Sonoma County's Farm Prohibition Measure Stems From CA Democratic Environmental Caucus Push for State & Federal 'Factory Farm' Moratorium
Measure J is a citizen-initiated November '24 General Election ballot measure in Sonoma County to prohibit 'factory farms' in our community
The 2024 General Election is taking place in Sonoma County, California, on November 5, 2024. Voting in the upcoming election is critical as the preposterous Measure J has been placed on the ballot. Measure J is a campaign of Direct Action Everywhere / Friends of DXE.
As cited from the ‘No on Measure J’ website:
“Sonoma County Family Farmers are under attack. Measure J, proposed by an animal extremist group from Berkeley, aims to eliminate Sonoma County’s diverse animal agriculture production. If passed, Measure J would put multi-generational farming families out of business and as a result, the cost of dairy products, eggs, and poultry will increase significantly. Furthermore, Measure J will increase our greenhouse gas emissions since these products will have to be imported from other parts of our state, country or even other countries. Measure J will cost taxpayers millions, and have a half-billion cumulative impact to the Sonoma County economy.”
Per UnchainedTV: “as of March 2022, a new bill (AB-2764) would place a moratorium on the construction and expansion of factory farms and slaughterhouses in California. The proposed law would also put a halt to the growth of CAFOs, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Assemblymembers Adrin Nazarian (D-Van Nuys) and Alex Lee (D-Milpitas) introduced this bill on February 18th, 2022.”
UnchainedTV’s Jane Velez-Mitchell interviewed Almira Tanner, from the organization Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) about the new bill.
Tanner explained what this bill will specifically do if passed:
“It is the first step towards phasing out the destructive animal agriculture industry in California. Hopefully, that would spread to the rest of the country, and the rest of the world. It prevents any new facilities from being built or any existing facilities from expanding. Right now, it applies to any sort of commercial animal farm, or slaughterhouse, that makes over $100,000 in revenue. So, this is really comprehensive. It is targeting almost every type of farm. We might see that revenue limit change in negotiations as we try to get this actually passed through the legislature. But, essentially, it is putting a halt to the growth of this industry. Eventually, we would like to see no factory farms at all. No animal farms, and no slaughterhouses. The first step towards doing that is actually just making sure we don’t keep building new ones.”
“A lot of people are really surprised to find out that new farms, and new slaughterhouses, are being built in this day and age in California despite… knowing that it exacerbates the climate crisis, it brews disease, it exploits workers, and, of course, obviously abuses animals. Not only are they being built, California as a government is actually funding this expansion by giving these places sometimes millions of dollars to expand.”
“It would ban any new slaughterhouses over a current revenue threshold. So, maybe not the tiniest ones, but most ones and certainly any mega slaughterhouses. We’ve kind of shortened the bill text into a good slogan which is ‘no more factory farms’ but it does apply to slaughterhouses as well.”
“There has been disappointing news regarding the progress of this bill. On 1 April 2022, Direct Action Everywhere sent this statement to its supporters:
“Against the will of so many Californians who fought for a factory farm moratorium, Asm. Nazarian’s office has officially decided to turn AB 2764 into a study on animal ag instead. This is incredibly disappointing given all the hard work so many people have put into advocating for AB 2764 as a factory farm moratorium. Because of these changes, the bill will not be voted on April 6th, but will likely be on the agenda at the second Ag Committee meeting in late April. We will still be showing up to Sacramento on April 6th to protest and will be updating that event page soon to reflect these changes. Obviously, you’re still welcome to promote that protest, but having hundreds of people there is not as important now. While this may very well be the end of our support for AB 2764, I hope it is not the end of the No More Factory Farms campaign. Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback!”
On November 16, 2021, the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco approved the following resolution under the leadership of Mayor London Breed:
“Resolution stating that the City and County of San Francisco supports a moratorium on the construction and expansion of animal feeding operations, factory farms, and slaughterhouses in California; and encouraging the United States legislature to support the Farm Systems Reform Act.”
The Farm System Reform Act would prohibit the construction of new large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and the expansion of those currently operating, and require all large CAFOs (defined as facilities that exceed a certain number of animals) to cease operating as large CAFOs by 2040.
The ‘No More Factory Farms’ petition featured the following notable signatories:
Friends of DXE was founded by Mr. Wayne Hsiung, animal rights activist and 2020 candidate for Mayor of the City of Berkeley.
