Hippie stunned that laws aren't just for other people.

[Gallstones]

Free range = uncaged = thousands in large barns and no use of antibiotics.

Correct. They have more space, and that seems to reduce infection. Perhaps the large barns allow them to move away from infected birds, or perhaps the lack of antibiotics means the infected birds die quicker, after infecting fewer of their compatriots.

Gallstones, I read your post to be about crowded contitions, where because the birds are considered 'free range' no antibiotics are used as part of the 'free range' protocal (in a similar way to products being classified 'organic' are not allowed to use chemicals)?

I think it depends on the regulations, what defines organic where one lives. But free range need not mean that they have a natural lifestyle, just be uncaged. And of course there are operations that can legally put free range on the label when the chickens are housed by the thousands in large warehouse buildings--they are free to move about on the floor and it is a huge space. The ones I saw were clean, but it was not the natural lifestyle of scratching in the dirt like one might be led to believe. Small scale might be free range too but the chickens are still in pens and might actually have even less space than the ones in warehouses.

They have to be protected from predators, and disease through contact with wild birds, and be able to be rounded up and each individual accounted for so the reasoning surrounding penning and housing is reasonable.

Organic would not allow for prophylactic use of antibiotics or steroids. It would allow for therapeutic use, so it isn't as if they are being neglected should they get sick.

[JimC]

Free range = uncaged = thousands in large barns and no use of antibiotics.

Correct. They have more space, and that seems to reduce infection. Perhaps the large barns allow them to move away from infected birds, or perhaps the lack of antibiotics means the infected birds die quicker, after infecting fewer of their compatriots.

Gallstones, I read your post to be about crowded contitions, where because the birds are considered 'free range' no antibiotics are used as part of the 'free range' protocal (in a similar way to products being classified 'organic' are not allowed to use chemicals)?

I think it depends on the regulations, what defines organic where one lives. But free range need not mean that they have a natural lifestyle, just be uncaged. And of course there are operations that can legally put free range on the label when the chickens are housed by the thousands in large warehouse buildings--they are free to move about on the floor and it is a huge space. The ones I saw were clean, but it was not the natural lifestyle of scratching in the dirt like one might be led to believe. Small scale might be free range too but the chickens are still in pens and might actually have even less space than the ones in warehouses.

They have to be protected from predators, and disease through contact with wild birds, and be able to be rounded up and each individual accounted for so the reasoning surrounding penning and housing is reasonable.

Organic would not allow for prophylactic use of antibiotics or steroids. It would allow for therapeutic use, so it isn't as if they are being neglected should they get sick.

Labelling in Australia makes a distinction (for both eggs and poultry) between caged, barn and free-range, which has to be outdoors (and is usually also organic).

We only ever buy free range.

[Warren Dew]

Labelling in Australia makes a distinction (for both eggs and poultry) between caged, barn and free-range, which has to be outdoors (and is usually also organic).

"Free range" in the U.S. typically means they have access to an outside yard as well as the barn, but I agree that it's not how they would live in the wild. I wasn't addressing chicken lifestyle before, just the salmonella claim.

There's a term "pastured" in the U.S. meaning they actually have to go outside because that's where they are fed. These chickens come much closer to a wild lifestyle, including having a less vegetarian diet that includes worms and insects. I haven't seen any salmonella figures on these.

[Santa_Claus]

She is probably better off doing what every other business (who can) does. Move somewhere else.

[Hermit]

Labelling in Australia makes a distinction (for both eggs and poultry) between caged, barn and free-range, which has to be outdoors (and is usually also organic).

Unfortunately, the definition of "Free Range Egg" is a bit broad. You are allowed to have as many as 1500 chooks on a hectare of land (that is 0.66 square metres per chook) and still call their eggs "Free Range". There has been a move to increase the chicken to hectare ratio to 20,000 to 1 a few months ago. I don't know if or how that has been resolved. (Link)

I regard Novella Carpenter's gross turnover of $2500 per annum as more in the vicinity of a school-kid's newspaper delivery run than that of a corporation, and should be treated as such. Even hobby farmers do better than she does in financial terms. In Australia, "businesses" of that size are not taxable, nor are they subject to legislation and regulations that the ones exceeding certain turnover limits are subject to. I join the voices that use this situation to get on their fucking soapboxes and shout out their predictable and worn admonitions. Why don't you lot become real politicians, and pester us from afar?

[hadespussercats]

I spit my tea out laughing when I read that last line about the "stunned" group of "urban farmers." They are stunned? Stunned by what? Stunned that a business that sells food to people needs a permit?

