John Klar moving his cattle.
As previously reported here, Vermont farmer John Klar has openly challenged state laws that restrict farmers and consumers from an age-old tradition of slaughtering animals on-farm and then having them processed at local state-inspected custom processors. Klar here relates his interpretation of federal law, and how states are imposing more stringent – and indefensible – requirements on farmers and their customers, at the expense of local commerce and humane animal treatment.
by John Klar
Last week I attended a Vermont Senate Agriculture Committee meeting to address on-farm slaughter laws. In 2013, Vermont passed a law which permitted the on-farm slaughter of whole animals only—it is a law I have protested loudly, and violated openly. But that provision is set to “sunset” on July 1, 2016, which would mean that after that date, Vermont farms could not slaughter any animals on-farm for public sale.
Vermont’s itinerant slaughterers and custom processors have built their businesses on serving the demand for local meat from animals slaughtered on the farm. If this statutory “exemption” expires, they will be compelled to ship all animals to large federally-inspected facilities. But Vermont farmers should be permitted not only to continue to slaughter animals humanely on-farm; they should be free to sell halves or even quarters of animals to their customers. We have long done so without illness; customers often do not wish to purchase a whole animal; and this is the most humane way to take an animal’s life.
Vermont’s Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets (VAAFM) has for years asserted that federal law requires that only whole animals be slaughtered on-farm. But this is simply not true. New York permits the sales of shares in an animal, and permits customers to slaughter and process animals on the farm. Oregon also: in their paper “Frequently asked questions about using custom-exempt slaughter and processing facilities in Oregon for beef, pork, lamb and goat,” Lauren Gwin and Jim Postelwait observe “USDA does not have a specific rule about how many shares you may sell in any one animal. Some states restrict shares to four or eight per animal, but Oregon does not have such a restriction.” And in a recent email from the USDA itself, Dr. Kevin J. Gillespie DVM, of the Food Safety and Inspection Service, stated that there is no limit on how many owners there can be for a custom-slaughtered animal.
So why are Vermont’s laws so restrictive, and what impact does that have to do with food policy and food safety? The first question is easily answered: as David Gumpert has observed in his book Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Food Rights, “Government agencies guard their power, and seek to expand it where possible.” (p. 195). Our VAAFM has misrepresented the law in order to guard and expand its bloated budget. In doing so, the VAAFM employs the tired excuse that it must guard the Vermont brand from even a single case of illness. (What Gumpert terms an “…effort to stir up fear and distrust of the food provider….” Food Rights, p. 216). Yet no one has been made ill in the hundreds of years of Vermont farmers slaughtering at home: indeed, almost all cases of illness from red meat or poultry arise from huge national slaughterhouses, even here in Vermont.
These state restrictions have severe repercussions. They compel farmers to truck animals to federally-inspected facilities, causing stress. Because most buyers of beef cannot afford (or store) an entire animal, these laws cut the custom processor and itinerant slaughterer out of this commerce entirely. If allowed to stand, these laws will stifle consumer choices and inhibit farming trade, as has happened in Massachusetts, where a shortage of processors and lack of an on-farm slaughter exemption have done exactly that. As the Boston Globe has reported, citizens there face “…plenty of demand for locally raised meats but long waiting times for slaughtering or long hours driving to reach out-of-state facilities. The local food movement has been a boon for farmers, but for meat producers in particular, the system for getting their product to the table has not kept pace with rising demand.” This is what Vermont producers and customers face if these draconian restrictions persist. Wendell Berry wrote about precisely such pressures in Kentucky, back in 1977: “The only conceivable beneficiaries were the meat-packing corporations, and for this questionable gain local life was weakened at its economic roots.” (“Sanitation and the Small Farm,” The Gift of Good Land, North Point Press, United States, 1982). Berry observed that the local slaughterhouses “… were essential to the effort of many people to live self-sufficiently from their own produce – and these people had raised no objections to the way their meat was being handled.” Sounds like Vermont, and Massachusetts, in 2016.
