A friend of mine who operates a small family run farm up in New Hampshire is trying to help educate folks about the new federal food regulations that just made their way through Senate.  This is far outside of my area of expertise, but what he had to say was interesting so I've included his letter in full below.  If you can pass it along to others and possibly contact your representatives if you live in the US, that'd be great.

Hey all,

Very sorry to bug you all since I generally do not send out mass e-mails, but yesterday the Senate version of s510 passed, and is now in an H.R. committee. Last July the house passed their version, and now both house and senate need to agree upon a same version and then send it off to Obama.

The reason I am writing is because this legislation gives both unprecedented authority to the Federal government over all aspects of food growth and production, and at the same time poses a significant hindrance to small farmers and soon to be farmers. Currently the bill exempts small farms, and largely focuses on production facilities. I am not going to take up everyone's time detailing the bill. Just google s510 (ad in small farm, etc to your tag) But rather here are a few highlights not often mentioned about the effects of the bill:

1. The Bill governs any place where food is stored, produced, processed, with a few exemptions. Even with the exemption clause for some small farms, we would still fall under this governance. For example, you have probably all heard about how I want to start producing cheese next year. The state of NH has very reasonable requirements for a milk processing room. However, in this Bill it requires state agencies to work in conjunction with the federal government. So we may very well find ourselves now being governed with federal requirements or instead when we go to the state find that the requirements have greatly increased. The federal government has tried and wanted for a long time to consider farms as processors. It won't be long until that technical transition is made.

2. De-Facto governance: Very quick, GAP (a voluntary program sprung from CA) became de-facto mandatory for many farmers when grocers across the country (think your Hanafords, Albertson's, Shop and Save variety) required all of their suppliers to be GAP certfied even though it was never required by law. So many farms, especially in this area, lost their ability to wholesale extra produce if they were. (GAP pretty much requires you to have strictly a livestock or a produce operation. Imagine farms across the america where if you sell a leafy green, then you can't have a cow on the property. I'd move to Canada, but their laws aren't any better.)

3. Reduction of Farms- The next biggest reason, and actually why I am really emailing everyone is because of the very real threat of seeing even greater farm reduction. We already have farms, especially dairies, rolling over ever day. Just imagine a completely new set of requirements/costs on top of what already exists. Especially if the new requirements begin to prevent custom butchers, meat processors, dairy farmers from getting into the business.

Also, if you're a horse person: When my great grandmother's farm was sold off- a nice 23 acre field was swallowed up. Which meant that a lot of hay just dissapear from the local area. So those horse people that bought that hay looked elsewhere. Just imagine multiplying that over and over. Maybe we'll eventually find out how much hay NY state can produce. We're a dynamic area. Our farms rely upon income from pick your own, raw milk, meat, produce, sleigh rides, corn mazes, cut flowers, etc. etc. We're not a single minded operation, but rather a diverse set of farms, none of which are comparable completely, but that is the standard that ensues upon federal implementation of governance.

4. Doesn't really make food safer: Just because the law requires inspection of a facility doesn't mean that a facility that processes a half million eggs a day or 100,000 chickens to slaughter is really going to be clean? The sheer numbers are daunting. All we are doing is adding a bandade to an already falible food system, and companies like Cargil, IBP are supporting the bill.

Well, the most helpful thing would be to contact your house reps, and the house reps in the H.R. committee that oversees it. (honestly, they will probably just put it to vote on open floor thinking they have support right away.) So call, harass, email, date their daughters. Forward this along, make a call, thanks all.

 I'm late for milking now.
Zac