One way the USDA can be of some help to a few small farmers would be
they could make it less expensive to grow and sell organic instead of
adding to their burden. Organic has been good to small growers and
this new USDA law as written requiring us to join an association and
pay a certifier and forcing us to pay for inspections and a usda
licenses to sell organic will add to our burden and not help small
family farmers. This program is a non funded USDA mandate being paid
for by mostly small family farmers. Maybe a good start to assist
small farmers would be do no harm. this new law so called organic law
adds fees and paper work and burdens on the small farms and small
certifiers . A organic grower should not have to pay one cent more
than any other grower to grow and sell organic.In 6000 years this is
the first time I ever heard of making people pay more because they
grow organic and sell organic food. Do no harm! you don't help the
poor by making burdensome laws and bleeding the turnips.
At 07:46 AM 2/14/98 -0800, Tom Hodges (moderated newsgroup) wrote:
>Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 13:13:49 -0800
>From: "Marion L. Bowlan" <pafarmlink@redrose.net>
>Reply-To: pafarmlink@redrose.net
>Organization: PA Farm Link, Inc.
>Subject: NATIONAL STRATEGY TO ASSIST FAMILY FARMS
>> More than 30,000 farms, or some 600 a week, are lost each year in the
>> United States, and about 1,000 are lost annually in Pennsylvania.
>> Virtually all of these farms are family-size farms. Economists expect
>> this loss to accelerate in the next decade.
>>
>> In spite of the continued growth of industrialized corporate
>> agriculture, the vast majority of farms -- perhaps 94 percent or more
>> are operated by a family, are of a modest size and rely on family rather
>> than paid labor. By any reasonable definition, these are family farms.
>>
>> Significantly, the family farms that are able to survive are more than
>> twice likely as other American families to live in poverty according to
>> the Economic Research Service of USDA.
http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html
a homepage for organic farmers
sals@rain.org
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