The End of Small Fruit Stands

The End of Small Fruit Stands

HR 875, theoretically a "food safety" bill, appears through either incompetence or because its sponsors (all Democrats) are bought and paid for by Big Agribusiness, would likely be the end of all small scale fresh vegetable and fruit production and sale. As Ace of Spades HQ points out:

HR 875 sets up a MASSIVE new government bureaucracy called the Food Safety Administration, and compels anything known as a "food establishment" to register with the federal government (paying registration fees of course) and to submit to inspections that are at different intervals depending on the type of "food establishment" you are.
The (formerly) ubiquitous summer roadside vegetable stand appears to be both Category 3 and 5 "food establishments" since they sells "fresh produce in ready-to-eat raw form" and "stores, holds, or transports food products prior to delivery for retail sale".
The explicit exclusions in Section 3 (13)(B) do not exclude roadside vegetable stands.
Section 3 (14) explicitly declares "any farm" (no matter what the size) to be a "FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY".
Section 406 is a real doozy which places the burden of proof on the small farmer or roadside stand operator to demonstrate that none of their goods were participants in interstate commerce (the basis for this whole thing appears to be the Commerce Clause).

Oh yes: one million dollar fines for violations:

(1) CIVIL PENALTY-CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

(A) IN GENERAL- Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law (including a regulation promulgated or order issued under the food safety law) may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

(B) SEPARATE OFFENSE- Each act described in subparagraph (A) and each day during which that act continues shall be considered a separate offense.

Would you operate a small farm, selling produce directly to consumers with that prospect facing you? All the "buy local" crowd who voted for Obama and the Democrats are going to get what they deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us will, too.