Market Farming

[Richard Stewart <rstewart AT zoomtown.com>]

As per Leigh's request:

This falls under the exception of the new Food Safety Modernization Act (page 3903 to 3904)

"(4) DEFINITIONS.—

‘‘(A) QUALIFIED END-USER.—In this subsection, the term ‘qualified end-user’, with respect to a food means—

‘‘(i) the consumer of the food; or

‘‘(ii) a restaurant or retail food establishment (as those terms are defined by the Secretary for purposes of section 415) that is located—

‘‘(I) in the same State as the farm that produced the food; or

‘‘(II) not more than 275 miles from such farm."

Now, that is lead by a requirement of 500K or less per year of total gross revenue which limits this section to all but the smallest growers and probably some smart mid tier businesses if they break up their businesses properly as individual LLCs, which I think would be smart to do.  At that point though we are talking about ways around inspection and government hassle vs. local or not local.

If I am reading it correctly this is section 

‘‘SEC. 419. STANDARDS FOR PRODUCE SAFETY." Subsection 

(f) EXEMPTION FOR DIRECT FARM MARKETING.

It can all be found here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ353/pdf/PLAW-111publ353.pdf  (direct link the PDF file).

This entire thing in no way actually defines "local" but it does give the groundwork for the labeling.  The whole purpose of this provision was to defend small family farms that are taking advantage of local markets.  The government for all intents and purposes says we will not mess with your business if its small local and does direct sales to its customers.  In this case local is defined as "275 radius or within the same State".

Some may see it in another light but this is what I am gleaning from all of this.  In order to defend local small scale producers you need to define what they are and this is the Federal governments first attempt at doing it.  I think we will see more on this in the future, maybe not.  Who knows.

Richard Stewart

Carriage House Farm

North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106

http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com

rstewart AT zoomtown.com