“Govern wisely and as little as possible.”
~ Sam Houston
By Pete Kennedy
A promising trend in recent years has been the deregulation of local food production and distribution by state legislatures. Many states have passed bills to legalize or expand raw milk distribution, cottage food sales, and on-farm slaughter. One state legislature that has passed many bills helping small farmers and local artisan producers is Texas; the driving force behind that legislation has been the advocacy nonprofit, the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA).
FARFA founder, executive director, and lobbyist Judith McGeary joins the Food Series audiocast to discuss her work in Texas and her nonprofit’s successes in the legislature and elsewhere. The Texas legislative session can turn into a brawl or free-for-all; FARFA has managed to stay the course and be largely responsible for passing bills that have improved the food and agriculture landscape. One of FARFA’s greatest victories was an expansion of the raw milk laws in Texas, a change that occurred not in the legislature but rather through the bureaucracy and the rulemaking process after a decade-long battle.
Prior Texas law limited raw milk sales to the farm. With many of the dairies being far away from any population centers, a number of farmers and their customers delivered raw milk to help the farm survive. There were multiple raids by state and local government agencies to stop that practice, resulting in the confiscation and dumping of raw milk and the initiation of court actions against farmers for violating state dairy law. During that time, FARFA was working with legislators on the introduction and attempted passing of four different raw milk bills, helping provide legal defense for the farmers facing prosecution, and operating in the “court of public opinion” by holding raw milk days publicizing the plight of the farmers at the state capital.
Eventually, the political pressure FARFA and others put on the Texas State Department of Health to change the law convinced the department to begin the rulemaking process, which not only legalized raw milk deliveries but also the sale of other raw dairy products. The Texas raw milk fight is a great example of how perseverance and using all possible avenues (legislative, judicial, administrative, and the court of public opinion) can lead to success.
McGeary also talks about other bills FARFA has worked on that have created a more favorable regulatory climate for local food in Texas, such as cottage foods, on-farm poultry processing, and custom slaughter. She goes over the obstacles that county and local governments can present in ignoring the will of the legislature to ease the burden on small food producers.
FARFA also works on the federal level; McGeary concludes the interview by discussing the 2024 Farm Bill, the threat posed by mandatory electronic ID for cattle and bison, and the damage Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) laws do to American ranchers. Throughout the interview, she provides valuable advice on how to effectively work for change on state food law and policy.
Related:
Council for Healthy Food Systems
Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/sickening-profits-global-food-system-poisoned-food-toxic-wealth/5844502?doing_wp_cron=1703774297.9265120029449462890625
About the Author
Colin Todhunter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). In 2018, he was named a Living Peace and Justice Leader/Model by Engaging Peace Inc. in recognition of his writings.
With reference to the section on India in the author’s 2022 e-book Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order, Aruna Rodrigues, lead petitioner in the GMO mustard Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India, stated:
“Colin Todhunter at his best: this is graphic, a detailed horror tale in the making for India, an exposé on what is planned, via the farm laws, to hand over Indian sovereignty and food security to big business. There will come a time pretty soon — (not something out there but imminent, unfolding even now), when we will pay the Cargills, Ambanis, Bill Gates, Walmarts — in the absence of national buffer food stocks (an agri policy change to cash crops, the end to small-scale farmers, pushed aside by contract farming and GM crops) — we will pay them to send us food and finance borrowing from international markets to do it.”
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/barons-austin-frerick/1144359296
Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry
by Austin Frerick, Eric Schlosser (Foreword by
Barons is the story of seven corporate titans, their rise to power, and the consequences for everyone else. Take Mike McCloskey, Chairman of Fair Oaks Farms. In a few short decades, he went from managing a modest dairy herd to running the Disneyland of agriculture, where school children ride trams through mechanized warehouses filled with tens of thousands of cows that never see the light of day. What was the key to his success? Hard work and exceptional business savvy? Maybe. But more than anything else, Mike benefitted from deregulation of the American food industry, a phenomenon that has consolidated wealth in the hands of select tycoons, and along the way, hollowed out the nation’s rural towns and local businesses.
Along with Mike McCloskey, readers will meet a secretive German family that took over the global coffee industry in less than a decade, relying on wealth traced back to the Nazis to gobble up countless independent roasters. They will discover how a small grain business transformed itself into an empire bigger than Koch Industries, with ample help from taxpayer dollars. And they will learn that in the food business, crime really does pay—especially when you can bribe and then double-cross the president of Brazil.
These, and the other stories in this book, are simply examples of the monopolies and ubiquitous corruption that today define American food. The tycoons profiled in these pages are hardly unique: many other companies have manipulated our lax laws and failed policies for their own benefit, to the detriment of our neighborhoods, livelihoods, and our democracy itself. Barons paints a stark portrait of the consequences of corporate consolidation, but it also shows we can choose a different path. A fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry is possible—if we take back power from the barons who have robbed us of it.
https://flvoicenews.com/legislature-passes-bill-to-ban-lab-grown-meat-heads-to-desantis-desk/?fbclid=IwAR3hJsY3bErC9bY_92FHGBEMWhNB2baSxqbRaXOlrnnqIAFzFlfR5aZNYCc
Florida!
https://farmactionfund.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Food-and-Agriculture-Policy-Platform.pdf. Food and Agriculture Policy Platform Farm Action
As a nonpartisan, farmer-led organization, Farm Action Fund is dedicated to developing and advancing bold solutions to stop corporate monopolies and build fair competition in rural America. In order to advance our vision of a fair, sustainable, and healthy food system that empowers farmers, ranchers, and rural communities to feed their neighbors, Farm Action Fund has developed the following policy recommendations.
We have organized our recommendations into two pillars: Leveling the Playing Field and Rebuilding a Food System that Benefits All.
As a nonpartisan, farmer-led organization, Farm Action Fund is dedicated to developing and advancing bold solutions to stop corporate monopolies and build fair competition in rural America. In order to advance our vision of a fair, sustainable, and healthy food system that empowers farmers, ranchers, and rural communities to feed their neighbors, Farm Action Fund has developed the following policy recommendations.
We have organized our recommendations into two pillars: Leveling the Playing Field and Rebuilding a Food System that Benefits All.
Texan here! We have such a great local market nearby with food grown 5 minutes from my home. Thankful for Judith! Godspeed!
The Future of Food Is to Look At the Past
https://modernfarmer.com/2024/02/opinion-to-find-the-future-of-food-we-need-to-look-to-the-past/?fbclid=IwAR145PV19r9EdYhN6xcVEC7fSoO9IXnT-nXQfAiIk70ARXQOfCXcFFKL6ow
Will post! Good one.
Another good one incase you missed it:
https://corbettreport.com/the-future-of-food-is-ours-to-decide/
Yeah, a shout out and friendly donation suggestion to all (especially those of us living in Texas), we make a donation to Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance yearly and proudly display the bumper sticker on the car and the aluminum sign near the sidewalk in the front garden. We love supporting the ranchers and farmers all we can. Their work has helped farmers at our farmers market regarding regulations…Judy is a Texas Gem!
Judy, Gov money comes with a sock in the jaw…https://www.neha.org/retail-grants-payment…my city participates in this program…do you have any comments about how it affects our ranchers and farmers and citizens?