Last week while encouraging the USDA by phone to give the names of
the voters in the referendum to Joe Rowland something very interesting was
pointed out to me. The ACT that creates the National Honey Board is very
unusual and different from other assessment collecting acts for other US
commodities. The ACT for the NHB states that the purpose of the NHB is to
increase World honey production. The little bird talking to me said they had
been involved with many assessment collecting marketing groups in the United
States before and all the others commodity group ACTS, state clearly that
they are being created to increase the domestic production of a commodity.
Hearing this was very interesting because with language like this any help
that might be given to the AMERICAN beekeeper is also being given to the
Chinese, Argentininan and Mexican beekeepers. I my opinion the ACT that
creates the National Honey Board is defective and flawed and the National
Honey Board should be abolished and recreated if wanted by the AMERICAN
beekeepers to promote AMERICAN beekeepers. The packers created and haved
contro;ed the NHB since it's inception.PLEASE VOTE NO ON THE NHB REFERENDUM.

Walter Patton