Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal (article)

Howzabout if we have something where there are certain grades that one could qualify for:

• grade 10: harvested one animal at a time in a human grade surgical (sterile) environment
• grade 9:
• grade 8:
• grade 7:
• grade 6:
• grade 5:
• grade 4: current standards
• grade 3:
• grade 2:
• grade 1:
• ungraded: at your own risk

And then grocery stores can talk about what grade they require for all their stuff.

Then salatin can choose to be ungraded.

Shoot, he has all that he says he can't do right there on Polyface Farm!

Joel is a great author and more importantly an excellent marketer! :

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Where did I say that because he is a good communicator that negates his message?

Read my post, I didn't say that--I said he is short on substance and that what he says is illegal has been thrinving out here in the west. Texican and Rosegarden agreed with me,and Mullers Lane says he has all that he says he can't do right there on his farm.

Mr. Salatin throws a lot of rhetoric around that resonates with people and he sells a lot of books that way. But it is just rhetoric and has little substance or basis in fact. He would be an even better communicator if he took out some of the fluff and added some substance.

For example just in my own neighborhood:
1)A friend runs 100 head of longhorn cattle on his 20 acres of pasture. He takes the beef to a slaughterhouse, has the killed, cut and wrapped and sells them through farmer's market stand and ON-FARM SALES, which Mr. Salatin just claimed is illegal--it's not here.

2)Another friend who raises buffalo, sheep, pigs, poultry, is putting a USDA inspected slaughterhouse right on his farm--Mr. Salatin says that is illegal and that all meat must go through a large factory operation--not true.

3)A family down the road has a small goat dairy/creamery where they make award winning goat cheese on farm.

A farmers' organization I belong to paid Mr. Salatin to be our keynote speaker at our annual conference last year. In the article above he says it is illegal to put a slaughterhouse on his farm. Last year in his keynote address he was talking about the slaughterhouse he built on his farm! Then he was whining about the inspectors making him put in useless things like a locker room for changing into whatever clothes you wear in a slaughterhouse and a bathroom. He seems to be a chronic whiner to me. As I said, in the above article he says it is illegal to put a slaughterhouse on his land, yeat last year he was talking about the slaughterhouse he built on his land.


His talk went over like a lead balloon out here. It was just the same canned speech he uses everywhere. He would pause for applause or laughs that never came. Why? Because everyone in the room was going "What is he talking about? We do that all of the time." At one point he was getting frustrated and said "I've never had to work this hard before." Of course the person who introduced him told us we could buy his books at the registration table, he told us a couple of times, they mentioned it several more times during the days proceedings. Volunteers from our organization were manning the desk selling his books for him, and he got his speakers fee.

A couple of links to neighboring farms that are doing exactly what Joel Salatin say is illegal and can't be done (although he is doing it also):



onfarm slaughter

onfarm meat sales

I'd say I live in an area that is half and half. Some of what Joe mentions is true here. We can't sell anything we slaughter on our own property, only what we take to the slaughter house, then the person buying it has to pick it up from there, not from our farm. But we can slaughter our own animals for our own consumption. One point sure hit home though:

BOY do I agree with that!

__________________
~Tami

Bob and Tami Parrington
COUNTRY HAVEN RANCH-

To get all the info on my new novel SHAKEDOWN, and watch the video trailer check out my writer's website: 'The Writer's Corner'

Poor Joel

st a chance to plug a favorite site

http://pages.britishlibrary.net/patgardiner/outlaw.htm

I think if you re read or look at it it is not that it is necessarily Illegal, but to become legal in the process it is cost prohibitive for the small procedure to meet the requirements, thus it is illegal for most people,
(just like in the raw milk threads, in most areas one can not sell there surplus milk legally with out jumping through many hoops or cost that are prohibitive, for a few gallons a day).

Or for the homesteader who raises two calves for his meat, and then decides that he only needs the one, and yet to save on feed and to harvest it at the best time, he puts both down and butchers them, but now he can't sell the meat (even in most locations if an approved slaughterhouse did the butchering) with out more license and permits, tax licence, and possibly a store front,

Example:
(My SIL and Daughter tried to open a health food store, and they bought a old house on main street of the town just off the main business area, ONE block up, and 100 yards up the road was the school grounds of the town, both grade through High school,
The town said they could not put up a sign in front of the house, it was not zoned for commercial, yet the school had a big brick sign in front of the school, a church across the street, had similar, and the church a few clocks over has a big brick sign, the church at the other end of the block has brick sign,
but they could not,
since they were using just the ground floor of the build for there business, I suggested they move into the upstairs to live to cut the costs of having two rents, two utilities, etc, they said the rules said they could not live in the building that was a retail food store.)

