James_Madison_Lives
04-15-2020, 09:54 PM
Farmers reported (https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/4/15/21222121/coronavirus-food-supply-covid-19-pork-vegetables-grocery-stores-milk-eggs-chickens-restaurants) plowing produce under and dumping milk, euthanizing animals. Meanwhile people stand in lines as shelves go more barren. Government is the problem, not the solution. Put fewer laws between producers and consumers. This will wind up re-designing the food supply chain. Already people I now are buying up shares of local farm harvests. State houses take note.
https://reason.com/2020/04/04/novel-new-wyoming-law-lets-local-ranchers-sell-cuts-of-meat-directly-to-consumers/
Wyoming’s first-and-best-in-the-nation food freedom law just keeps getting better.
"Wyoming's groundbreaking Food Freedom Act has served as a national model for how states can deregulate many in-state food sales. The five-year-old law opened up many previously illegal food transactions in Wyoming, and has delivered on its promise to benefit ranchers, other food entrepreneurs, and consumers alike. And it's done so without a single case of foodborne illness being tied to any foods sold under the law.
The law also keeps getting better. As I detailed a column just last month, an amendment to the Act will allow low-risk foods such as homemade jams to be sold in grocery stores and sold and consumed in restaurants.
That was great news. But yet another new amendment to the law, passed last month and set to take effect in July, could further bolster the fortunes of ranchers and consumers in the state.
A new animal share amendment will let consumers buy individual cuts of meat directly from ranchers though an animal-share agreement, completely outside of the typical U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection regime. That's something that's still illegal in the other 49 states. It's also why the Wyoming law could be a game changer for ranchers in the state and—should other states follow suit—a valuable new revenue stream for farmers and ranchers across the country.
The new amendment was introduced by Wyoming State Rep. Tyler Lindholm (R), who co-sponsored the bipartisan Food Freedom Act five years ago.
"The idea for the bill is simple," Lindholm—a rancher with whom I serve on the board of the nonprofit Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund—told me this week. "Let ranchers and farmers sell herd shares for their animals. That way the entire herd is 'owned' by all of the customers before slaughter, thereby meeting the exemption standards of the federal law, and now the rancher does not have to jump through the hoops of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and can utilize the smaller mom and pop butchers that still [exist] in most of our small towns."
The premise behind animal shares isn't new. For example, some states which prohibit raw (unpasteurized) milk sales allow distribution to people who've purchased shares in one or more of a farmer's dairy cattle. These "herdshare" agreements let a farmer raise and care for the herd-shared livestock in exchange for providing some of its (typically unpasteurized) milk to share owners.
Meat sharing has been a bit more complicated. As I detail in my book, Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable, a consumer may buy a significant portion of a living cow—say one-quarter or one-half its post-slaughter weight—and take possession of its meat after it's been slaughtered in a non-USDA approved facility without running afoul of USDA rules. But that can mean buying more than 100-200 pounds of beef. Until the new Wyoming law, consumers who weren't quite that hungry (or who wanted only a particular cut of meat) have had little option but to buy from farmers who'd had their animals processed under the USDA's rules or to go to the grocery store for similarly inspected cuts.
The Wyoming amendment takes advantage of an exemption created under § 623(a) of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which governs interstate and even most intrastate livestock slaughter and meat sales in this country. The FMIA exemption allows custom slaughtering of livestock by and for an "owner" of the animal.
The Wyoming law clarifies who is or may be an owner of livestock in that state. It does so by defining an animal share as "an ownership interest in an animal or herd of animals created by a written contract between an informed end consumer and a farmer or rancher that includes a bill of sale to the consumer for an ownership interest in the animal or herd and a boarding provision under which the consumer boards the animal or herd with the farmer or rancher for care and processing and the consumer is entitled to receive a share of meat from the animal or herd.""
https://reason.com/2020/04/04/novel-new-wyoming-law-lets-local-ranchers-sell-cuts-of-meat-directly-to-consumers/
Wyoming’s first-and-best-in-the-nation food freedom law just keeps getting better.
"Wyoming's groundbreaking Food Freedom Act has served as a national model for how states can deregulate many in-state food sales. The five-year-old law opened up many previously illegal food transactions in Wyoming, and has delivered on its promise to benefit ranchers, other food entrepreneurs, and consumers alike. And it's done so without a single case of foodborne illness being tied to any foods sold under the law.
The law also keeps getting better. As I detailed a column just last month, an amendment to the Act will allow low-risk foods such as homemade jams to be sold in grocery stores and sold and consumed in restaurants.
That was great news. But yet another new amendment to the law, passed last month and set to take effect in July, could further bolster the fortunes of ranchers and consumers in the state.
A new animal share amendment will let consumers buy individual cuts of meat directly from ranchers though an animal-share agreement, completely outside of the typical U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection regime. That's something that's still illegal in the other 49 states. It's also why the Wyoming law could be a game changer for ranchers in the state and—should other states follow suit—a valuable new revenue stream for farmers and ranchers across the country.
The new amendment was introduced by Wyoming State Rep. Tyler Lindholm (R), who co-sponsored the bipartisan Food Freedom Act five years ago.
"The idea for the bill is simple," Lindholm—a rancher with whom I serve on the board of the nonprofit Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund—told me this week. "Let ranchers and farmers sell herd shares for their animals. That way the entire herd is 'owned' by all of the customers before slaughter, thereby meeting the exemption standards of the federal law, and now the rancher does not have to jump through the hoops of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and can utilize the smaller mom and pop butchers that still [exist] in most of our small towns."
The premise behind animal shares isn't new. For example, some states which prohibit raw (unpasteurized) milk sales allow distribution to people who've purchased shares in one or more of a farmer's dairy cattle. These "herdshare" agreements let a farmer raise and care for the herd-shared livestock in exchange for providing some of its (typically unpasteurized) milk to share owners.
Meat sharing has been a bit more complicated. As I detail in my book, Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable, a consumer may buy a significant portion of a living cow—say one-quarter or one-half its post-slaughter weight—and take possession of its meat after it's been slaughtered in a non-USDA approved facility without running afoul of USDA rules. But that can mean buying more than 100-200 pounds of beef. Until the new Wyoming law, consumers who weren't quite that hungry (or who wanted only a particular cut of meat) have had little option but to buy from farmers who'd had their animals processed under the USDA's rules or to go to the grocery store for similarly inspected cuts.
The Wyoming amendment takes advantage of an exemption created under § 623(a) of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which governs interstate and even most intrastate livestock slaughter and meat sales in this country. The FMIA exemption allows custom slaughtering of livestock by and for an "owner" of the animal.
The Wyoming law clarifies who is or may be an owner of livestock in that state. It does so by defining an animal share as "an ownership interest in an animal or herd of animals created by a written contract between an informed end consumer and a farmer or rancher that includes a bill of sale to the consumer for an ownership interest in the animal or herd and a boarding provision under which the consumer boards the animal or herd with the farmer or rancher for care and processing and the consumer is entitled to receive a share of meat from the animal or herd.""