Can all of you help by getting as many groups as possible to sign onto a statement demanding the best food from the USDA for our children and mothers, and that it come preferentially from our family farmers?
We want to create two things:  
1.  a broader public awareness of the essential link between the cleanest, best food and NON-corporate farming and the necessity that the USDA finally do right by both,  2.  a public and Congressional awareness of a wide and growing range of public groups which are concerned about food, now joining together to make basic demands about food AND farming.
We want to overcome the gap in public consciousness about real family farmers, and to start creating a national coalition that understands that good and safe food comes only from those farmers.   So ... Would you and your groups like to be part of what we hope will be the FIRST broadly-inclusive national public statement on food AND farmers?   What groups are you in?  Farm?  Ranch?  Union?  University?  Home schooling?  Cooking?  Political?  Church?  Synagogue?  Mosque?  Women's?  Men's?  Sports?  Health?  Disabilities?  NASCAR?  Knitting?  Art?  Engineering?  Civic?  Cancer?  Diabetes?  Heart?  MS?  Filmmaking?  Graphic Design?  Celebrities?  Black?  Latino?  Chinese?  Native American?  South Asian?  Vietnamese?  AARP?  etc.?  
We need absolutely everyone.   1000 ranchers a month are disappearing.  The USDA and FDA are redefining "naturally-raised" and "grassfed" any way they want, as they wipe out those who are providing the real thing.  So the public needs to stop taking 'farming" for granted but move strongly protect non-industrial, non-corporate farmers before they are gone.
And obviously, any groups you can send our way or any media for Kimberly Hartke to contact, would be great.  Here is the DRAFT (not ready for release) for the hearing - not the statement but it might give you a sense of the concerns the statement will contain:

Citizen Action Groups to Give USDA an Earful

At Listening Session on Child Nutrition

Atlanta, Georgia, August 7, 2008---USDA may get more than they bargained for at their “Listening Sessions” on Child Nutrition programs, now being held around the country.  A number of powerful, grass roots based organizations are mobilizing forces to bring the voices of parents and children to the next session to be held in Atlanta.  This series of hearings about the reauthorization of government school feeding and WIC programs would typically be dominated by testimony from food service providers asking for expanded programs, funding and increased reimbursement rates.

Now, parents and their children also want to be heard. An informal coalition of such diverse groups as Georgia Organics, Food and Water Watch, Feminist Health Coalition, Sierra Club, Unitarian Universalist Church, Concerned Black Clergy and the local chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a 501c3 nutrition education non-profit, are asking their members to show up with children in tow, to speak to their concerns about food safety and purity. 

In this weeks hearing in Baltimore, Sarah Anderson of Food and Water Watch, raised the issue of parents and schools having the choice whether or not to purchase artificial growth hormone free milk, or non-irradiated food.  Food and Water Watch has previously succeeded in getting irradiated food a separate line item on government order forms, and since that time, not a single school has chosen to order irradiated meat.  Food and Water Watch has also successfully defeated corporate efforts to ban growth hormone labeling on milk.

Emboldened by such successes around the country, citizen action groups are now going for more transparency and input on what is being fed to our nation’s children. Issues that will probably be raised by the speakers for the various groups planning to attend are:

Ø      Parental Consent Before Serving Genetically Modified Food

Ø      Preference for Grass-fed Meats from Small, Sustainable Farms

Ø      Elimination of Hormones, Antibiotics, Steriods from School Food

Ø      Increased Use of Fresh, Locally Grown Produce

Ø      Affirmative Action on Behalf of Family Farms & Ranches

Ø      Junk Foods Removed from Schools

Ø      Stop Using School Nutrition to Push the Unpopular National Animal ID System

Ø      Parental Rights in Food Choice

The citizen action groups expect a huge turnout on Wednesday, August 20, 9:00 am – 1:00 pm at the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, 2nd Floor Conference Center, Room D at 61 Forsyth St., SW, Atlanta, GA 30303-8930.

 
Media Contact:  Kimberly Hartke, Publicist  703-860-2711, 703-675-5557 cell