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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] New produce laws Prohibiting sale of certain items

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  • From: Richard Stewart <rstewart AT zoomtown.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] New produce laws Prohibiting sale of certain items
  • Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 12:20:53 -0400

All

Just got off the phone with the Ohio Department of Ag's Food Safety Divisions.  I should have done this sooner but simply did not have the time.  There is a bunch of stuff in the pipeline that is going to effect larger scale processors.

No farm attending farmers' markets or selling off the farm are going to effected, unless it falls into the processed food category.  With leafy greens that means 2nd cut.  To answer Jay's questions, no one has a scientific definition of "cut" but they seemed to think that tearing is the same thing as cutting.

Cutting does not include "harvest" cut, such as what you would with a cabbage or "picking a single leaf from the plant.  It will include all items that are claimed to be washed and cut post harvest.  

The person I spoke with said there is a lot of stuff that is going to go on the books next spring but said that the list was so long and detailed that a proper education of what was being done over the phone was impractical.

Its sounds as if some elements may effect our business such a host of GAP for those farms that sell direct to chefs and retailers, but these was a but cloudy in terms of what I understood.

So, bottom line, if you are a farmer and sell at a farmers' market this will probably not impact you at all.  Farmers's markets are grandfathered in on a whole host of regulation where the buyer has direct contact with the grower.  They have been in the past and will continue to be on this new set of rules.  

I also called the Hamilton County Health Department first  and their own admission was " we do not know what concrete changes will be happening, if any".  Any advice or warning given to you by such an official without documentation and a code/ordinance (since these are technically not "laws") should be considered suspect.

I hope that better clarifies things.  I am sure we will begin to hear more about this as time goes on.

Now for the rant.  :)

It'll be interesting to see how things pan out.  I am growing but not quickly.  I have had enough income to hire a part-time and a  full-time and will even have 2-part-timers over the winter. If the government pushes too hard, I'll go back to boarding horses, raising corn and beans, and doing the part-time beekeeping thing.  Then they have two more people to worry about finding a job for.  Chances are, I am not the only one.  There has to be a bubble inside regulation to allow small businesses to grow before they become big enough to heavily regulate.   The whole "farmers'-market-off-farm" loop-hole is not big enough it really needs to include more mid-scale stuff.  I'd like Ohio to develop an exemption similar to the Feds food safety law pass a while ago.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106




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