Hello Everyone & Happy Holidays,

As we enter this holiday season Christy and I want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support in our fight for farmers, animals, and our environment. As most of you know, we delivered this petition to the USDA in October. Since then the rule governing Undue Preference by corporations has stalled in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures. We have been waiting over three months for the OMB to complete their review of this rule. Until the review is completed we are unable to make comments on the proposed rule.

Our petition was aimed at encouraging the USDA to craft a strong rule that would ensure the protection of farmers, animals, and our environment by preventing large meatpacking corporations from showing undue preference or retaliation towards any farmer. Once the proposed rule is released from the OMB review we will have 60 days to make comments on the rule. That’s when your action will be essential. We have on record more than 86,000 people support a strong rule supporting farmers over corporations. We need each of you to make a comment once the rule is released. The USDA will take those comments into consideration when writing the final rule. When we have more updates we will pass them along to you. For now, thank you for your continued support and have a very happy holiday season.