[mos6507]

Here we go again. Anyone really know how much of a threat this is and how much is an overreaction?

[AgentR]

Posted on this before.

1.) Small, local farms, for local consumption likely won't meet the regulatory definitions in the first place, and so will be ignored.

2.) If for some twisted reason, we want to assert that they will be included and required to report; the scale of activity that such a farm would have would require a Mark 87, A1 Black Ink Pen; and a flat fibrous object upon which to place the ink in strange curvy patterns.

ie... copy of receipts and a notepad.

The feds are not out to shut down small growers.

Honestly though, there's no way in heck the feds will be interested in collecting the information from every five acre market garden.

[Jotapay]

Like AgentR said, this is old news. We posted on this bill when it first appeared, months ago.

What it means is that you can grow/can/preserve/process food on your own property and only the owners of that property can eat it. The instant you give any food away to your neighbor or family, you are a "farm" and must register as such and pay registration fees.

Failure to register can result in three years imprisonment and $100,000 fine. If you give away a tomato to a neighbor and don't register as a farm, you can go away for 3 years and get fined $100K.

Remember how they said the Patriot Act wouldn't be used against American citizens? It's been used hundreds of times for silly things like cursing on a plane. We are well down the slippery slope now.

[Jotapay]

The feds are not out to shut down small growers.

Honestly though, there's no way in heck the feds will be interested in collecting the information from every five acre market garden.

Actually, it's Monsanto who is out to shut them down. Here is how it works: Monsanto gets regulations passed under the guise of food safety through their lobbyists. These regulations create unsustainable overhead for small farms.

Read about the electronic tagging and registration fees for every livestock animal. One fine ($100K) over a single potato will put a small farm out of business. This slowly squeezes out small producers.

[AgentR]

So much paranoia, so little time...

I manage to pay my vehicle registration fee without much trouble. I can't see as how this would be difficult for a market garden, assuming the feds are stupid enough to want registrations.

No one is going to need to electronically tag a tomato to give it to a neighbor, or sell it at the farmers market. The livestock thing is a bit more troubling, but not many market garden types are raising livestock for sale anyway.

If for some reason, we want to assume that the feds will want registration and reporting from every 1-5 acre garden, then here is what that report looks like:

tear off piece of yellow notebook paper.
scribble in crayon:

1, I bot ma sedez at BoBs Feeds in Jan 5, see da receipt he give me.
2. Doug sprayed my field in April and May, dere were bugs, now dead bugs. see da receipt
3. I picked da maters.
4. I sold da maters at farmers market in town. stupid tourists.

The real answer of course is that the feds have absolutely no interest in registrations or reporting from 1-5 acre market gardens that sell produce locally. Zilch.

As to Monsanto... Monsanto doesn't give a rats rear end about what market gardeners do; they don't even make a measurable blip on the market share pie chart. I understand that there are many tin foil hat wearers that have identified Monsanto as their Evil Archvillan that they need in order to motivate their activism.

[green_achers]

The feds are not out to shut down small growers.

Honestly though, there's no way in heck the feds will be interested in collecting the information from every five acre market garden.

Actually, it's Monsanto who is out to shut them down. Here is how it works: Monsanto gets regulations passed under the guise of food safety through their lobbyists. These regulations create unsustainable overhead for small farms.

Read about the electronic tagging and registration fees for every livestock animal. One fine ($100K) over a single potato will put a small farm out of business. This slowly squeezes out small producers.

I don't know about y'all, but in these parts, a potato isn't considered an animal. Now some of our animals (the human kind) might be considered potatoes...

[Jotapay]

Did any of you actually read the linked report and the bill? I feel like I'm playing cards with my sisters kids, sheesh. (name that movie quote)

[gnm]

No one is going to need to electronically tag a tomato to give it to a neighbor, or sell it at the farmers market. The livestock thing is a bit more troubling, but not many market garden types are raising livestock for sale anyway.

Small homesteads trading/selling livestock? You obviously aren't rural - It happens all the time.

-G

[AgentR]

Did any of you actually read the linked report and the bill? I feel like I'm playing cards with my sisters kids, sheesh. (name that movie quote)

Several times actually; but the text of the bill doesn't support the paranoia suggested.

