Letter from USDA

The evidence we were turned for was our listing on EatWild.com.

We're so small time here, I doubt it was a 'competitor', especially a local one.

Texican, it could quite possibly be an 'informant' for the USDA.

Have we ----ed off anyone??

hmmm, not unless you count

the County Health Department head honcho who had a hissy-fit when she discovered we were selling raw milk (this is NOT an advertisment) and turned us in to the FBI for possible terrorist activites (this isn't a joke - she really did). She didn't realize ithe sale of raw milk was legal in IL if you follow the rules. We do follow them.

OR if you count

Paul & I organizing an NAIS information meeting where the IL USDA (and even Dr Weimer (sp?)) were asked & accepted our invitation to speak.

Other than that, we don't bother nobody.

For what it's worth, we do follow all standards and do fall well within the exempt status.

For the complete list of U.S. National Standards on Organic Agricultural Production and Handling: http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/ofp/7CFR205.htm

__________________

----------------------
http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Meloc, already gave the website - look in our listing where it says (non-certified) organic. Even this is compliant with exempt marketing according to their standards

__________________

----------------------
http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

I don't see anywhere in the USDA letter that they went trolling for you. They got a complaint from someone, they acted on it. No Big Brother there. They obviously didn't find you on the web because they have no idea how big an operation you have. As a regulatory agency their job is to act on complaints from the public. If you notified your sheriff that someone was cooking meth, you'd expect him to at least check it out. Same with USDA.
I don't like USDA because congress and the executive have put it under the control of the big agbuisnesses, but that doesn't make them totally evil.

__________________
If angels existed, they'd probably be considered big game. (Don Swain)

Home schooling.........not just for scary religious people anymore. Buffy

Numerous spelling and other errors in letter? Please show me where! Yes, I did re-type the letter from the original to post it here, but my spell checker didn't show any spelling errors (except I forgot to capitalize the L in Lane)

let's see, Mark Bradley (who was cc'd) is Associate Deputy Administrator for the National Organic Program.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/Newsroom...ateDepAdm.html

We will be sending a letter back stating that we are in the exempt classification and comply with the marketing standards as such in our listing.

__________________

----------------------
http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

I agree with the BTO in the county trying to put you out of buisness. Real estate companys and county agencies sometimes work together to bring about " progressive and economic change " for the better, and usually at someone else's expense. Of course their wallets usually get the fattest too.

The complaint came from a listing from a website ..... There is no way to tell WHO complained

__________________

----------------------
http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

I can pull stats from my domain. These are monthly stats. It was a brand new site in August.

August, 07 15 hits US Government
September, 07 3 hits US Government
October, 07 56 hits US Military (??) 41 hits US Government
November, 07 12 hits US Military 12 US Government
December, 07 47 hits US Government 21 hits US Military

Unless the gov't is showing up as Anonymous Proxy in the new format there haven't been any gov't visits so far this month.

__________________
Robin

Those military hits are probably enlisted persons.

__________________

Were those cumulative monthly total hits, or all on the 7th of each month?Seems kinda like thier checkin you out. Do you have a military base nearby? We live close to Fort Leavenworth, and get alot of milk customers from the enlisted people when they move to the area.

I wouldn't count on that. Most of your fellow farmers are great people who will bend over backwards for you, but you might be surprised just how jealous and vengeful someone can get if they have a personal grudge against you. Some people will go to great lengths to try and ruin your business no matter the size just because they dislike you/ are jealous of you/ thought you slighted them/ etc, etc. Been there, isn't fun.

__________________
Ultra Lord is not afraid of chickens!

I would assume it is some kind of a bot or whatever searching by keywords?? (Not sure if bot is the right term for this application...I'm pretty technologically retarded) Are these unique hits or repeat? All still creepy, if you ask me.

The government is a business that must be fed cash to pay it's people. Being useful and productive is very hard, intimidation and fines is a lot easier way for them to get the cash.

They are called "spiders" or 'Web crawlers" but they are still "bots" in that they run on their own. All the search engines use them

__________________
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Those are for each month. There is a military base but it's across the border in Canada. They fly over the farm on what I assume are training days. I doubt it's that. Bots don't hit the site often enough to show up in the 20 top list on the stats. Even Google doesn't show up unless the site is scanned for images.

I'm a lot less "out there" in agriculture than Cyndi. I grow vegetables. No livestock at the moment (getting two GOS gilts this summer), only chickens, ducks and turkeys. I've been hibernating for the last year because of health issues so it's not like I've been to ag events or anything. I dunno. I just wanted everyone to know that Big Brother is watching.

__________________
Robin

It's going to get worse. The USDA is taking over the term "Naturally Raised" next. There is already an existing private organization doing Certified Naturally Grown (CNG http://NaturallyGrown.org ). Under the USDA version they are dilluting the term to mean only how the animal is fed -- e.g., Big Ag can raise livestock in Confinement Feeding Operations (CFOs e.g., Factory Farms) and still call it "Naturally Raised" if they do the feeding right. This is the same way they stole the term Organic.