I'm amused by your use of hyperbole in response to ... hyperbole.



Hades, your suggestion sounds very reasonable. Is becoming a charity initially expensive?


Edit: Actually, can a person who mainly benefits themselves (she consumes her own produce) claim charitable status?

Also, maybe there's a principle here that involves a right to grow produce for personal consumption and to sell small scale without being subject to regulations that create financial hardship. Would it be better if the licensing system were more flexible in some way?

Re- the charity idea-- I'm not sure how this would work out-- just thought of it relative to the issues she's gotten into with the produce she sells, not the stuff she eats herself. If she's selling the produce to give to the community but still cover some operating costs (which is the gist I got from the article), it seems that giving the produce away and claiming a charitable deduction would possibly be a way around burdensome fees. Although I'm not sure-- possibly she might still be required to get a license, since people eating her produce are at risk, whether she gives it away or sells it. I'm not enough familiar with the laws of California to say.

What complicates matters is that whether or not the farm as farm per se is earning her an income, she's definitely earning an income off her book publication, based on the farm work, not to mention exposure she's gotten for her work doing reviews in national magazines, etc. (This is not the first time I've heard of this woman and her work, and given she runs a very small urban farm and I live 3000 miles away, that must say something in terms of the publicity she's used the farm to garner, for the urban farming movement, and foraging, etc.)

[maiforpeace]

Being a founding member of an organization with charity status here in California, both in the creation and and maintanance of it, I would never recommend to her to go the charity status route. It's a fucking nightmare of bureaucracy and paperwork that has to be maintained constantly.

If her choice would be to pay the fees or go the charity status route, she would do better to get a student at UC Davis to help her figure out exactly what her costs and labor are, charge the appropriate prices, and pay the fees.

What's sad about this story is that if anyone is familiar with Oakland, they would know that there are a lot of people that live in poverty there, and that fresh produce is not as readily available as it is in more affluent areas. She may lose her market if she has to raise her prices, and the people who are benefiting from the healthfulness of her fresh produce would once again be relegated to buying crap they can afford. Would that make you happy, CES? They could all go back to eating at McDonalds.

These farmer folks are getting that lesson good and hard. $2,500 fees kill us business owners - and all the piddling fees and larger fees add up, and all the red tape and filings and remittances and taxes and the like take away our ability to actually do the work we're trying to do.

Yup. Ask any REAL farmer what it takes to be in business. I've got no sympathy for these poseurs at all.

I'm a "one-man" farming operation and have been for more than 40 years and the paper work is a complete pain in the ass, and getting worse. The feds now want me to buy and insert RFID chips in EVERY cow, pig and chicken and to keep complex, accurate computerized records of every single animal I raise, all at my expense, just so that they can, ostensibly, track where an individual mad cow came from. Yeah, right, like I'm going to incriminate myself.

Fuck 'em. Not going to do it. I'll sell the cows and sow the ground with plutonium from the Japanese power plants first. I'm tired of the hassle and the paltry return on investment of my time, so I'm selling the ranch and I'm cashing out, and the developer that's buying it can build all the houses he wants on the place and fuck the community and their desire for open space, much less their desire for "organic" locally grown produce.

I'll get my compensation for long-term real estate investment instead and screw the socialists who think I owe them something.

And I'm going to take my big old wad of cash and put it in a bank vault where it doesn't earn any interest and nobody knows I have it and retire, and never pay another fucking dime in income tax for the rest of my life.

Fuck the dependent class, I've carried them for too long, so I'm done.

Sorry to hear about you folding your business Seth...you sound very bitter. So, since you suffered, everyone else should, eh?

[hadespussercats]

Being a founding member of an organization with charity status here in California, both in the creation and and maintanance of it, I would never recommend to her to go the charity status route. It's a fucking nightmare of bureaucracy and paperwork that has to be maintained constantly.

If her choice would be to pay the fees or go the charity status route, she would do better to get a student at UC Davis to help her figure out exactly what her costs and labor are, charge the appropriate prices, and pay the fees.

What's sad about this story is that if anyone is familiar with Oakland, they would know that there are a lot of people that live in poverty there, and that fresh produce is not as readily available as it is in more affluent areas. She may lose her market if she has to raise her prices, and the people who are benefiting from the healthfulness of her fresh produce would once again be relegated to buying crap they can afford. Would that make you happy, CES? They could all go back to eating at McDonalds.

These farmer folks are getting that lesson good and hard. $2,500 fees kill us business owners - and all the piddling fees and larger fees add up, and all the red tape and filings and remittances and taxes and the like take away our ability to actually do the work we're trying to do.

