Southern York County Life

Farm Bureau Making Final Push for ACRE: Seeking to Strip Away Local Control Over Factory Farms
Quality of Life and Local Control Caucus of Township Supervisors

Farm Bureau Makes Final Push for Passage of ACRE Proposal, Seeking to Override Local Laws Controlling Corporate Factory Farms

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 15 (Harrisburg) – The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, an ardent supporter of the proliferation of corporate factory livestock farms, is making a final push this legislative session for the introduction and passage of Rendell’s ACRE Proposal. That yet-to-be-introduced proposal would establish a five member State Board of political appointees empowered with the authority to override local laws adopted by rural communities to control and regulate factory livestock operations.

On Friday, November 12th, Joel Rotz, the Director of State Governmental Relations for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau circulated an Action Alert to the Farm Bureau’s State Board of Directors and Regional Organization Directors, urging those individuals to contact the Governor and their State Senators and Representatives. The Action Alert urges those individuals to demand that the Governor and the legislature “come to agreement” on a “final version” of the ACRE legislation and “to enact this legislation before the legislature adjourns.”

The ACRE Initiative, which contains the proposal for the establishment of a State Agricultural Review Board, has drawn the opposition of groups and local governments from across the Commonwealth. Those groups include over one hundred Township governments that have adopted resolutions opposing the Initiative, over forty community organizations that are confronting corporate factory livestock operations, two County Democratic Parties, several County Associations of Township Officials, and the Pennsylvania Environmental Network.

In addition, the Pennsylvania Farmers Union and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture are not supporting the creation of the Agricultural Review Board.

Tom Linzey, Coordinator of the Quality of Life and Local Control Caucus, urged groups and individuals concerned about the stripping away of local control over corporate farming to counter the Farm Bureau’s pressure by contacting their own State Representatives and Senators. “This battle has raged for over three years, with those local governments and groups concerned about quality of life and local control fending off the Farm Bureau and other corporate agribusiness interests which have sought to use the legislature to eliminate community control over corporate farming operations. Concerned groups and citizens should contact their elected officials today and tomorrow to counter the Farm Bureau’s push.”

Township governments interested in adopting a resolution in opposition to the ACRE Initiative can contact the Caucus at (717) 709-0457 or at . A Citizen Action Alert concerning ACRE can also be obtained from the Caucus.

If ACRE is so great than why the big push to get it passed through the final days of the lame duck session? Remember your tax dollars are used to support the Farm Bureau.

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ACRE Proposal Alert - Farm Bureau - 11/12/04

TO: Farm Bureau Members

FROM: Joel Rotz, Director of State Governmental Relations

CC: State Board of Directors and Regional Organization Directors

RE: ACRE Proposal

DATE: Friday, November 12, 2004

We are at a critical stage on ACRE, since there are only a few days left until the General Assembly adjourns this legislative session. The session may end as early as this coming Friday, November 19. Unless ACRE legislation is formally offered and acted on by the General Assembly almost immediately, we will have to wait until the next session before any relief from illegal ordinances is provided.

Indications are that the Administration and the General Assembly continue to have differences on the final version of the ACRE legislation. These differences seriously jeopardize the chances for any version of ACRE to be enacted before the legislature adjourns.

ACRE would create state Agricultural Review Board to review illegal ordinances that regulate farm operations. The creation and function of this Board are vital to the future welfare of Pennsylvania agriculture. Farmers’ only avenue right now to invalidate any illegal ordinance is the costly battle of court litigation. Through the Board, farmers will be able to eliminate many illegal ordinances that directly try to prohibit or discourage farmers from making needed changes to their farming operations. Creation of the Board will also cause local officials to be more responsible and more responsive to agriculture in ordinances they consider and enact.

We need all Farm Bureau members to make IMMEDIATE CONTACTS to both the GOVERNOR AND THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY to encourage both sides to agree on a final package that can be enacted before the legislature adjourns. Call, fax or email the Governor, your State Representative and State Senator. URGE ALL OF THEM TO MAKE AN IMMEDIATE EFFORT TO SETTLE ON AND ENACT A FINAL VERSION OF ACRE LEGISLATION BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ADJOURNS.