For more details go see this post:

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/2008/01...teals-cng.html

It is currently in the federal registry until 1/28/08. PLEASE go make comments. See the above post for details. Here's the link to make comments:

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspubli...AMS-LS-07-0131

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

__________________
SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Hi;
OH my! I am sorry. Somone is definitely ----ed off at you. Amazing that they can spend so much time and money investigating a small farmer selling a bit of produce and lets thousands of pounds of contaminated produce be sold or hundreds of pound of contaminated hamburger be sold to unsuspecting consumers. Makes you wonder. Makes me think that maybe a move is afoot to end private ownership of land.
tamilee

I would second the arguement that someone was not happy with you. I've had some folks not happy with me recently; and it's gotten rather ugly. Just make sure all your ducks are in a row and keep doing what you're doing. Just make sure you can back up your case. I'll also add that, atleast in my area, anyone can report you to any authority with any claim (true or not) and if you have ticked off the right people; you'll be in trouble...even if you didn't do it.
Yes big brother is watching...just because I am paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching me!

__________________
Iris
The Last Straw (aka Helinbak Farm)
Once a Marine; always a Marine

The USDA is not taking thier enforcement role seriously. If they were they would be going after the ones that are truly abusing the term "organic", such as the the companies that are selling to Walmart and other discount chain stores instead of turning a blind eye. There was just an article in this months Hobby Farm magazine about this subject (it was milk).

__________________
Nigerian Dwarf goats and Spanish Mastiff livestock guards
www.fallcreekfarm.net
http://spanishmastiffs.blogspot.com/

Here's what I just submitted at the Regulations.gov web site:

Let me state at the outset that I oppose the development of a marketing claim standard for naturally raised. I view this as similar to the hijacking of the term ‘organic’ by the USDA a few years ago. By this I mean that the standards have so many exceptions and loopholes that the dictionary definition of ‘organic’ bears very little semblance to the definition used in the national organic program today.

But enough of my rant. If the Department is going to go ahead with the naturally raised marketing claim, a few points bear consideration:

1. Have a significant threshold for application of these rules. That threshold should allow small producers (individuals and immediate family units) to earn a living from selling these products without being subject to these rules. In other words, such rules should apply to commercial enterprises that consist of more than an individual farmer and his/her family. For starters, this threshold could be defined as gross sales in excess of $250,000 (as defined elsewhere by the USDA) – and this limit should be indexed for inflation. Under this exemption, small-scale producers could use the term ‘naturally raised’ without requesting permission from anybody.

2. Be more specific about what ‘mammalian and avian by-products’ means. If this includes such products as milk, whey, or surplus eggs, the definition is too restrictive. If the concern is with transmission of BSE, the definition should be clarified only to apply to substances that could transmit that prion. Surplus eggs or cheese trimmings from a local dairy have not been shown to be vectors for BSE and therefore should not be covered by an overly-broad definition.

3. Keep the small farmer and consumer in mind, not just commercial entities. The proposed standard refers in many places to ‘companies’ but never to ‘farmers’ (try doing a word search). (For example: “To meet the growing consumer demand, U.S. meat and poultry companies have developed and marketed ``natural'' meat and meat products.”) Much of the growth in consumer demand over the past decade has been met by farmers precisely because consumers turned away from large-scale commercial enterprises due to the excesses of confinement feeding operations. Consumers want access to small farmers who produce meat, dairy, poultry, vegetable and fruit locally and humanely. If small-scale farmers are forced to participate in ‘voluntary’ programs to market their products truthfully, and these programs are seen as cumbersome by the farmers, there will be some small-scale producers who choose to withdraw from the markets altogether. This will not serve the interests of the farmers or the consumers; what it *will* do is to increase the concentration of the nation’s food production capacity into fewer hands, making the nation’s food supply less secure and more sensitive to disruptions from weather, terrorist attacks and such. Further, small producers are not going to have the resources to establish the ‘detailed documented quality management systems’ that will be required to pass an audit by AMS. This requirement will, by itself, impose a burden that small producers will not be able to bear. It is clear that this proposed standard is geared toward larger producers at the expense of smaller producers – further support for my first comment that there should be a substantial exemption for small-scale producers. Finally, the proposed standard notes that individuals and companies have been seeking USDA certification as a way of differentiating their products in the marketplace. This makes sense for large producers selling into an anonymous marketplace; for small producers who deal with their customers face-to-face, such certification is irrelevant. The customers value the product and their relationship with the producer precisely because they know who grew their food – they don’t need a government seal of approval to know that the eggs are fresher, the meat tastier and healthier, and the vegetables crunchier. In fact, if something turns out to be of poor quality, they can go straight back to the producer and give him or her a piece of their mind, something nobody can do if the USDA Certified beef they buy at Wal-Mart turns out to be dry and stringy.

If you got rid of the USDA who do you think would be controlling new varieties and developments in ag and who do you think will pay for it. People are always blaming the government, but people that don't abide by the rules are the one's causing the problems. When you deal with the number of growers in the nation you can't treat each one differently that is why they have rules.

Someone probably just was checking if you were officially organic and probably nothing more than that.

And yes I work for the USDA.

Bobg