Yup. Ask any REAL farmer what it takes to be in business. I've got no sympathy for these poseurs at all.

I'm a "one-man" farming operation and have been for more than 40 years and the paper work is a complete pain in the ass, and getting worse. The feds now want me to buy and insert RFID chips in EVERY cow, pig and chicken and to keep complex, accurate computerized records of every single animal I raise, all at my expense, just so that they can, ostensibly, track where an individual mad cow came from. Yeah, right, like I'm going to incriminate myself.

Fuck 'em. Not going to do it. I'll sell the cows and sow the ground with plutonium from the Japanese power plants first. I'm tired of the hassle and the paltry return on investment of my time, so I'm selling the ranch and I'm cashing out, and the developer that's buying it can build all the houses he wants on the place and fuck the community and their desire for open space, much less their desire for "organic" locally grown produce.

I'll get my compensation for long-term real estate investment instead and screw the socialists who think I owe them something.

And I'm going to take my big old wad of cash and put it in a bank vault where it doesn't earn any interest and nobody knows I have it and retire, and never pay another fucking dime in income tax for the rest of my life.

Fuck the dependent class, I've carried them for too long, so I'm done.

Sorry to hear about you folding your business Seth...you sound very bitter. So, since you suffered, everyone else should, eh?

I've spent a little time in Oakland. Enough to see that you're right about how much cheap sources of good food are needed there.

Maybe she'll be able to use her work to publicize the need for different regulations regarding food in California. And I'm willing to bet she's still getting her produce out there, whether the law's on her side or not. She's a "punk rock" farmer, right?

[egbert]

Re- the charity idea-- I'm not sure how this would work out-- just thought of it relative to the issues she's gotten into with the produce she sells, not the stuff she eats herself. If she's selling the produce to give to the community but still cover some operating costs (which is the gist I got from the article), it seems that giving the produce away and claiming a charitable deduction would possibly be a way around burdensome fees. Although I'm not sure-- possibly she might still be required to get a license, since people eating her produce are at risk, whether she gives it away or sells it. I'm not enough familiar with the laws of California to say.

What complicates matters is that whether or not the farm as farm per se is earning her an income, she's definitely earning an income off her book publication, based on the farm work, not to mention exposure she's gotten for her work doing reviews in national magazines, etc. (This is not the first time I've heard of this woman and her work, and given she runs a very small urban farm and I live 3000 miles away, that must say something in terms of the publicity she's used the farm to garner, for the urban farming movement, and foraging, etc.)

Here in Canader it's illegal to sell raw (unpasteurized) milk, but there's nothing to stop a farmer from consuming it himself. The human entrepreneurial spirit being what it is, farmers simply sell a "share" in the farm, for a nominal sum, and thus the "customers" are only consuming "their" milk.
There's always a way around these left wing conspiracies.

[maiforpeace]

Being a founding member of an organization with charity status here in California, both in the creation and and maintanance of it, I would never recommend to her to go the charity status route. It's a fucking nightmare of bureaucracy and paperwork that has to be maintained constantly.

If her choice would be to pay the fees or go the charity status route, she would do better to get a student at UC Davis to help her figure out exactly what her costs and labor are, charge the appropriate prices, and pay the fees.

What's sad about this story is that if anyone is familiar with Oakland, they would know that there are a lot of people that live in poverty there, and that fresh produce is not as readily available as it is in more affluent areas. She may lose her market if she has to raise her prices, and the people who are benefiting from the healthfulness of her fresh produce would once again be relegated to buying crap they can afford. Would that make you happy, CES? They could all go back to eating at McDonalds.

These farmer folks are getting that lesson good and hard. $2,500 fees kill us business owners - and all the piddling fees and larger fees add up, and all the red tape and filings and remittances and taxes and the like take away our ability to actually do the work we're trying to do.

Yup. Ask any REAL farmer what it takes to be in business. I've got no sympathy for these poseurs at all.

I'm a "one-man" farming operation and have been for more than 40 years and the paper work is a complete pain in the ass, and getting worse. The feds now want me to buy and insert RFID chips in EVERY cow, pig and chicken and to keep complex, accurate computerized records of every single animal I raise, all at my expense, just so that they can, ostensibly, track where an individual mad cow came from. Yeah, right, like I'm going to incriminate myself.

Fuck 'em. Not going to do it. I'll sell the cows and sow the ground with plutonium from the Japanese power plants first. I'm tired of the hassle and the paltry return on investment of my time, so I'm selling the ranch and I'm cashing out, and the developer that's buying it can build all the houses he wants on the place and fuck the community and their desire for open space, much less their desire for "organic" locally grown produce.

