Last week saw a busy few days for PDFA leadership. Glenn Dice, Jarrid Barry, and Josh Newton spent Tuesday and Wednesday (May 1&2) in Harrisburg working with our lobbyist in discussing our industry and CWD with legislators at the capitol. A current uptick in false information being presented by Pennsylvania Game Commission leadership required direct attention from the PDFA.
Glenn Dice, Jarrid Barry, and Josh Newton in Harrisburg discussing our industry and CWD with legislators.
The meetings on this trip were focused on members of both the house fish and game committee and members of the House Agriculture committee. The intent of our meetings was to set the record straight on some of the false accusations and to educate legislators on who we are as an industry and what we have been doing on the CWD front. The conversations focused on our CWD programs, research, fencing issues, and cooperative efforts moving forward. It was clearly evident to us that some of the members had been given a different perspective of our industry, especially on CWD issues.
In addition to legislators, we also had the opportunity to sit down with the states Auditor General Eugene DePasquale. The auditor general’s office is currently conducting an audit of the Pennsylvania Game Commission at the request of the Republican House Caucus. Our meeting went well, with the focus on educating on the intensity of the CWD rules and Regs that are industry has been under for years, and to point out our concern with false information being presented on CWD by the PGC.
Although a long and busy few days for our PDFA leadership, I know we all felt the benefit of spending the time in Harrisburg. More importantly, the trip reminded us that we still have plenty of work to do to get all legislators educated on the Deer industry and CWD. We continue to work with our Lobbyist, Milliron & Goodman, to ramp up our PR and education and will be scheduling more frequent trips to Harrisburg in the future to directly engage our legislators. Legislator relationships are as important as ever, and I ask all of our deer farmers to become engaged and get to know your local legislators, if you need assistance in doing so, do not hesitate to call your PDFA Leadership.
Respectfully,
PDFA President
Jarrid Barry