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Fri, 17 Aug 2007

Your Money or Your Life: Government Regulations Are Killing Small Farmers - Jocelyn Engman

Savvy Vegetarian has previously published two of Jocelyn's Engman's articles on sustainable agriculture: CSA: Chemist to Farmer, and Eating in Season. Jocelyn graduated with a MS in chemistry from the University of Iowa before she turned her interest to the soil and began market gardening. She lives with her husband Tim on a 10-acre farm outside of Fairfield, IA, where they run Pickle Creek Herbal and Choice Earth CSA.

Below is an excerpt from Jocelyn Engman's latest article, Your Money Or Your Life. Jocelyn is passionately eloquent about the burdens placed on small producers by government regulations, which seem effectively designed to put an end to small farms, market gardens, herb growers, sustainable agriculture, alternative medicine - and freedom of choice.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Support Your Local Farmer

As a small farmer and a friend of many other small farmers, I'd love to see the government stop hindering small, local farming ventures. Because we eat what the farmers produce, we need the government to get out of the way of small farmers.

• Let's even the agricultural playing field and truly protect the consumer.
• Let's stand up against NAIS and demand that labeling for BSE testing of slaughtered meat be declared legal instead.
• Let's demand that labeling such as 'GMO free' or 'rBGH free' be protected as a natural right of both producer and consumer.
• Let's keep the FDA out of complementary and alternative medicine.
• Let's ask the USDA to play fair: If we must subsidize farming, let's do it in a way that builds rather than destroys consumer health. Surely we can afford to re-allocate some of the money spent to subsidize conventional grains, the cheapest, poorest food on the planet, to something a little healthier, such as fresh produce.
• Better yet, let's not subsidize corporate farming at all: Let's get rid of the farm bill.

Let's also stop relying on a government that appears to have little motivation to protect consumer health. As long as a government entity has the power to regulate, there will be a corporate entity with the money and the power to influence that government entity. Perhaps it's time for us to move beyond consumer safety and into consumer responsibility.

Read Jocelyn Engman's full article, Your Money Or Your Life