I’m sharing this post from our friends at the
:
“Some side with the leaves. Some side with the seeds” – Jeff Tweedy
Protect Seed Libraries from potential unnecessary regulations! Act now, call your State Representative and ask them to co-sponsor House Bill 2487!
HB 2487, sponsored by Representative Pritchard, will protect community seed libraries from potential unnecessary regulation by exempting them from Illinois commercial seed laws. Over the last 6 months to a year several departments of agriculture in other states started regulating and shutting down seed libraries under the auspices that they violated their state’s commercial seed laws.
Lets not let that happen here in Illinois!
Call Your Illinois State Representative now and ask them to co-sponsor House Bill 2487.
Don’t know who your IL State Representative is?
You can look them up via your mailing address by clicking here. (Make sure you call your IL State Rep not your US Rep)
Here is a suggested script on what to say:
“Hi my name is ________, I am a constituent from ____(city/town)_____ and I am calling to ask that Representative __________ co-sponsor and support House Bill 2487. House Bill 2487 will support community gardening and local food by protecting non-commercial community seed libraries from unnecessary and inappropriate state regulations that are designed for commercial seed companies not small community based seed libraries that are encouraging community gardens, seed saving and seed sharing.”
Illinois has at least 9 seed libraries operating in all regions of the state from the Du Quin Seed Library in southern Illinois that is operated by the University of Illinois Extension to the Jane Adams Hull House Seed Library in Chicago. There are several more across the state that are in the early stages of being created.
Regulators in Illinois have not indicated that they have any interest in shutting down seed libraries but why wait for them to change their minds? Illinois Stewardship Alliance is working with Dekalb County Community Gardens, Representative Bob Pritchard from Dekalb and a number of others at the Illinois General Assembly to pass HB 2487 which would exempt seed libraries from Illinois’ commercial seed laws.
Once you have called your Representative there are two other things you can do to help:
- Submit an official “Witness Slip” Indicating your support for HB2487 below you will find instructions on how to file a Witness slip.
- Call members of the House Agriculture Committee and ask them to support community based seed libraries, seed saving and sharing by supporting HB2487 and passing it out of committee.
Jerry F. Costello, II 217-782-1018
Katherine Cloonen 217-782-5981
Donald L. Moffitt 217-782-8032
John D. Anthony 217-782-5997
Avery Bourne 217-782-8071
John E. Bradley 217-782-1051
Kelly Burke 217-782-0515
Tom Demmer 217-782-0535
Marcus C. Evans, Jr. 217-782-8272
Randy Frese 217-782-8096
Frank J. Mautino 217-782-0140
Charles E. Meier 217-782-6401
Anna Moeller 217-782-8020
Raymond Poe 217-782-0044
Sue Scherer 217-782-0353
Brian W. Stewart 217-782-8186
Litesa E. Wallace 217-782-3167
Submitting a “Witness slip”
- Go to the following website: http://my.ilga.gov/
- Once there look to the left and click on “House,” which will give you a drop down menu, one of your choices will be “Committee Hearings,” click on that. Then you should see a list of committees and several tabs towards the top that allow you to sort the list in different ways, click the “Week” tab. A list of committees should appear. Scroll down until you see 3/17/2015 – 1:00 PM Agriculture & Conservation Committee Stratton Building – Room D-1 – Springfield, IL Then to the right there should be a clickable icon that looks like a paper, click on that.
- That icon will take you to a list of bills in the committee, scroll down or click next page until you fin HB2487. You will see to the far right an icon that looks like a pencil writing on paper, click on the icon. That will bring you to a “Witness Slip” form, fill out your information, then towards the bottom the is a Position section, under that section you want to choose “Original bill,” and “Support” and then in the next section choose “Record of Appearance only.”
Wes King Illinois Stewardship Alliance