Kevin Brown
Sadiqua Hamdan
Annette Presley
Debbie Wysocki
Paul Ericson
Maureen Diaz
Janet Demeter
Liz Reitzig
Julie Burns
Jenny Westerkamp, RD
Lauren Snyder Grosz
Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
let'spoon
Morley Robbins
Janet Stuck, ND, CNC, MH, CNHP
John Chisholm
Dr. Richard Walicki
Jimmy Moore
Access to real foods from the producer of our choice is a God-given right as inherent breathing. Or, if you’re a farmer, 
it is your right to engage in private sales of your products. In the efforts to make real foods a real choice we must not seek permission to purchase (or sell if you are a farmer) real foods. At the hands of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, real foods suffer too much regulation, while we suffer from an erosion of food choices as we spiral down the slippery slope towards serfdom.
Such is the case in Maryland where small farmers can legally process up to 20,000 birds and rabbits on the farm and sell them to buyers on the farm. However, due to onerous regulations, farmers are not legally permitted to sell those same chickens and rabbits at farmers’ markets. Although the federal exemption does allow this, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (what is ‘mental hygiene’ anyway?) has stipulated that farmers must be inspected in order to sell their birds and rabbits at market.
Some farmers have been working with the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) for the past five years to implement a training program for farmers to take a course on how to safely process their chickens on the farm (something they already know how to do) and to designate inspectors who would come out and make sure they are processing correctly. These farmers are seeking the state’s permission to do something they have a God-given right to do.
This past January, in conjunction with the NICFA lobby day in Annapolis, a few farmers who attended made a point of bringing up this particular point-of-sale issue with their legislators, who promised the farmers they would fix everything for them. A small group of farmers and consumers asked the legislators to sponsor a bill HB1070 honoring the federal exemption—basically, that farmers would be able to sell their poultry and rabbits at farmers markets without additional inspection and “training”.
When MDA and DHMH learned about the bill, they opposed it. MDA and DHMH met with the sponsors of the bill and one of the farmer advocates for the bill. At that meeting, MDA promised they would move forward with their certification class for farmers to learn how to process on farm, be inspected and then be able to ‘safely’ sell at markets the foods that they eat and feed their children. MDA and DHMH wanted the legislation withdrawn. This letter poultryrabbitjtltyrMDA-DHMH_Ltrhd final 3-8-10 was sent to the sponsors of the bills who are now withdrawing their legislation. Apparently legislators feel farmers should be happy with what they are getting and not expect anything more.
The Maryland farmers who initially pushed for the legislation are lauding the politicians for helping the little guys. One farmer commented to the politicians how happy he was with them and how he would mention their names and how helpful they were every time he handed a chicken to a customer. Unfortunately, what this does is strengthen the dynamic that when bureaucratic agencies throw a bone to the farmers, farmers will comply with onerous regulations.
It amazes me that the simple, tiny, freedom this bill would have reinstated—the freedom to sell on-farm processed poultry directly to consumers at farmers markets—created such an issue for the regulatory agencies that they are spending taxpayer money—that they do not even have right now—on a program that would, at best, “teach” farmers to do something they already know how to do. The real problem with this program is that it will expand the agencies authority to come onto the farm to conduct inspections thus establishing subject matter jurisdiction where it did not exist before.
All farmers, indeed every sovereign individual, must ask themselves, “At what point is enough ENOUGH?” As long as we continue to hand over our rights, we will spiral uncontrollably away from freedom and our God given rights. Why, in this once free country of ours, is it such a huge deal for bureaucracies to relinquish that iota of control and reinstate farmers market sales of on-farm processed chicken and poultry? Sometimes I fear that the state attempts to usurp the place of God. There are many farmers who remain cognizant of Who gives us our rights. I will continue to support the producers of my choice as long as they are willing to sell to me. I am constantly inspired and encouraged by the farmers and other individuals who remember from Where our rights come. These farmers are true heroes!