yes one can build a state or fed approved and inspected slaughter house on farm,
yes one can build a milk barn and sell Grade A milk to a dairy processor, or even go through the hoops to process it your self,
yes one can sell meat products and other food products, with the correct licences, and tax forms,
my guess is even in his area, If he went and lobbied the building code people, he may be able to get a waver to build his house the way he wants to.

what the point of the article is that a small farmer/ homesteader, is going to run in to major cost and regulations to do any of these types of things,
and in doing so the regulations are the same if you want to butcher ONE or a thousand animals,
the same if you want to sell one pound of hamburger or a thousand pounds,
(in our state you have to have a "commercial freezer" a home freezer will not pass inspection), for example,

IN many areas, there are annual fees, there are inspection fees, there are fines if you have a problem, of some type, some times you will have to up grade equipment, to meet new codes, what ever.

and I think again, the STATEMENT HERE IS FREEDOM OF CHOICE. and not have the GOVERNMENT poking there nose in to ever move you make,



for a guy who wants to butcher a few head each year, and has a Good area, and is clean, probably won't meet inspection, unless there are floor drains, stainless steel counters, the slicer is a stainless steel model not and older factory painted one,
the slaughter floor has to meet requirements, the cooler has to meet all the requirements, and have a recording record keeping thermometer, the same as the freezer, in some locations you need a flash freezer too, the walls all need to be able to be able to be hosed down, you need a commercial hot water heater (for the most part) as if the water temp drops below a certain temp, your out of compliance, all the sinks need a air gap drain system, and the hand washing sink needs a separate drain system, that is air gap as well,

what I am pointing out is it is not necessarily Illegal to butcher your own critters for resale, but if you do, you need to meet all the requirements that the commercial plants that do a 1000 head a day have to meet,

I think what the statement is simply, that there should be a set of levels or degrees for the under 12 head operation,
and if over 12 to 60 head a year, maybe another tier,
and then the 60 plus tier,

So for most small farmers /homesteaders what they want to do (or would like to do)soon becomes Illegal. (or one must invest large sums of money and allow much intrusion into and onto your farm or homestead to become legal), (many don't want the "business" of some entreprise, but to just move some surplus.)

I have notice a few replies to basically use the SSS mentality, there still doing it Illegally if that is what they have to do, do the things that are being done.

This sounds like the same nightmare that some folks are going through in some missouri counties in the ozarks. After being invaded from out of state folks who had lots of money spend; These people quickly got themselves elected to every office you can think of and were soon passing their own version of west coast zoning and ordinances on the native born ozarkers. The best advice I can give is find a sparsely populated area away from any prying eyes and do as you please. If will be a cold day in hell before I will ask permission to do anything on my own property.

I know families in NYC that slaughter their own goats in their rooftop garden. Almost EVERYTHING is illegal if you ask, most of the time keeping low key will keep you out of trouble.

Another link to a friend doing what Salatin says is illegal

It is a 1920 sq ft poultry/rabbit slaughterhouse. It is built to USDA specs but is not currently a USDA facility. It is a state of Idaho facility and any animal processed there is legal for retail sales in Idaho. They will become a USDA facility when business warrants. My firend, who is co-owner, has been doing pastured poultry and lamb since 1989 on a small acreage. She sells through farmers' markets.

link

We have the same thing here in georgia, in Twiggs county you can't have any pigs not one! don't care if you have 1 acre or 1000 no pigs.
I talked with the county building inspector about 2 weeks ago he told me that is talk that after next year a house built in georgia must be built by a licensed contractor no owner builder rigth now i can run all the electric wire in a new house but need a master electrician to wire the panel box i guess i'm too dumb to know the black wire goes to the breaker and the white wire goes to the buss bar

The important thing is: the government, prodded by "other interests" is slowly taking away our freedoms.

A lot of these regulations make good sense and are what our governement is supposed to do for us: make it so that the mistakes of one person do not interfere with our own freedoms. But then some laws go too far and take away our freedoms.

For each case where something is wrong, a better solution needs to be introduced. Doing what is right and decent and good needs to always come ahead of the profits of a minority.

All of the points that Salatin brings up are real. And they need to be corrected. Expressing "That ain't right!" is just the first step!

For a lot of this stuff, I think the problem is that folks are saying "you have to do it this one way or not at all!" Regulations are in place for a very good reason for big biz: A lot of folks really don't give a ---- about the quality of food. They want it cheap and they want it now. The regulations are designed to get food to those people from the big factories. If you leave loopholes for us, the big guys take advantage of the loopholes. On top of that, while we are small time, some of us might some day be big time.

So the laws need to take us into account.

Some people are fine with foods that are butchered on the farm. Mostly because they know and trust this particular farmer.