But here is the Vermont government’s biggest problem: the animal that is slaughtered whole goes through the exact same process as the animal that is sold in halves: if I sell a whole beef, it is slaughtered on-farm, cut into quarters, then trucked to the local custom processor of my customer’s choosing. This is the exact process that occurs if two people share in the purchase and each buy a half beef from me. Exactly the same. Presumably this is why the federal government, and many states, have quite logically permitted the sales of animals by shared ownership: the distinction drawn by the State of Vermont is utterly artificial, and does not advance public health and safety. But it does create an unfair competitive advantage for the large federally-inspected processor.
It is the government’s burden to prove that its law reasonably accomplishes a health and safety goal. In this case, there is no benefit to health or safety to restrict farmers and their customers to purchases of whole animals only. And where a law, as here, undermines the commercial interests of the custom processor and itinerant slaughterer, interrupts the individual choices of the customer, and compromises the humane treatment of the animal, it cannot be supported under our Constitutions if it fails to advance health or safety. This is why I will continue to challenge Vermont’s unsupportable laws. And if I succeed in court here, I pray that I will open the door to common sense and Constitutional freedom in other states.
These statutes also restrict how many animals a farmer can sell from their farm: once again, there is no improvement to health and safety; the rationale employed is that we farmers cannot be trusted; animals in excess of those limits will be diverted from the commerce of local businesses, and exposed to unnecessary stress.
Finally, a farmer who does not file an informational form (under 6 Vermont Statutes Annotated (V.S.A.) § 3311a (7)) may be subject to a criminal penalty of $1,000 or one year in prison, under 6 V.S.A. § 3317. This violates the constitutional concept of proportionality (let the punishment fit the crime), and is a perfect example of what happens when government agencies seek to “expand their power.” This is why we have our State and Federal Constitutions: to protect us from exactly these kinds of overreach.
As I said in my previous blog post here, I am fighting for my neighbors, my animals, my children, and Vermont’s culture, which are all under attack in the name of “protecting us.” I do not oppose reasonable regulation: I will oppose absurd laws like these till the cows come home.
another case heading down the same avenue : = Lake View dairy in Grand Maraias Minnesota versus the communists and their hatred for the right to use and enjoy one’s personal private property : the right to exchange between private parties, without interference by the state
Prime example of “Big Brother” influencing “Lil Brother” to take further unnecessary steps to enforce more government control or your allowance will be pulled. The federal government funds state government programs like VAAFM to progress cryptic laws which only enhance the inevitable potential of our government having full control of the public’s food supply in the big picture
Precisely. Fortnuately there are states like New York (right next door) which demonstrate that our Legislature need not take the bait. Most people don’t realize that the feds similarly offer free drones and other surveillance to state police departments, and armored personnel carriers. In both instances this creates a huge federal control system which is anathema to our state and federal Constitutions. Most people do not know about Operation FALCON — and once they do, they just shrug and don’t challenge such expansions. We must draw the line at food, at the very least.
John, any comment on whether or not the passage of the PRIME Act would have an effect on your situation in Maine?
I continue to study this complex area, but if I understand it correctly, two states could sell custom-processed beef to each other under the PRIME Act, and each would be legal in the other. If so, then New York farmers will/would have an “unfair advantage” over Vermont farmers because they could slaughter halves or quarters, etc. on-farm and then sell in Vermont those meats processed at a New York custom slaughterhouse; but Vermont slaughterers would still be limited to wholes only. I’m not clear how this would work under the PRIME Act — the regulations and comments are huge. If anyone has insight, please do chime in. Perhaps Randy Quenneville will explain it here….
The on farm slaughter bill in Vt Senate ag will be on the floor of the Senate likely this week. I would encourage people to call and/or email any Senator, their Senate Representative, and those in leadership and make them aware of John’s writings and research and writings of others. It would be good to make all aware of our concerns because you can be sure they are getting info funneled to them through Senator Starr and Vt ag who have failed to recognize the concerns and seriousness of the on farm slaughter issue.
