The Freedom to Farm

[Dan.Linehan]

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal JOEL SALATIN / Acres v.33, n.9, Sept 2003 1sep03

[Jason S]

If this turns your stomach, I recommend you look up how zoning laws impact similar farmers in your area and use that information to write a letter to your Congressman.

I'd challenge anyone who reads this article to NOT just post about how awful the system is, but to DO something first and then post what action you've taken. A letter to Congress is a great start--after all, they're the ones who can solve the problem.

My letter has been sent.

[Brutha]

I think the interesting question is: "Why are things the way they are?"

You probably can't operate a business on farm land because that would increase the value of farm land and result in people don't using the farm land to farm but to build real businesses on them.
A result would be fewer farms overall (importing the farm products instead of producing them in amercia).
At the same time farm products are heavily subsidesed in the US and Europe.
Cutting those subsidies and letting the market decide how many farms exist would also decrease the amount of farms.
I still think that it is the right decision to deregulate farming a bit, but you have to know the consequences.

Then to the laws about child labour. They're there for a reason.
Laws always have positive and negative consequences but I think that having laws that prevent child labour a good thing.

Just like the forces that succeeded in making it illegal for me to use the "O" word, the Western success at Wounded Knee quashed the little guy. What does the Organic Trade Association have to fear from me using the "O" word? If society really wants government certification, my little market share will continue to deteriorate into oblivion. If, however, the certification effort represents a same-old, same-old power grab by the elitists to exterminate the fringe play-ers, it is merely another example of fear replacing faith.

I would want that not everybody can call his products organic regardless of any standart. Everyone would call his products organic and the people who wanted to buy real organic products had a problem.

[Jason S]

Brutha, having standards is not the problem. Blindly adhering to Draconian standards is.

No system is perfect... the question is, what problems would you rather have: standards that support the commoner but that might be abused at the margins, or standards that unquestioningly remove all potential for abuse by removing all opportunity for individual choice?

I feel strongly that it should be the former. It's the job of the police/govt agency to stop infractions, and the courts to adjudicate them when they fall into a gray area. It's not the job of the legislative branch to keep people in line, it never has been, and we should be very wary about using it in that way. It is very easy for the government to usurp control over our livelihoods in the name of "safety." The freedoms we lose, however, can be damn near impossible to regain. We seem to have forgotten this in today's day and age.

My advocating for laws that make sense should not be equated with a laissez faire attitude toward child labor abuse, or any other issue on that level. What I am advocating for is a solution to a problem that doesn't so greatly diminish our personal freedoms that a 15 year old can no longer learn to paint a fence from a neighbor without being considered an exploited child.

Legislation should be our last resort, not our first, when solving societal problems. As a free society, we have an obligation to protect our personal freedoms at all times, which laws--by their very nature--restrict. The concept of personal freedom is enshrined in every single one of our nation's foundational documents, and the first laws of the land--the Bill of Rights--went so far as to enumerate these freedoms explicitly. Our first laws were designed to protect us against the tendency of government to over-legislate! That is what made us truly the land of the free.

I'm well versed in the economics of real estate, and I understand the prinicple of land's "highest and best use." But that's not what this article is about. It's about a national body to use a single guideline to try to govern a complicated chain (in this case, agriculture, though it could be immigration or education or any other complex societal structure, for that matter) and as a result, creating a set of rules that favor control over freedom, uniformity over free will.

And that's where my problem lies.