New Mexico sent 4 state government employees to the August AAFCO 2019 meeting and is hosting the January 2020 meeting. New Mexico should not send any representatives to the January AAFCO, cancel their participation in hosting the event based on AAFCO ban of consumers.
Contact page for Governor Michelle Grisham: https://www.governor.state.nm.us/contact-the-governor/
Contact page for New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas: https://secure.nmag.gov/ECS/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/ECSIntakeItems/Introduction
Email content:
Dear Governor Grisham and Attorney General Balderas,
I am writing to you requesting that New Mexico Department of Agriculture immediately withdraw from participation in the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) meeting to be held January 21-23, 2020 in Albuquerque, NM. State tax dollars are used to send multiple state employees to these meetings; the state New Mexico is hosting this event.
It is currently inappropriate for New Mexico to use tax dollar funds to send representatives to this meeting or to participate in any manner as the host state; AAFCO has banned consumers and consumer stakeholder organizations from attending/participating in this meeting. Until AAFCO opens the meetings to consumers and consumer stakeholder organizations, allowing consumer input in pet food regulatory decisions – New Mexico should not play a role in the consumer ban.
AAFCO charges Department of Agriculture representatives $400 (per person) to attend, AAFCO charges non-members $550.00 to attend meetings. Source: https://www.aafco.org/Portals/0/SiteContent/Meetings/Midyear/2020/2020_Midyear_Registration_Form.pdf?v20191101-2
The AAFCO website states “Anyone can register for and attend an AAFCO midyear or annual meeting.” Source: https://talkspetfood.aafco.org/roleofaafco However, multiple pet owners and pet owner stakeholder advocates received an email from AAFCO Board of Directors (cc’d on this email) stating “the AAFCO resources not accessible to you during this period include AAFCO meetings, the Feed BIN, AAFCO committees and work groups participation, and any other AAFCO resources not specifically identified here.”
AAFCO is a private organization, however its members are government employees who participate in the AAFCO process as representatives of government. Therefore, New Mexico must immediately withdraw from participation in the upcoming AAFCO meeting based on unfounded bias shown by AAFCO against pet food consumers. If New Mexico participates in this AAFCO meeting in any manner, New Mexico would be condoning and/or endorsing AAFCO’s consumer ban – an attitude I would hope that New Mexico does not want to project to its many pet food consumer residents.
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