Ag update: 3 ways to engage

By Oregonians for Food and Shelter,

This week we are sharing THREE important opportunities to engage on current issues, from statewide to federal.

• EPA’s Herbicide Strategy – individual sign-on letter: As you have heard here, EPA has a comment period open for the recently released Herbicide Strategy. This will require agricultural herbicide users to use mitigations aimed at reducing risks to endangered species from spray drift and runoff/erosion. Our partners at the American Soybean Association have put together this short, petition-style letter for individual growers and operations to sign. The letter will remain open until October 20th. If you are an agricultural producer or applicator, please consider signing! Feel free to share with your networks.  Click here to add your name to this letter! Note that ASA will be sending out a separate letter for groups and organizations to sign on to in early October, this one is geared toward individuals and applicators.

• Pledge to say NO TO IP3: OFS has shared information already on IP3, a proposed ballot initiative that would make it a criminal act to kill an animal before the end of its natural life. Practices that would become illegal include hunting, fishing, pest management, and of course, animal agriculture. Even common breeding practices would become criminal acts. This petition is beyond crazy – and OFS is helping to send a strong message that it won’t be supported in Oregon. Click here to sign the pledge to say NO ON IP3! 

• Board of Forestry Survey from Oregon Kitchen Table: The Board of Forestry is updating their Strategic Plan for Oregon forests, which includes the values and goals that will guide their decision-making about public and private forests. Rather than consulting professionals with technical expertise, the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Board of Forestry are partnering with Oregon Kitchen Table to survey Oregonians on how they “feel” about Oregon forests. Based on our concerns about the survey and the responses it appears designed to elicit from the public, we strongly encourage engagement with this survey to avoid a biased outcome full of popular misconceptions. Tell the Board that we already have sufficient, strong protections for the environment, and that they should focus this plan on the single, most imminent threat to our forests: catastrophic wildfire due to lack of science-based management. And tell them to keep our working forests working, which provides jobs for rural communities, wood products to address our housing crisis, AND environmental benefits. The survey will take you about 5-8 minutes to complete, take it here before October 9th.

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