Is government trying to get into gardening? (growing, tomatoes, backyard)
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My wife belongs to some internet seed-swapping groups and there has been some concern expressed amongst those group members about House Bill 875, which would expand government regulation of food production. Some say it would even expand into backyard gardens.
You can read some more on my website, which you can find by clicking on my name to get a dropdown menu.
A Tulsa World editor scoffs at our concern. She believes food production is in a sorry state and needs the hand of government to set it straight. Government apparently has done so well in other areas that it is needed in farming, ranching and gardening.
If I interpreted the posts right on a couple of other sites. The backyard gardner won't be affected with this. They are supposedly after the farmers market types that sell more to the public than for their own food. I do agree, in Tennessee where we just moved from. There was quite the under ground market system of people selling at roadside stands or out of the back of vehicles that were at different places during the week. I saw some of these people making over a couple hundred a day to over a thousand on weekends. Alot would go out of state and buy produce then come into TN to sell. Especially seasonal produce not grown that much in TN. Records were not kept on anything. I know this to be a fact. I am sure they paid taxes on every penny, right?
Back to origional post. This made the origional producer very hard to identify in case of a food problem and sickness from it for sure.
So if I raise a bunch of extra squash and pumpkins and want to sell them out of the trunk of my car at the farmers market, you think I should be regulated with a bunch of paperwork and my garden space should be open for inspection? And you're resentful that it's possible I might make a few extra bucks in cash that won't get taxed? Maybe I'm reading your post wrong.
So if I raise a bunch of extra squash and pumpkins and want to sell them out of the trunk of my car at the farmers market, you think I should be regulated with a bunch of paperwork and my garden space should be open for inspection?
Yep because you are SELLING to the public.
I dug through my paperwork and I found all the papers needed to start an operation like you suggest in the state of Maine anyway. Hold on, its pretty ridiculous. To show you this, I decided to use the example of a sole proprietorship, and no employees as a business formula...the least restrictive.
1. Get a federal tax ID number (free)
2. State tax ID number (free)
3. Retail sales tax application (free)
4. Food and Fuel license application ($50 due yearly)
If you sold meat from livestock you would need the additional permits and fees...
5. Livestock operations permit (free)
6. Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (free-$300 depending on who does it)
7. Lamb/beef check off program (½ cent per pound)
At a Farmer's Market I frequented, there were the usual farmers there, sitting around, hay or chaw in mouth, polite and friendly and would chat for hours. One even grew all of the unusual heirlooms she could find and displayed them for free sampling, as well as offered them and their seeds for sale. THEN... dramatic pause ... there were "the others". They came with trucks laden with things that didn't grow there or were out of season; fruits and vegies that you could tell they had picked up at the local Wal Mart for cheap, some with the out-of-country stickers still on them!
In a situation like that, to me it is "buyer beware". Recently there was a salmonella scare in our own area - from a farm near Omaha that sold contaminated bean sprouts to statewide franchises. Several people we know were made ill from buying sub sandwiches at a 'trusted' franchise. I have seen folks get food poisoning from Wendy's hamburgers (the mayo left out too long) - all sorts of instances. A friend of mine stopped hiring illegal immigrants to work in her kitchen and even as dishwashers because she said that she could not make them understand WHY they had to use the dishwasher (with the heat and steam cycle) or even wash their hands.
Honestly, unless you grow it and cook it yourself, do you really know what is in the soil, on the plant, in the trucks or in the kitchens of anywhere? I don't think ANY amount of government regulation will stop everything, or even 50% of everything, from getting through to the consumer. Couple that with the facts that everyone seems allergic/sensitive to any and everything any more, and everyone who gets an upset stomach is willing to sue the dickens out of someone who made them a sandwich a week ago, providing food for others is a pretty risky business.
At a Farmer's Market I frequented, there were the usual farmers there, sitting around, hay or chaw in mouth, polite and friendly and would chat for hours. One even grew all of the unusual heirlooms she could find and displayed them for free sampling, as well as offered them and their seeds for sale. THEN... dramatic pause ... there were "the others". They came with trucks laden with things that didn't grow there or were out of season; fruits and vegies that you could tell they had picked up at the local Wal Mart for cheap, some with the out-of-country stickers still on them!
Yeah, we see that even the little Phelps County Farmers Market sometimes. Couple of years ago a woman had a huge stack of boxes marked "Arkansas Tomatoes" on the side, and she was selling the heck out of them. I steer clear of anything that doesn't look like it was grown in Phelps county, or maybe just across the county line. I'll quiz/grill the vendors to try to make sure they're actually the growers. I figure it is a caveat emptor kind of deal, but so many people on city-data prefer to leave the awareness up to the government and seek more regulation, bureaucracy, taxation and paperwork.
Quote:
I don't think ANY amount of government regulation will stop everything, or even 50% of everything, from getting through to the consumer. Couple that with the facts that everyone seems allergic/sensitive to any and everything any more, and everyone who gets an upset stomach is willing to sue the dickens out of someone who made them a sandwich a week ago, providing food for others is a pretty risky business.
For far too many people on city-data and throughout the United States, the philosophy is: "If it saves the life of just one child, it's worth all the regulation, all the redtape, all the bureaucracy, all the additional taxation."
No, ozarksboy I do not mean you. I mean people that make $25,000.00 to $60,000.00 a year doing, AND THEY PAY LITTLE TAXES OR NO TAXES ON IT! Yes there are people in TN and KY I met doing this.
That is what I meant. I have always paid my taxes and think everyone should to.
Yes this is so the big corporation farms can control the market. And they will sue you if the plants your growing from seed has any of their plant DNA in it for copyright infringement.
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