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Legislation Update: Farmgate Sales HB1159 (Niceley) No Senate companion at this time
This bill seems rather interesting in a few ways. Plus, it has taught me a new term: farmgate sales.
Rep. Niceley's bill, also known as the "Tennessee Small Farm Economic Revitalization Act," would prohibit "the application of government regulations concerning or restricting the sale of agricultural products or animals to farmgate sales."
Certain provisions would have to be apply, including the fact that all items or animals must have been raised on the farm in question, all sales are direct-to-consumer only and all transactions must take place on the farm, all items must be labeled with the farm's name and business info, and corporate sales (restaurants, stores, etc.) would not be allowed to make "farmgate" purchases.
Incidentally, according to the bill: ""Farmgate sales" is defined as sales of agricultural products or animals raised by an individual farmer or the farmer's family to an end customer on land owned by the farmer or the farmer's family."
Feel free to discuss and comment on this bill, or to provide legislative updates as you discover them.
Rep. Niceley's bill, also known as the "Tennessee Small Farm Economic Revitalization Act," would prohibit "the application of government regulations concerning or restricting the sale of agricultural products or animals to farmgate sales."
Certain provisions would have to be apply, including the fact that all items or animals must have been raised on the farm in question, all sales are direct-to-consumer only and all transactions must take place on the farm, all items must be labeled with the farm's name and business info, and corporate sales (restaurants, stores, etc.) would not be allowed to make "farmgate" purchases.
Incidentally, according to the bill: ""Farmgate sales" is defined as sales of agricultural products or animals raised by an individual farmer or the farmer's family to an end customer on land owned by the farmer or the farmer's family."
Feel free to discuss and comment on this bill, or to provide legislative updates as you discover them.
Tags: agriculture, buy, direct, farm, farmgate, food, legislation, local, sales
Views: 5
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Blue Daze on -
It looks like this bill includes processed (butchered) meat. I'm not in a big hurry to have meat de-regulated. What protects the consumer from substandard sanitation practices?
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Permalink Reply by Shane Rhyne on -
You're observation is correct, Mary. This is one of the things that I would hope they would amend in the process. Rep. Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) is on a kick lately with introducing legislation that seems to favor eliminating farmers from any and all regulation.
While I find myself supporting the general intent of several of his agriculture-related bills, he manages to slip in the deregulation requirement as a poison pill (to me at least). At this point, however, I'm hoping to contact him and others to suggest looking at opportunities to realistically adjust regulations to accommodate the needs and demands of small farmers.
Joel Salatin, a leading farmer-advocate for local and sustainable food policies, discusses the need for reconsidering how agri-corp food regulations need to be better adjusted to allow small farmers the opportunity to grow and sell the food they produce in his great book Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal.
The truth of the matter is that all those regulations were put in place in response to the risk of contamination in factory-farmed and processed food. The regulations tend to place great hurdles on small and independent farmers while allowing the agri-corp producers to take advantage of loopholes that take much of the burden off their shoulders.
Rep. Niceley's bills tend to think only in black-and-white, either/or scenarios. I buy my meat from two local farmers. They both adhere to the USDA standards and provide me with a safe, quality product. Some of the regulations they must follow however were designed for factory feedlots with thousands of heads of beef and hundreds of employees. Rethinking, rather than eliminating, regulation would be a better investment of time and effort.
I would like to hope this bill (for all its flaws) might actually open the door to having that conversation. -
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