CAST requests survey participants

March 15, 2010 — Council for Agricultural Science and Technology

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) is coordinating a Food Animal Agriculture Symposium, "Sustaining Animal Agriculture: Balancing Bioethical, Economic and Social Issues", to be held June 8, 9, and 10, 2010 in Washington, DC. The opinions of you, your members, farmers, and other clientele (listed in question 14 of the request for information as found on surveymonkey) will be summarized and presented on the first day of this symposium. The purpose of the symposium is to explore the intended and unintended consequences of state ballot initiatives, and other legal mandates, regarding animal welfare issues. We will use the information you provide to evaluate how these mandates impact food animal producers of all sizes, their communities, animal welfare, the structure of agriculture, and our food security.

For your organization, the opinions of clientele or others will be obtained as a Surveymonkey request for information. Please forward the request for information as an email message to clientele on your distribution lists using this address: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2B2HKJ8. You may prefer to also provide the request for information on your web site using the same address. Surveymonkey instructions are provided as part of the request for information. Gregory Martin will collect all surveymonkey results and provide a summary as part of his presentation at the symposium on June 8.

We appreciate the support of the National Association of County Agricultural Agents through their distribution of a similar memo to State Extension Directors and to County Extension Educators. For the Extension Service, we provided the County Extension Educator an additional option of directly facilitating the collection of opinions of farmers and others regarding these issues through a town hall style meeting. The results of this meeting in each county, or in multiple counties, will also be summarized by Gregory Martin as part of his presentation on June 8.

All information will be confidential and only summarized by state (not a lower level), and according to size and type of farm. If that information is not available then it will only be summarized by state. In no case will it be possible to identify a farm or stakeholder. Participation is strictly voluntary and confidential.

If you have questions, please contact John Bonner, CAST Executive Vice President, 515.292.2125 Ext 25; jbonner@cast-science.org; or Gregory Martin, 717.394.6851, gpm10@psu.edu.