What it does support, is that the government food guys want to unify and coordinate reporting within the mass food distribution channel in order to catch and trace food born illnesses. Getting reports from a 2 acre garden in Dimebox, TX that sells their tomatoes in Brenham, TX on the corner next to the gas station is completely pointless to that mission, and would only serve to waste time and resources in attempting to collect, record, and process the information.

They don't want anything to do with it. And even if the legislation made it out of committee without all the normal specific exclusions that get voted on by voice vote as the process goes along, the bureaucrats would say F****** no, and the rulemaking would quickly exclude all the irrelevant noise from Bobs Garden and Lawn Mower Repair.

With all the noise going on, I'd expect committee amendments to excludes such market gardens explicitly, just to make you guys go away.

[AgentR]

No one is going to need to electronically tag a tomato to give it to a neighbor, or sell it at the farmers market. The livestock thing is a bit more troubling, but not many market garden types are raising livestock for sale anyway.

Small homesteads trading/selling livestock? You obviously aren't rural - It happens all the time.

What you wrote, doesn't follow from what I wrote.
Happens, sure. In fact, my comment specifically says it does happens.

How many tomatoes are sold each year, originating from small gardens.
How many cows are sold each year, originating from small homesteads.

tada. Comparing tomato count with cow count, "not many" seems to me to be a reasonable comparative description.

If exclusions were not written in, so that you did have to trace livestock traded even in such transactions, I think you'll end up being surprised at how cheaply it can be done.. Yeah, I know, it'd be yet another $5/$10 nickel and diming you, and it'd be annoying; but still, you're overreacting.

Everyone wants regulation... of the other guy.
Everyone wants the government to fix something.. as long as someone else pays.

[gnm]

Its not the volume that matters if you are creating a precedent for "illegal activity" - By making things more difficult than they need to be and requiring license and registration for damn near every little transaction people make, you basically guarantee that anyone anywhere can be found guilty of multiple violations. Thus, when .gov.com feels the need to move you out of the way of a road for instance, you have no ability to fight it - suddenly they find "dozens" of violations and slap you with tens of thousands in fines... Similar to what has happened with the income tax code. All are required to sign it, but any two accountants are going to give different results. Sufficient "investigation" would undoubtedly find you guilty - so it hangs there like a big stick to be used subjectively by .gov.com whenever they wish...

-G

[Jotapay]

Several times actually; but the text of the bill doesn't support the paranoia suggested.

What it does say is that if you produce or process food on a property and it is consumed by someone who is not an owner of that property, then the owner must register the operation as a farm.

Therefore, if I give my neighbor a squash and am not registered as a farm with the FDA (basically, just paying a ridiculous tax and performing the bureaucratic record keeping), then I can go to jail for three years and get fined $100K. That is what it definitely says.

[Jotapay]

Its not the volume that matters if you are creating a precedent for "illegal activity" - By making things more difficult than they need to be and requiring license and registration for damn near every little transaction people make, you basically guarantee that anyone anywhere can be found guilty of multiple violations. Thus, when .gov.com feels the need to move you out of the way of a road for instance, you have no ability to fight it - suddenly they find "dozens" of violations and slap you with tens of thousands in fines... Similar to what has happened with the income tax code. All are required to sign it, but any two accountants are going to give different results. Sufficient "investigation" would undoubtedly find you guilty - so it hangs there like a big stick to be used subjectively by .gov.com whenever they wish...

-G

EXACTLY. 100% correct. It's incremental tyranny and control. I will need to have a federal license (i.e. pay a tax) to pick my nose in a few years. When are they going to tax me for breathing the air?

[mos6507]

I guess I'm wondering how suspicious any of us should be of the food we buy? Should we be any less suspicious of the neighbor offering us an extra tomato vs. a Monsanto special at the grocery store? Certainly plenty of backyard gardeners use RoundUp and Miracle-Gro. Theoretically, should regulations be excluded for the backyard gardnener? Just because the amount of damage the backyard gardener can do is constrained, the total damage from ALL backyard gardeners in a post-peak situation could begin to add up. There is an implication that the small scale stuff is automatically safe. Is that really true? They could be growing in lead contaminated soil for all we know. But these arguments always seem to skew towards David Vs. Goliath, that the big guy is always out to screw the little guy, and the little guy can't make mistakes, even innocently, because, well, he's the little guy.

