Cottage Industry Farm Bill
After writing about the ridiculous farm raids on backyard farmers, I noticed a post by fellow blogger El on Fast Grow The Weeds. Apparently, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is about to sign two cottage industry farm bills that allow home producers to make or package certain foods in their kitchens instead of having to use a commercial food operation. Baked goods, jam and jellies, candy, vinegar, dried fruit, herbs and mixes made in your kitchen could all be sold publicly provided they are properly labeled to reflect that they are homemade and identify all ingredients under guidelines provided by the state. An individual residence could make up to $15,000 gross annually from such sales. Michigan Rep. Pam Byrnes, D-Dist. 52, co-sponsored the bill package.
Specifics on House Bill 5280 (2009), (PA 112 of 2010)
Specifics on House Bill 5837 (2010), (PA 113 of 2010)
You can read about the Michigan Cottage Food Law at the Michigan Department of Agriculture website.
This makes me wonder about the history of legislation for dairy products. Why do cow/goat dairies have such stringent regulations? Looks like I have something to research.
Dairy products laws are terribly complicated. For some good history on the subject (biased history but still good reads) you should look into two good books: Milk by Anne Mendelsohn and Real Food by Nina Planck. Short story: It is only recently (last 100 years) that fluid milk became a huge commodity item, drunk by all. It behooves dairies to have stringent controls of production so that they can therefore adulterate the finished product, squeezing as much cash out of it as possible. Thus, all the rules.
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:27 pmI can’t wait to hear about your final analysis. Think we’ll ever get to have a cow here? I’d love a Jersey.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:21 amEl: I will definitely check out the books. I had a feeling there might be a milk book. I have a book called Salt. Fascinating.
Stefaneener: Be careful what you wish for.
July 24th, 2010 at 4:51 amThe regulations started when they connected cattle to tuberculosis.
July 26th, 2010 at 1:05 amAt the time it was sound public policy.
Times change, but the principle of disease prevention is still valid.
This article from Cornell was pretty interesting.
http://www.milkfacts.info/Milk%20Processing/Heat%20Treatments%20and%20Pasteurization.htm
I keep wishing that the people selling goat’s milk in the Bay Area weren’t selling it at such a high price. I guess that’s the cost of land, but I can’t justify spending so much money…
July 29th, 2010 at 4:35 am