WHEREAS, the five-year Farm Bill is an important piece of federal legislation that establishes the funding and policy priorities for the nation’s farmers, ranchers, agricultural researchers and officials, as well as those for nutrition programs, farmland stewardship, and plant and animal pest and disease prevention and response; and

WHEREAS,  the United States Congress has, to date, not approved a new five-year Farm Bill, although recent progress has been made in reaching agreement on the major issues included in the Farm Bill that was originally scheduled to be considered in 2012; and

WHEREAS, an amendment to the proposed version of the Farm Bill, introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), would prohibit states from enacting statutes that directly or indirectly affect agricultural production methods in other states (the Amendment resulted from a dispute over whether California could prohibit entry of other states’ eggs from chickens that are not free-range); and

WHEREAS, an unintended consequence of the “King Amendment” would be making states powerless to impose and enforce quarantines intended to keep agricultural products from states that currently have certain plant or animal pests or diseases from being shipped into states where those pests or diseases do not currently exist; and

WHEREAS, New Jersey’s experience in eradicating the Asian longhorned beetle, on two separate occasions in two distinct areas of the state, demonstrated that ridding the state of an invasive, non-native species that arrived in the wood packing of products originating outside of New Jersey was a time-consuming and expensive undertaking, which resulted in the removal of more than 25,000 trees from New Jersey; and

WHEREAS, while we sympathize with the farmers of any state whose products are banned from entering any other state based on production methods alone, the risk of not having the tool of quarantines to prevent  importing new pests or diseases into a state outweighs that of a state’s desire to ship agricultural products into another state regardless of state laws that may prohibit such importation.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the delegates to the 99^th State Agricultural Convention, assembled in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on February 5-6, 2014, do hereby urge the New Jersey Congressional Delegation to oppose the King Amendment and any other measures in the Farm Bill that would directly or indirectly reduce or eliminate the power of any state to impose quarantines that are designed to protect against the introduction of new plant or animal pests or diseases.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we urge Congress to research ways of prohibiting one state from turning away another state’s agricultural products based on production methods alone, as such actions effectively violate the Interstate Commerce clause of the United States Constitution, with the caveat that any such solution would not have the unintended consequence of rendering powerless state quarantines to protect against importing plant and animal pests and diseases that previously did not exist in that state.