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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Begaye

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/27/07

HB HJM 46

SHORT TITLE Meat Inspection Cultural Considerations SB

ANALYST Wilson

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to SJM 29, HJM 47 and SJM 28.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Department of Agriculture (DA)

Indian Affairs Department (IAD)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Joint Memorial 46

urges the New Mexico congressional delegation to take action to help

protect small businesses in New Mexico by helping the proprietors of small slaughterhouses and

butchering operations that provide meat and slaughtered animals for consumption for traditional

Native American feasts and ceremonies, Hispanic community matanzas and other traditional

community gatherings and celebrations to obtain relief from oppressive regulation through

negotiation with regulators of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and

implementation of regulations that take into consideration the interests and needs of traditional

people and communities.

HJM 46 asks the New Mexico congressional delegation to consider requiring the USDA to adopt

provisions in regulations that allow Native American spiritual leaders the same liberty as other

religious leaders to participate in butchering of animals in specified slaughterhouse operations to

ensure that animals for feasts, ceremonies or other community gatherings are prepared as

required by tradition.

House Joint Memorial 46– Page

2

The USDA is encouraged to engage in dialogue with the leaders of traditional communities, both

Native American and Hispanic, in New Mexico to reach accord on regulatory issues of concern

to the traditional and spiritual leaders of those communities and also to aid small community

butchering and slaughterhouse operations to remain as viable businesses and provide the needed

services that they offer in small traditional communities.

Furthermore, HJM 46 resolves that copies of this memorial shall be transmitted to the New

Mexico congressional delegation, the president of the Navajo Nation, the president of the

Jicarilla Apache Nation, the president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, the chair of the all Indian

pueblo council, the USDA and the New Mexico livestock board.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

New Mexico is predominantly a rural state, with many very small communities surrounded by

great areas of open vistas and great distances between communities. Due to the rural nature of

the state, many people still raise livestock for personal consumption, but due to the changes

faced by traditional communities, more and more Native American and Hispanic people rely on

commercial ventures to provide them with traditional foods.

At least ten percent of the population of New Mexico is Native American, many of whom remain

living untraditional tribal or pueblo communities that were occupied by their ancestors as long

ago as one thousand years.

Close to fifty percent of the population of New Mexico is of Spanish ancestry and many of these

people live in the small traditional communities settled by their ancestors over the last five

hundred years.

This large segment of the population of New Mexico has traditions that must be preserved if the

heritage, culture and spiritual practices of the long-term residents of New Mexico are to remain

vibrant and meaningful into the future.

Food and food preparation are basic to maintaining many belief systems and the traditional

practices of both the Hispanic population and the Native American population of New Mexico

and include rich and important practices involving the raising, blessing, harvesting and

consumption of animals.

Slaughtering of animals has for centuries been community activity that in the last hundred years

has become the job of a community member who knows the culturally appropriate way to raise

and prepare animals for ceremonial or community use.

The proprietors of these community businesses carry much of the traditional knowledge of the

appropriate way and the respectful attitude required to harvest animals for cultural and traditional

activities such as feasts, ceremonies, matanzas and other community gatherings, and the

practices reviewed many times by regulators as conflicting with health and safety standards for

slaughtering of animals.

Thee USDA has specifically authorized spiritual leaders of religious traditions such as

Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam or Judaism in regard to the preparation of kosher products to be

present as necessary during the butchering of animals, but spiritual practices of Native

House Joint Memorial 46– Page

3

Americans and traditional practices of Hispanic communities are not recognized in these

religious tradition exemptions, in large part because the need for the services of a slaughterhouse

outside of the community or understate or federal regulation is a recent phenomenon.

In recent years, USDA regulations governing the slaughter of animals have become sophisticated

and removed from the traditional values and practices that support the cultures of New Mexico,

tending to hold those values and practices in disdain as fewer people creating and enforcing

regulations actually have knowledge or understanding of these cultural values and practices.

Small slaughterhouses or community butchers have found it difficult to remain in business due to

the lack of understanding expressed and exhibited by regulators and their regulations, and

traditional communities are prohibited from obtaining animals in the way the animals are

required to be prepared by tradition, due to the regulations.

Even more stringent regulations prohibit preparation of slaughtered animals in traditional ways

for resale, as in allowing restaurants to serve some traditional foods; however, in some cases,

parts of animals unavailable, due to regulation, from local slaughtering businesses are available

as imported delicacies.

Small butchers and slaughterhouses are disappearing from traditional communities in many cases

due tithe expense of implementing regulations and the regulators’ expectations that to remain in

business a butcher will purchase sophisticated equipment and maintain detailed records that

require sophisticated information technology.

Some of the requirements that exceed a small butcher’s or slaughterhouse operator's capacity to

implement are targeted at large meatpacking operations that obtain their animals from feedlots.

Representatives of traditional communities are willing to work with the USDA to develop

regulations that will allow those communities to continue their traditions, ceremonies and age-

old community practices while satisfying those necessary health and safety concerns of the

regulators, and allowing small butchering and slaughterhouse businesses to prosper and serve a

great need in these traditional communities.

RELATIONSHIP

HJM 46 relates to SJM 28, SJM 29 and HJM 47.

DW/nt