You may contact the Governor: By Telephone at (717)787-2500 By FAX at (717) 772-8284 BY Email at

The following is an example of the message you should communicate. If you wish, you may also go to our website, http://www.pfb.com , and enter the Capwiz area where you may send these letters directly to the Governor and your elected officials.

Dear Governor/Senator/Representative:

I am a farmer in __________, and I am a member of Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. I am contacting you to urge both the Administration and the General Assembly to come to agreement on a final version of the ACRE legislation and to enact this legislation before the legislature adjourns. The Commonwealth needs to enact legislation NOW to address the serious problem of illegal farm ordinances.

For the past several months, the Rendell Administration and the General Assembly have been working on legislation to carry out the Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environment (ACRE) initiative. The ACRE proposal includes a feature that is vital to the future welfare of Pennsylvania agriculture. ACRE would create an Agricultural Review Board, which would have authority to review and issue administrative orders against local ordinances that illegally restrict farmers’ ability to operate their farms.

Farmers in Pennsylvania have been burdened by the issue of illegal local farm ordinances for far too long. The farm families of Pennsylvania Farm Bureau have been actively seeking a legislative solution to the problem for more than four years. During that time, the number of illegal ordinances enacted against agriculture has significantly increased, and will continue to increase even more if legislation is further delayed.

Farm families have been patient and hopeful during these past several months that a reasonable agreement would be reached on legislation to address this serious problem. Farm families need you to step up, resolve your differences, and relieve us from the harsh burdens that illegal ordinances have created for agriculture.

Please contact Joel Rotz, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s State Governmental Relations Director, (Telephone: 731-3518 ; Email: ) if you have any related questions.

Pennsylvania Farm Bureau
510 S. 31st Street, Camp Hill, PA 17011

i sent a message to the above-listed address and basically told the governor that i thought his ACRE initiative was unconstitutional and interferes with the checks and balances our government is supposed to maintain between the executive and judicial branches. the ‘tribunal’ is in competition with the courts.

To All:

We have been sending numerous letters to Rendell and the other proposed members of the Ag review board. None of them can answer for themselves. Secretary Dennis Wolff is the only one answering for them.

Makes you wonder who runs the state?

i sent a message to the above-listed address and basically told the governor that i thought his ACRE initiative was unconstitutional and interferes with the checks and balances our government is supposed to maintain between the executive and judicial branches. the ‘tribunal’ is in competition with the courts.

Thank you!

You are 100% correct.

The governor and his appointed bureaucratic henchmen will say you are wrong. For some reason they are under the false impression that not only we can’t read, but we lack comprehension skills. The same holds true of our state legislators.

Now if only other municipal officials could possess the comprehension skills we do ACRE would not be passed.

It is our taxpayer dollars being used to create another bureaucracy to stick it to the public while usurping the powers of locally elected officials.

PA Gov. Rendell affirms pro-corporate, local-control-destroying"ACRE" plan

“Rendell said he expects ACRE to become a reality by February. . . .

The Farm Bureau anticipates the state Legislature may pass ACRE before it adjourns at the end of November, said bureau press secretary Mark O’Neill.”

-- From Attachment 1, below

“With proposals like these, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the Administration and the corporate farming apologists led by the Farm Bureau. Or between the legislators who have been pushing a corporate farming agenda for the past decade and Dennis Wolff, Rendell’s own Secretary of Agriculture.

“Of course, the Rendell Administration has never represented that it has an interest in actually stopping the proliferation of corporate factory farms across the Commonwealth. Indeed, by his own words in a veto message delivered last year, Governor Rendell agreed with several environmental groups that corporate farming was somehow inevitable. He even stated that he actually favored stripping away local control - as long as State agencies could regulate the harms caused by corporate farming a little bit better.

