Regulation Nation Strikes the Family Farm

Obama's regulation nation now includes the family farm.

The family farm has typically been defined as one "with ten or fewer employees."  The Wall Street Journal notes that OSHA has been prohibited from setting foot on farms with less than ten people...until now.  This administration's modus operandi has been to make up the rules as they go: Obamacare is one example of that.  Now this also applies to the family farm:

But OSHA officials have found a novel way to circumvent this statutory restraint. The regulators have simply claimed the authority to rewrite the definition of farming. A remarkable 2011 memo from OSHA's enforcement chief to regional administrators at first acknowledges that the law prevents the agency from regulating small farms engaged in growing and harvesting crops and any "related activities." But then the memo proceeds to instruct employees on how to re-categorize small farms as commercial grain handlers. So OSHA inspectors have recently begun to descend on family farms, claiming the authority to regulate their grain storage bins. 

This has inspired the normally mild-mannered Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.) to take to the Senate floor recently to condemn OSHA's "absolutely incredible" and "absurd" position, which he called "a blatant overreach in violation of the law." 

Mr. Johanns grew up on a farm and pointed out that "every farm has grain storage." That's because it's not practical and at times nearly impossible to sell all of a crop the moment it is harvested. Without grain storage, farmers would be forced to immediately unload everything they grow and therefore have to accept lower prices.

Senator Johanns cited as an example a farm with just one employee that was fined $130,000 by OSHA for, among other things, failing to have a plan to address dust.  The senator spoke about this case recently on the Senate floor:

During a speech on the Senate floor this week, the Nebraska Republican said the agency has levied $132,000 in fines against a small Nebraska farm despite a prohibition against doing so with farming operations that have 10 or fewer employees. 

Johanns said OSHA inspectors said the farm willfully violated OSHA regulations associated with atmospheric tests in a grain bin, failure to wear OSHA-approved gear when entering a grain bin and other issues.

Senator Johanns thinks OSHA "is using the fines as a testing ground for future regulation of family farm operations and their grain systems."

Clearly there is little that this administration doesn't desire to regulate and if it can't be done under current policy then policy just must be rewritten.

Regulation nation.

EPA Continues Fight to Regulate Dust

In one of its more idiotic moves, the EPA is continuing its move to regulate ...farm dust.  Farm dust!

This issue has come up before; in 2009 a federal court upheld the EPA's right to regulate farm dust when the Bush administration tried to regulate airborne soot and dust:

The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council challenged EPA in 2006 over its decision to regulate coarse particulate matter -- or dust -- in rural areas, arguing that the agency had failed to show any negative health effects associated with the dust (Greenwire, Dec. 15, 2006).  EPA had considered exempting farming and mining operations, but the agency ultimately decided it could not exclude particular industries.

Farmers then, and now, naturally decry the move as stifling and ridiculous.   Anyone who has ever been on a farm, or on a rural gravel road, knows there's dust on a farm:

Farming and agriculture groups said the regulations would hurt their industries, affecting everything from combine dust to feedlot dust and even the dust from gravel roads.

In February 2009, the Iowa Defense Alliance wrote:

What the regulations do not do is taking into account the fact that most often farmers do not have control over the creation of this dust. For instance, when you are traveling down the highway and see a farmer planting his field in dry years you see a cloud of dust shadowing the machinery. This dust is created when the machinery stirs up the dirt during the planting process. Or perhaps it is sometime in fall, you see a combine harvesting the beans or corn. As the combine harvests the crop dust is created from the dry plant material in combination with the dirt being stirred up by the combine’s wheels. Another situation when dust is created is not necessarily related to farm work. When a vehicle travels over a dry gravel road dust is created. There really is not much that can be done to quell the production of this dust, but the EPA is insistent on regulating it nonetheless.

The latest maneuver in the debate is a letter to the EPA signed by 21 senators protesting the move to regulate farm dust as explained in a July 8, 2010, Policy Assessment related to the Clean Air Act.  The new guidelines "would establish the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history."

You can read the letter here (pdf - 3 pgs).

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air wrote about this in March 2009:

Now, farmers will be held accountable when their dust moves outside of their property lines and towards towns and villages.  That will impose extra cost on them depending on which way the wind blows, an excellent metaphor for Congress but a deadly imposition on a farm sector already struggling with an economic turndown and falling land prices.  The compliance costs to keep dust tamped down will be enormous, and will force out the smaller farmers who can least afford the mitigation costs.  It pushes the productive family farm even further into the anachronism category.