This is not to encourage regulation, but to get an honest discussion going about the nature of risk in the food supply. Anytime you put something in your mouth there is a level of trust involved. (Just think of apples with razor blades during Halloween if you want an extreme example.) If we're talking about first time gardeners just sticking seeds in the ground with no testing for contamination, wouldn't we expect in the future to see some negative statistics accumulate from this taking off?

[AgentR]

Its not the volume that matters if you are creating a precedent for "illegal activity" - By making things more difficult than they need to be and requiring license and registration for damn near every little transaction people make, you basically guarantee that anyone anywhere can be found guilty of multiple violations.

I think they've already achieved this with the various environmental laws. They can already crush you like a bug if they feel like it. This legislation, even if taken to mean what the paranoids want it to mean, does not move the bar in that regard.

This isn't the 19th century; we are not free, and haven't been for some time. For the purposes of avoiding being squished, its important to learn how to not ruffle the feathers of them that can do the squishing. You have the illusion of freedom only because you are small, uninteresting, and not worth the time.

Thus, when .gov.com feels the need to move you out of the way of a road for instance, you have no ability to fight it

Last I checked, they barely need anything at all to get an imminent domain action to build a shopping mall or parking lot; much less a road. There ain't no fighting to be done. You're toast, best sit your tail in a chair at the table and beg for a little compensation.

Imagine how much fun an imminent domain action will be when your property value expressed in dollars is about enough to buy a loaf of bread.

[mos6507]

There ain't no fighting to be done.

With Jotapay? I wouldn't be so sure about that.

[Schmuto]

Of course they're attempting to centralize and control food production.

1. More money for corporations.
2. More control over people.

Anybody who doesn't understand that corporations want more money, and will do anything legal and some things illegal to get it, and that the government wants more control over people is naive.

No conspiracy theory needed - just plain common sense understanding what motivates people.

[AgentR]

When are they going to tax me for breathing the air?

2020.
Clean Air Assesment.

You breathe... You pay.

or you no breathe.

[Jotapay]

This isn't the 19th century; we are not free, and haven't been for some time. For the purposes of avoiding being squished, its important to learn how to not ruffle the feathers of them that can do the squishing. You have the illusion of freedom only because you are small, uninteresting, and not worth the time.

Man, just roll over and play dead already.

[Jotapay]

I guess I'm wondering how suspicious any of us should be of the food we buy? Should we be any less suspicious of the neighbor offering us an extra tomato vs. a Monsanto special at the grocery store? Certainly plenty of backyard gardeners use RoundUp and Miracle-Gro. Theoretically, should regulations be excluded for the backyard gardnener? Just because the amount of damage the backyard gardener can do is constrained, the total damage from ALL backyard gardeners in a post-peak situation could begin to add up. There is an implication that the small scale stuff is automatically safe. Is that really true? They could be growing in lead contaminated soil for all we know. But these arguments always seem to skew towards David Vs. Goliath, that the big guy is always out to screw the little guy, and the little guy can't make mistakes, even innocently, because, well, he's the little guy.

This is not to encourage regulation, but to get an honest discussion going about the nature of risk in the food supply. Anytime you put something in your mouth there is a level of trust involved. (Just think of apples with razor blades during Halloween if you want an extreme example.) If we're talking about first time gardeners just sticking seeds in the ground with no testing for contamination, wouldn't we expect in the future to see some negative statistics accumulate from this taking off?

I'm of the opinion that people should take a large part of the responsibility for their own lives. If they are using newspaper with dioxin to line their garden, that's their fault, unfortunately. They should do everything in their power to learn not to do that. Analogously, I've tried to help stupid people in the past, people who were out of work and begging. I told them I would get them a job where I worked. None of them ever called me, not one. People have to be left to their own devices to a large extent to exorcise their own nature.

If public safety was the primary motive here, why isn't the government creating education classes and material for food producers with this legislation, instead of levying taxes, fines and prison time?