“That just isn’t good enough for rural communities and Township governments across Pennsylvania. . . . At its essence, what the Rendell Administration seeks to trade away is something they lack the authority to trade at all - local control and democracy.”

ntelligencer Journal, Lancaster, PA
Wednesday, November 17, 2004

RENDELL: ACRE COULD BE ADOPTED IN ‘05
By Aileen Humphreys
Intelligencer Journal

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - HERSHEY - Gov. Ed Rendell’s message to delegates of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Tuesday was clear: Farm preservation is a priority in Pennsylvania.

“It’s something worth fighting for,” Rendell said.

The number of farms in the state’s farmland preservation program reached 2,500 last week.

Pennsylvania is home to 59,000 farms, and agriculture is the state’s largest employer, providing jobs for one of every six residents, the governor said.

Rendell spoke to delegates from 54 county farm bureaus who gathered at Hershey Lodge and Convention Center for a three-day annual meeting that ends today.

In his speech, Rendell also backed a comprehensive agriculture plan dubbed ACRE - the Agricultural, Communities and Rural Environment initiative.

Rendell said he expects ACRE to become a reality by February.

Under the initiative, a statewide agricultural review board would negotiate disputes between local governments and farmers.

Municipal ordinances would be measured against state laws, including the Right to Farm Act and Nutrient Management Act.

ACRE also calls for odor reduction and increased water quality on farms and would make the state’s agricultural regulations the most comprehensive and progressive of any in the country, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The Farm Bureau anticipates the state Legislature may pass ACRE before it adjourns at the end of November, said bureau press secretary Mark O’Neill.

Following his address, Rendell discussed plans for developing clean coal technology in the state and said he has written to President Bush about a potential federal partnership.

Protection of farms and farming interests was a priority at the meeting.

“Once those Class 1 soils are gone, they’re gone,” state Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff said, referring to high-quality farmland.

Wolff, who owns a 600-acre dairy farm, said the industry does not attract many newcomers.

“There’s a huge disconnect between the ag and nonag public,” he said.

Others at the event raised concerns about the viability of farming in the state.

“People give up their farms because it’s too much of a struggle to be in agriculture,” said Michael Hess, president of Pennsylvania FFA and a 2004 graduate of Penn Manor High School.

“It’s hard to always have a productive year. (That) makes more people willing to sell out rather than selling to another farmer,” Hess said.

Hess lives on a 250-year-old family farm in Lancaster County and plans to study agriculture at Penn State after traveling the state this year as FFA president.

Before the banquet Tuesday night, 77-year-old farmer John Plummer sank into a leather couch in the hotel lobby, fingering grapes, potato chips and a slice of cheese.

Plummer farms 97 acres in Cambria County, where he also is a supervisor in Croyle Township.

A friend agreed to do Plummer’s farm chores Tuesday night and Wednesday morning so he could attend the meeting.

Plummer is concerned about the new pressures on farmers from suburban neighbors.

“I feel they’re infringing on the farmers,” he said. “They’re trying to tell you what you can do with your ground.”

© 2004 Lancaster Newspapers

From: “Thomas Alan Linzey, Esq.”
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 8:26 AM
Subject: Gov. Rendell to Appear on PCN at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 18th

Friends,

Governor Ed Rendell is scheduled to appear on PCN at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 18th (tonight), for an hourlong call-in show. If you don’t get PCN on your television, or you are from out-of-State, you can tune in via the web at http://www.pcntv.com.

This would be a great opportunity to question Ed about his support for the ACRE Initiative, and his proposal to create an Agricultural Review Board composed of five political appointees that would be empowered with the authority of a court to overturn local laws adopted by rural communities attempting to control and regulate corporate factory farms and the land application of sludge.

The call-in number for the show is (866) PCN-LIVE.

Ed needs to understand that folks are fundamentally opposed to the principle of having a Board of political appointees overturn the decisions and laws made by democratically elected local governments, and that this ACRE Initiative would strip away local control over these very important issues. And, he needs to understand that the Ordinances passed at the local level in rural communities have been aimed at corporate farming, not family farms.

He also needs to understand that the Board is nothing less than a subsidy for agribusiness corporations who wish to bypass the courts to threaten and intimidate rural communities across Pennsylvania.

For those who want to learn more about the ACRE proposal, a legislative Briefing Paper has been attached to this e-mail.