I'll get my compensation for long-term real estate investment instead and screw the socialists who think I owe them something.

And I'm going to take my big old wad of cash and put it in a bank vault where it doesn't earn any interest and nobody knows I have it and retire, and never pay another fucking dime in income tax for the rest of my life.

Fuck the dependent class, I've carried them for too long, so I'm done.

Sorry to hear about you folding your business Seth...you sound very bitter. So, since you suffered, everyone else should, eh?

I've spent a little time in Oakland. Enough to see that you're right about how much cheap sources of good food are needed there.

Maybe she'll be able to use her work to publicize the need for different regulations regarding food in California. And I'm willing to bet she's still getting her produce out there, whether the law's on her side or not. She's a "punk rock" farmer, right?

The regulations absolutely suck. As Seth indicated, it's a huge struggle for the small farmer to survive. My CSA lost it's original source for pastured eggs because the farmers were battling with land issues - important ones when 'pasturing'. The work is hard, and with eggs at least, backbreaking. They finally gave up out of exhaustion and threw in the towel this last season. It was a constant battle for them to survive.

The good news is our CSA has found a new source for eggs AND for pastured chicken meat, so we are golden for the season. I have to pay an additional dollar per dozen for the eggs though. I don't mind, it's worth it to me to eat a few less, and have them be much higher quality.

[Gonzo]

It is a single human selling vegetables at a stand. It isn't a legitimate functioning business operation. I don't think anyone selling vegetables (legally and on their own property, mind you) should be taxed or have to be licensed to do so. Again it is such a non-issue it really doesn't effect anyone besides her and her customers (who have the right not to buy from her). Do we need to put a warning label on everything?

Wait a second. Since when is one person selling ANYTHING not a business operation? And why should it matter if she's operating the business on her own property, or not? All sorts of businesses own the property on which they operate-- should they be exempt from regulation? If she's living on her business property, she can deduct the business portion of that property on her taxes when she files a sole proprietor schedule C.

And no, of course she isn't legitimate-- that's why she got in trouble with the law.

And I don't really have a problem with food inspections. I'm glad the government is at least somewhat concerned with the health and cleanliness of the food I eat.

I'm only half-way through the thread-- forgive me if I'm covering well-worn ground here. But this comment demanded a quick response.

That's fair enough. I still think it's the customer's responsibility to excercise their freedom of choice and that this specific licensing is an example of government over reach/ bureaucracy. I suppose this is at arms with the idea of food regulation (which I believe is needed for the greater good) but I would argue there needs to be a change in how small operations are dealt with as localizing food choices become more and more necessary. I would most usually favor anything that weakens corporate influence and monopoly, really.

[Gonzo]

I join the voices that use this situation to get on their fucking soapboxes and shout out their predictable and worn admonitions. Why don't you lot become real politicians, and pester us from afar?

It is the posted in the politics forum, is it not? And the OP did seem to spin the story with a broader agenda, did it not?

[Hermit]

I join the voices that use this situation to get on their fucking soapboxes and shout out their predictable and worn admonitions. Why don't you lot become real politicians, and pester us from afar?

It is the posted in the politics forum, is it not? And the OP did seem to spin the story with a broader agenda, did it not?

Nothing wrong with discussing politics in a forum. Why, I've been known do it myself. It's the shouting from soapboxes I object to, in particular the libertarians tediously screeching their mantras at every opportunity. All we need, to make the cacophony complete, is for Sandinista and Gawd to chime in.

[sandinista]

I join the voices that use this situation to get on their fucking soapboxes and shout out their predictable and worn admonitions. Why don't you lot become real politicians, and pester us from afar?

It is the posted in the politics forum, is it not? And the OP did seem to spin the story with a broader agenda, did it not?

Nothing wrong with discussing politics in a forum. Why, I've been known do it myself. It's the shouting from soapboxes I object to, in particular the libertarians tediously screeching their mantras at every opportunity. All we need, to make the cacophony complete, is for Sandinista and Gawd to chime in.

No, what we really don't need is you to blab on and on.

[Warren Dew]

Sorry to hear about you folding your business Seth...you sound very bitter. So, since you suffered, everyone else should, eh?

I'm pretty sure Seth would be thrilled if all the laws and regulations governing his ranch and this woman's farm were repealed. It's the "they shouldn't be enforced against this woman because she's a hippie, but they should be enforced against Seth because he's a libertarian" argument that's going over poorly.