 12 law only required the gestation crates be removed and didn’t affect the farrowing crates. So in my opinion, it's an improvement, but still I think we have more progress to make in the way factory farms operate! While there, several hog farmers that provide pork to meat companies like Butcher box, Niman Ranch, and True Story Foods presented their story transitioning their hog farms to be compliant with Prop 12 and Q3. Investing millions of dollars to improve their facilities for the hog’s welfare by removing the gestation crates. Many since they switched not only found they could get a premium for their pork now that this law opened up a niche market, but it now was going to result in them being profitable vs risking to lose their farm. One farmer also shared the unintentional significant improvement in hog performance by removing these gestation crates! What a surprise…right? Duh folks....Pigs get stressed in this type of environment! I kept telling folks, “We are here in DC to honor the pig.” When young teenagers see pictures of these factory farms, it's no wonder, they stopped eating meat! This bible verse kept coming to my mind when I saw these pictures of pigs in the gestation crates. “The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel” Proverbs 12:10 At the end of the day, we have a responsibility as a farmer to honor these animals and provide a good living condition for them. Educating Congress All this said, we really tried to combat some of the lies that Big Ag are stating about this prop 12. Unfortunately they are stating so many misleading myths as facts. Some are just direct lies. One example of a misleading lie that set me off was they stated "Prop 12 will financially wreck family farms." This couldn't be further from the truth. Since Prop 12 the pork industries quarterly earnings report are positive. If anything their fight to insert the EATS Act in the farm bill has created more uncertainty for the niche family farmers as I described above as they could potentially lose their new markets! The reality is these “family farms” as Big Ag describes are under the thumb of big meat as they contract all their pork to 3 big meat companies. I invite you to watch this video that a fellow pork producer, Ron Mardesen, I had the honor to be with this week. He has an amazing farm with really high level animal welfare that I align so closely with. I think this video lays out how the hog industry has changed over the last 35 years and how it’s really not in the best interest of the family farms and rural communities, but rather the opposite. Rescinding State Rights The EATS Act will not only reverse the progress and investments farmers are taking towards animal welfare, but it's also going to threaten the future balance of power in the US government. This would erode the state’s rights to pass laws and regulations related to food safety, disease and pest control and other public health/welfare matters. In fact in 2023 the Supreme Court upheld California’s Prop 12 in court as constitutional. The EATS Act is really an attempt to take away state rights as taking it to court didn’t work for them. For me personally, this is probably the biggest reason I want to fight this. Prop 12 or not, EATS Act or not, in some ways, it doesn’t affect us as a farm all that much because we sell direct to consumers and folks buy from us because they do care about animal welfare and don’t trust what the grocery store has to offer. They know we are raising our livestock with care and to the highest standards! However, if the states lose their power and the Federal government has complete control of this, I think it could be a slippery slope of potentially more bad policy that individual states will have no say on the matter. If you have time to watch this video, here's another video explaining the EATS Act and it's history in detail. Take Action! If you can, I encourage you to send an email or phone call to your local congressman in your district and let them know you oppose the EATS Act. Here's the direct link to search for your congressman in your district. Currently this is bill is still in the house. So let's try to stop it now before it heads to the senate. We need to make this known that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not want this Act or something similar in the upcoming farm bill. Thanks so much for reading and together we can shape a better food system for America! God bless, Joe

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Baby pig farm visit

Howdy there friend, Most weeks this time of year, we are super busy all week, so many of our family Sundays turn into a farm task activity and I try to include the whole family when I can. :)Last Sunday as a family, we enjoyed visiting our hog breeder's farm to pickup a group of weaned pigs for our summer pasture. When we were there, we had the chance to take a short video of all the baby pigs running around his farm and interviewed farmer Brendon to share just how unique his methods are to raising hogs compared to the conventional pork you will find in the grocery store. I hope you enjoy watching the happy little pigs out on pasture. It's truly a fun sight and brings me a sense of satisfaction knowing we support pigs to live a wonderful natural life on pasture vs the conventional factory farm model that the houses 74 million pigs annually in overcrowded concrete barns (Which is 93% of the U.S. pig population). I hope you'll watch the video as we cover 3 key takeaways that make our pasture hog operation unique. 1. Farrowing on pasture, no crates! (farrowing means birthing) When a Momma pigs (Sow or gilt) are ready to have babies, they are moved into a confinement crates where they can only lay down and get up to eat/drink and that's all. They can't turn around or walk in these crates. This is the industrial pork's standards for the sows to prevent them from accidentally laying on their young. However, we feel that only when they are overcrowded this is a potential problem. Thankfully our momma pigs as you see in the video are free to be independent outside to move and lay down where they choose with plenty of room. The 1st week or 2, Brennon gives the momma her own hut and area, so there's no other pig competition. Then she can relax and have a baby moon! ;) With this, the baby pigs are free to run around outside to get exercise, play in the dirt, grass, and be a pig as well! Once our hogs leave our hog breeders farm after weaned from their momma's milk, they continue to enjoy the outside pasture here at Wanda Farm. Unfortunately, pigs in a confinement barn on concrete never get the opportunity to dig with their nose and sometimes never see daylight in their entire lives. Our pigs are truly raised humanely as God intended them to be raised! 2. No tail docking (cutting off the pig tails) We explain in the video how in the industrial hog operations the pigs are confined in the barn all their lives and therefore, they get bored without having dirt to dig, mud holes to play in, and food to hunt for. A bad habit the pigs develop is chewing on their pen mates tails. This usually creates problems of cannibalism in the hog industry. So therefore, the industry has made it a common practice to intentional cut off the pig's tails when young. Thankfully, again because our pigs are outside in a natural environment, they don't get bored and we don't have this problem! 3. Old heritage genetics that keep meat quality like a 100 years ago Today the pork industry has been breeding the pork out of pigs. They want it to be a lean, white meat. The genetics have changed so much since the industrial hog operation started that pork isn't what it used to be. So many don't like pork for this reason. Thankfully our breeder is focused on good quality heritage genetics that perform well on pasture, not a confinement barn. On that note, 93% of hogs today are confined to barns and fed a diet of solely GMO grains. Can you imagine eating only GMO grains that have been sprayed with chemicals and being healthy? Thankfully these old school genetic hogs are made to hunt for their food in the pastures. They eating a diverse diet of acorns, walnuts, roots, grubs, grass, legumes, forbs, and whatever else is edible in our pastures. Of course in addition to support their growth and health, we offer grains, but never feed GMO feed to ensure they never have nasty chemicals apart of their diet. Obviously this unique, natural diet keeps the hogs very healthy and improves the meat quality as well. Our pork is probably the best pork you will ever taste! I mean it. It is a unique flavor and not the other white meat. You certainly will never find comparable pork in the grocery store as pastured pork is very unique and certainly can't be produced in a mass scale as factory farms do. All I can say from experience, is that our pigs are probably some of the happiest pigs and best tasting pigs in northern Illinois! I hope you enjoy the video and learn something new. God bless, Farmer Joe P.S. Are you ready to try some Wanda Farm's pork? While it might cost more than the grocery store pork, I think you can feel better knowing that you supported a pig with a more ethical, natural lifestyle on pasture and can enjoy/taste the difference in quality of flavor, nutrient density, and clean ingredients without chemicals, GMOs, growth hormones, and other pharmaceutical drugs. Try Wanda Farm Pork Here

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More from the blog

Your Farmer's Voice on Capital Hill

Top 5 Reasons to Buy 1/2 Beef from a Local Farm

Baby pig farm visit

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