In November 2023, Hsiung, a 42-year-old California state bar licensed attorney from San Francisco, was sentenced to serve 2 years on probation and 90 days in county jail after having been convicted by a Sonoma County jury in November of this year to charges of felony conspiracy to commit trespass and two counts of trespass. The convictions stem from large animal rights protests staged on Sonoma County Farms in 2018 and 2019.
Mr. Dean Guzman Wyrzykowski, a gentleman in his early 20’s, was hired as the Field Director for Mr. Hsiung's 2020 campaign for Mayor of the City of Berkeley. In addition, Mr. Guzman Wyrzykowski is the former COO & Co-Founder of Simple Heart, Mr. Hsiung's initiative.
Per his LinkedIn, he left the United States as of March 2024 and is currently solo backpacking in SE Asia and Mexico.
Mr. Guzman's mother, Fransel Aquino, appears to be a former 34-year Program Coordinator for the Consulate General of Canada. She was listed as one of Mr. Hsiung's campaign donors during his run for Mayor, but omitted her full surname
Per UnchainedTV:
“Hsiung’ parents emigrated from Taiwan in the 1970s and he grew up in Indiana. He explains how this caused his animal rights vocation:
“I’ve suffered from enormous dislocation my entire life. My family was an immigrant family. They moved to Central Indiana where there’s not a Chinese person in sight.
“I didn’t have any friends. And my dog was my best friend. She was really there for me… They love you so much and it’s so unconditional. It’s so open and trusting and completely lacking any sort of artifice or manipulation.
“No matter how hard school was, no matter how many people made fun of me, called me fat or stupid, or a (expletive deleted), I knew my dog would be there for me. So, yeah, I got to be there for them. It’s a deeply personal thing for me.”
After having investigated several slaughterhouses around Chicago, in 2013 he and others founded DxE in the San Francisco Bay Area. As part of this organization, he participated in many open rescues. One in North Carolina, though, led him to face criminal charges in court.”
During this interview, he failed to mention that his father, Mr. Hansen M. Hsiung was a resident scientist for the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. He invented several patents for studies including novel expression control sequences for structural genes encoding bovine growth hormone, cloning vectors for expression of exogenous protein and several others. Being that Mr. Hansen Hsiung’s patents pertain to genetic engineering, what corporations and individuals have utilized his inventions, and for what purpose? Cultivated meat is lab-grown meat that is grown from animal cells and could presumably be an example of interest.
As of May 2024, the World Bank released a report titled “Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System,” which calls for greener and more sustainable agriculture practices. It holds there are “affordable and readily available measures that can cut nearly a third of the world’s planet heating emissions while ensuring global food security.”
The abstract states:
“The global agrifood system has been largely overlooked in the fight against climate change. Yet, greenhouse gas emissions from the agrifood system are so big that they alone could cause the world to miss the goal of keeping global average temperatures from rising above 1.5 centigrade compared to preindustrial levels. Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood must be cut to net zero by 2050 to achieve this goal.
Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System offers the first comprehensive global strategic framework to mitigate the agrifood system’s contributions to climate change, detailing affordable and readily available measures that can cut nearly a third of the world’s planet heating emissions while ensuring global food security. These actions, which are urgently needed, offer three additional benefits: improving food supply reliability, strengthening the global food system’s resilience to climate change, and safeguarding vulnerable populations.
This practical guide outlines global actions and specific steps that countries at all income levels can take starting now, focusing on six key areas: investments, incentives, information, innovation, institutions, and inclusion. Calling for collaboration among governments, businesses, citizens, and international organizations, it maps a pathway to making agrifood a significant contributor to addressing climate change and healing the planet.”
As we continue to minimize our personal freedoms (water usage, ban of non-EV, etc.) have we have embraced the United Nations Agenda 2030 to ‘transform our world’ as a global response to ‘climate change’? The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 2 specifies the following:
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
2.1 By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round
2.2 By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons
2.3 By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment
2.4 By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality
2.5 By 2020, maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, as internationally agreed
2.a Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries
2.b Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round
2.c Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility
Final Thoughts
As Friends of DXE / Direct Action Everywhere combines forces with democratic elected officers and associated agencies statewide, are ulterior motives present?
“Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience.”
so corrupt NGOs (probably backed by multinationals and GMO interests) are attempting to make farm animals illegal in California, forcing Californians to import meats from third world countries and eat fake meat cooked up in labs