Legislation to Protect Farmers and Ranchers Information Introduced

Last week a bill — The Farmer Identity Protection Act (HR 4157) — was introduced in the US House of Representatives and will prohibit the EPA from disclosing private information of livestock and and poultry producers to the public. 

Field reporter Greg Martin has more about why passage of this bill is important to livestock producers.??Martin: “Last February and then again in April, the EPA released names, addresses, geographic coordinates and in some cases telephone numbers and email addresses of over 80,000 producers in 29 states. EPA has plans to release information on thousands more farmers and ranchers in the future. EPA claims it lacks statutory authority to protect livestock producers’ personal information. Both the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have expressed concerns regarding potential risks when EPA pursued—and later abandoned—a rulemaking requiring livestock producers to report personal information directly to its agency. The Farmer Identity Protection Act would unequivocally provide the agency with the ability to prevent such farm-specific releases from happening in the future, allowing the agency to provide information to outside parties only in aggregate without individual identifying information, or with the producer’s consent.”

Thanks, Greg. The companion bill in the Senate that was introduced last summer is S 1343.