PRIME Act

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    It's YOUR food security

PRIME Act

The PRIME Act is a piece of federal legislation that will give Americans greater freedom to obtain locally produced meat from the farmers they know and trust. It gives farmers and small, custom slaughterhouses the option to work together to serve their communities.

What the PRIME Act does:

  • PRIME creates a meat processing exemption for local, small farmers.

  • It ensures that local custom butchers can process meat and the farmers can sell it by individual cuts within the state where it was produced and processed.

  • With this exemption in place, farmers can take their animals to the local, custom butcher and receive their own meat back to sell it to their loyal customers.

It is a win-win for everyone.

Current law:

Current laws and regulations only allow farmers to sell meat that has been butchered and cut at USDA inspected slaughterhouses. All too often, these facilities are not set up to work with small-scale farmers or, they are too far away from our small farms. This means higher grassfed, pastured meat prices to you, or lack of local meat availability for your community.

We need to change that!

Local meat means local food security.

It means when large scale operations have a catastrophic supply crisis, for whatever reason, local communities have an affordable source of clean healthy food.

Farmers need to farm, not drive 3-8 hours each way to get a steer cut into steaks.

Custom butcher shops can help!

Action:

1. Contact your Representative TODAY and ask them to co-sponsor and support the PRIME Act introduced by Reps Thomas Massie and Chellie Pingree (H.R. 4700). This truly is a bipartisan effort. (List of co-sponsors here. If your member is a co-sponsor, please THANK THEM and ask for their continued support.)

Find your Rep Here

2. Contact your Senators TODAY and ask them to co-sponsor and support the PRIME Act introduced by Rand Paul and Angus King (S. 2409).
(List of co-sponsors here. If your Senator is a co-sponsor, please THANK THEM and ask for their continued support.)

If you are from one of the states below, your senator sits on the Senate Ag Committee and your voice will have the highest impact:

AR, MI, KY, ND, IA, CO, MS, KS, NJ, AL, WV, IA, SD, NE, VT, IN, PA, IL, NM, GA, CA, MI

Contact your Senators here

Once you find your Rep and Senators, follow these steps:

  1. Find their Washington DC office phone number.
  2. Call that number and ask to speak to the Legislative Aide.
  3. Be kind and introduce yourself. Give them your full name and address. It is helpful to lead with something that you are grateful they have done during their time in office.
  4. Ask the the aide to please support the PRIME Act whether as a stand-alone bill or as language in the Farm Bill.
  5. For Representatives, ask them to contact Rep Massie's office and co-sponsor the bill. For Senators, ask them to contact Senator Angus King and offer to co-sponsor the bill.
  6.  In your own words, tell them why this bill is important to you as a voter and constituent in their state.
  7. If you are a farmer, let them know how important it is to you to be able to take your animals to local, custom slaughterhouses.
  8. If you are not a farmer, tell them why it is important to you to support local farmers by buying their meat. Let them know that you would like the option to purchase meat that has been processed according to state safety guidelines and under state inspection by the local custom butchers.
  9. Remember: be kind. The staffers are usually overworked. Tell them about yourself and why this is important to you.
  10. Once you complete these steps, send this request to 3 people and ask them to do the same.

Talking point examples (please use your own words)

  • It is important to me that we can access local beef and/or pork from our local farms.
  • 85% of the meat in America is controlled by 4 large companies. We want to support our American farmers. Americans need the freedom to choose where our meat comes from..
  • Inflation has made it difficult for many Americans to access healthy meat choices. By supporting the PRIME Act, we can find local meat from local sources. This helps us all afford better meat.
  • The PRIME Act ensures our food safety by making sure that meat is processed at local, custom slaughterhouses that follow the state’s safety guidelines.

THANK YOU!


Every call makes a HUGE impact!
Never underestimate the power of YOUR voice






PRIME Act webinar

Full video from the webinar

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