And he closes:

We need a strong agricultural sector to produce food as inexpensively as possible with maximum efficiency to keep us fed and healthy.  Dust may provide some health risks, but nothing as acute as poverty and starvation, which existed in much more significant scale in the US before the Green Revolution of the 20th century.

If such a plan ever moves out of the realm of debate and into practice, it would indeed crush the agriculture industry, especially the family farm.  Large corporate farms might be able to handle the extra costs, but the small farmer doesn't stand a chance.

Where do they think our food actually comes from?  It just materializes in a Whole Foods on its own?

Idiots.

(Cross posted at Potluck )

Fun Facts on Cap-and-Trade

From IBDeditorials:

The American Farm Bureau warns that cap and trade would cost the average farmer $175 on every dairy cow and $80 for beef cattle. So farm-state politics trumped climate change.

The EPA has been tasked by a Supreme Court ruling to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from your nostrils to your lawn mower. This even covers the emissions of barnyard animals, including the methane from cows.

American taxpayers apparently will be paying companies not to chop down trees. The Washington Times reports that as part of the legislation, the House will also be voting Friday on a plan to pay domestic and international companies around the world not to cut down trees.

Heritage Foundation projects that by 2035 it would reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion. In an average year, 844,000 jobs would be destroyed, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by almost 2 million.

Inflation-adjusted gasoline prices would rise 74%, residential natural gas prices by 55% and the average family's annual energy bill by $1,500.

What About H.R. 875?

There has been an alarm raised over H.R. 875 which was introduced by Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn) in February. Some believe this is the end of the family farm, the small farmer and the backyard gardener. Callers to the Moon Griffon radio program on Friday were very alarmed and were under the impression that they would not be allowed to have backyard gardens any longer. Glenn Beck has even done a segment on this.

Much of this is over reaction.

The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 calls for the creation of a Food Safety Administration. It basically separates the FDA into two agencies -- one for food safety and one for drugs and medical devices.

Chelsea Schilling, writing for World Net Daily, reports that the bill "would allow the government to regulate food production at all levels -- and even mandates property seizure, fines of up to $1 million per offense and criminal prosecution for producers, manufacturers and distributors who fail to comply with regulations."

This is certainly frightening. However, Food and Water Watch attempts to quell the fear and points out that this bill does NOT cover foods regulated by the USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb and catfish). It does not regulate backyard gardens or establish a mandatory animal identification system. It does not call for new regulations for farmers markets. And it does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce.

What H.R. 875 DOES do is increase inspection of food processing plants and it does require farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical points opn that farm where the food safety problems are likely to occur.

But how do you define "farm"? The bill does not define "farm" at all, but the "food production facility" is defined as "any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation." That's pretty broad and would certainly include family farms.

The reporting and bookkeeping requirements required in this bill would be extremely burdensome for the small farmer and could easily put him out of business, whereas the large corporation could simply hire a person to handle the reports and paperwork.

Whenever food is contaminated, farms and food producers would be required to submit copies of all records to federal inspectors. Those farms not in compliance would face huge fines. The act reads "Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law...may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act."

What's the burden of proof on that? Can you buy something like the equivalent of medical malpractice insurance to help cover you on that? It's all very BigBrother-ish.

Should serious illness or death occur, criminal sanctions may be imposed including fines and imprisonment.

People need not worry about their backyard gardens or their farmer's markets too much, but the small family farm certainly has much to worry about.

Other farm bills to watch: H.R. 814 - the Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Act. This calls for a mandatory animal identification system.

H.R. 759 - The Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act. This Act overhauls the entire structure of the FDA. It extends recordkeeping requirements that apply to food processors to farms and restaurants. It also requires food processing plants to pay a registration fee to the FDA to fund inspections. And it instructs the FDA to establish production standards for fruits and vegetables and to establish "good agricultural practices" for produce.

What exactly are "good agricultural practices"? How will the organic gardener fit into that?

We need to be vigilant and stay on top of these bills. We already know that most members of Congress don't read bills, so we need to be informed. At the same time, it isn't helpful to spread irrational fear.