“So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community. …Besides the public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights…”
Blackstone Commentaries, 2:138-9
The above statement by Blackstone has significant meaning for those of us who recognize the fundamental importance freedom to a healthy society. Indeed, the commentary is a contradiction of the socialistic utilitarian rational of forced intervention by government bureaucracies for the so-called greater good = an ethically and morally corrupt rational that appears to have gained the upper hand in our nations (USA and Canada). The utilitarianist has cunningly manipulated and used science as a means to infringe on the freedom of parents and landowners in order to achieve their onerous objectives. Nowhere is this more evident then in government funded health care, education and agricultural cheap food policies and subsidies.
Our laws have a long history of tension between the individual and the State. Generally the State cannot infringe individual liberties without showing a legitimate state interest. My “legal” point in all this is that Vermont (and other states) simply cannot show any benefits — only economic harms, animal suffering, loss of choice, and reduced health and safety protections.
It’s more environmentally friendly to slaughter on site, is it not?
Absolutely! Many states are encountering a shortage of these custom processors, which means trucking animals for hours to do what can be done more humanely on-farm. And here in Vermont, I have four custom processors who are closer to me than either of the federally-inspected facilities. Also, the offal is (generally) composted on-farm when we slaughter on-farm, as opposed to collected in large noisome concentrations at the big slaughterhouses, where I do not know what they do with it.
good word! “noise-some”. I know what they do with the offal, at Westcoast Reduction, still operating within city limits, in East Vancouver = sickening the neighbours, despite state-of-the-art pollution controls. EVERY kind of animal matter waste is rendered-down to “hydrolyzed collagen”, which is then merchandised to the health food market!!
>>> During the Piggy’s Palace horror-story, it came out that Willy Picton had disposed of the bodies of the whores he’d murdered, at the same place where he’d often unloaded swine offal. Protein is protein, right?
Pig slaughter plants/rendering often claim that the only thing that doesn’t get used is the squeal. Rendered products appear in all kinds of edible and non-edible products, including (I think) the crayons D Smith uses as her avatar picture, and the soap in my shower. If only other kinds of recycling had as long a history as rendering……generally a societal benefit, unless you happen to be a coyote…..
Federally-inspected state slaughterhouses do not specialize in swine — they do pigs, cows, sheep and goats.
John
Sorry. My example was misleading. Our rendering plants take, and mix together, material from slaughter plants that exclusively process cattle, pigs, chicken or turkeys (i.e. it is a mixed processing stream). So a plant like the one you describe can mix their ‘waste’ and supply the renderer also. For example, quite a lot of the fat is now further processed into biodiesel and glycerol. The source of the fat, less of an issue.
But, they are very reluctant to process material from sheep and goats because of scrapie control policies. Tissues that might pose a risk of BSE have also to be removed in the slaughter plant from cattle remains (SRM). My apologies.
John
Thanks… As I said above, I actually am not sure. I plan to investigate this further….
We raised our own beef when I was young and I’ll NEVER forget the fear they registered when trucked to the slaughterhouse, they could NOT be “coaxed” onto the trailer, and when we picked up our meat I’d wander around the “slaughter pens” where fearful animals tried to get out or get “home”. There is NO substitute for home processing, even our chickens got freaked out when penned & trucked away. In the 15 years I’ve lived in Vermont I’ve found the Vt. AAF&M CANNOT fulfill two missions, 1) to “promote” Agriculture & 2) to “enforce the laws” regarding same, they ALWAYS harass the smaller farms while allowing the Mega-Dairies to pollute our waterways, “employ” illegal “help”, and spread their CAFO pathogens and dumped solvents onto fields with little to NO “buffer zones”. When told of and shown actual violations, like the removal of 20-30 ft. of river banking along the Missiquoi River in 2005 that allowed a 10 acre continuous cornfield to “drain” into the river, they did NOT require ANY remediation NOR restoration. Yet now we see that they pay their “trolls” to watch for “unauthorized” meat sales between consenting adults? What’s next? “Trolling” farmers markets for home made jams, jellies, honey, eggs, and then “violating” any and every maker/seller? Meanwhile, our rivers and lakes get choked w/algae blooms, GREAT! SM, N.Troy, Vt.