Sarah King is passionate about farming, sharing social media posts and pictures of her family’s life at Godspeed Hollow Farm in Newberg, Oregon. There, she cares for and milks her cows, named after Disney princesses. Her business is small but thriving. Customers come from all over to purchase her cows’ milk, which she sells in glass jars out of a fridge in her barn.
Sarah provides a vital service to members of her community: sustainably sourced milk. This belief in sustainability is evident in every aspect of her business from the way she cares for her cows, to the way she handles her product, and the way she cares for her land. Her animals freely graze on the land, their waste goes into the earth, helping to grow more healthy grass, and the cycle continues. The long wait list for her products shows their quality and desirability.
Now, however, a newly reinterpreted regulation from the Oregon Department of Agriculture threatens to shut down Sarah’s business—and hundreds of similar-sized dairies across the state. Oregon, like many states, has a special permitting process for operating a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO). CAFOs typically house hundreds and even thousands of animals, as mismanaging water can have a serious impact on the local environment. For years, the state did not interpret these regulations as applying to small farms like Sarah’s.
But now Oregon wants to regulate small farms like large commercial dairies. Why? Not because of real environmental concerns, but because large commercial dairies insist that small dairies somehow have a “competitive advantage” over big ones—that is, that they don’t have to install expensive infrastructure to manage waste.
But small dairies don’t need that infrastructure because the amount of waste generated can safely decompose in fields or be composted for other productive use. The state is wrapping small dairies in meaningless red tape just to please big dairies. That is protectionist, irrational and, moreover, unconstitutional. Sarah, and three other small farmers, are now teaming up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to file a lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Agriculture and save small dairy farms in the Beaver State.
Small farmers are under attack in the state of Oregon, which has begun shutting down family farms throughout the state en masse under the guise of water conservation and groundwater protection.
Yanasa TV, a project of Yanasa Ama Ranch shared a roughly 20-minute video – you can watch it below – explaining what is going on in the Beaver State as bureaucrats erroneously dub small family farms as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, in order to shut them down "for the environment."
"The state of Oregon has effectively shut down small farms and market gardens on a large scale, and they're actually sending out cease-and-desist letters to farms and they're using satellite technology to find their victims and send them these letters that say you can't operate," the rancher in the video below explains.
Small farms aren't CAFOs
The rancher explains that there are two different laws that Oregon officials are using to conduct these shutdowns. One involves the state of Oregon's broadly vague definition of a CAFO, which reads, in part, as follows:
"The State of Oregon defines CAFOs as the concentrated feeding or holding of animals or poultry, including but not limited to horse, cattle, sheep, or swine feeding areas, dairy confinement areas, and poultry and egg production facilities where the surface has been prepared with concrete, rock or fibrous material to support animals in wet weather."
Based on this definition, a few-acre homestead with pasture and, say, two milking cows and some chickens qualifies as a CAFO if it has any area on the property where rock or gravel is used as a pathway to get to a small barn or coop.
"The way that they have redefined CAFOs is going to impact nearly everybody," the rancher warns about Oregon's "updated" CAFO definition, which impacts his property as well. "Even on our property, we don't have animals that are necessarily contained in one area (they're roaming on pastures)."
Back in January of this year, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of small family farms throughout Oregon, arguing that the definition of a CAFO is too broad and negatively impacts pretty much anyone who produces eggs from backyard chickens, no matter the size of their property.
The case was recently covered by National Review, explaining that Oregon's government "joined forces" with the large-scale dairy industry to oppress and tyrannize Oregon's small farmers.
"This law is being enforced in the state of Oregon," the rancher warns, telling the same story as National Review about Godspeed Hollow Farm in Newburg, Ore., which has been reclassified as a CAFO simply because it has a gravel pathway from the milking machine to the pickup station just 100 feet in distance.
"[Oregon] has already shut down some farms. There is an injunction on some of the definition of the law until it can be heard in court. Currently small dairy farmers ... a lot of what they're requiring is simply too much for the small farmer."
All Oregon groundwater, even on private property, considered public
Another thing Oregon farmers are having to deal with is the state's rules on water. The only water that farmers are legally allowed to collect in Oregon is rainwater. Everything else, including water from rivers and streams, and even groundwater on private property, is considered a public resource.
Because of this rule, Oregon farmers are not even allowed to use water from their own private wells to irrigate their crops and hydrate their animals without a permit. Coupled with the CAFO rule, this one concerning water use is being abused in such a way as to make it prohibitive, if not impossible, for farmers to run their farms.
"This rule went into place back in 2021," the rancher explains about how Oregon officials enacted the water rule, which just so happens to have happened at a time when everyone was being distracted and traumatized by Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) "pandemic" tyranny.
"It has slowly rolled out to the point where market gardeners on a half-acre of land are now receiving cease-and-desist orders saying, 'you can't water your gardens; figure out another way.'"
The obvious goal in all this is to concentrate even more power and control over the food market into the hands of just a wealthy few while depriving small farmers of their livelihoods and incomes – not to mention their God-given right to grow, produce, consume, and yes, sell, the fruit of their labor for sustenance.
Be warned that if this kind of thing can happen in Oregon, it can happen everywhere. The tyranny usually starts in one area as a test case, and if the general public does not resist, it spreads like a virus elsewhere.
Americans, no matter what state they live in, have a constitutional right to food freedom. Learn more at FoodFreedom.news.
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"He replaced the teachings of Christ with his own opinions, and gave us a religion based on the doctrines of men."
It didn't take long to look up what is really going on here.
First, we aren't talking about small dairies. We are talking about "micro-dairies" or what are really hobby farms. In this day and age, when one hears the term "small dairy" one thinks of an operation with maybe 50 cows, or maybe 20 cows like an Amish operation. Nope. What they are talking about in the two articles that you cited above are hobby farms with no more than 2 cows or 9 milk goats. So any farm that has more than 2 cows or 9 goats has always had to follow the normal CAFO rules.
Secondly, the process worked as it should. People testified about this decision by the Oregon Department of Agriculture that existing CAFO rules should apply to these sorts of hobby farms and the Department listed and decided to reverse its position, and continue to treat them as exempt. https://www.capitalpress.com/state/oreg ... d488c.html
So the whole thing is a non-issue. In Oregon you can now continue to operate your hobby farm with 2 cows or 9 goats and not have to deal with CAFO rules. The government listened, reconsidered its position, and reversed course. Which is how things should work, correct?
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Josh wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 12:21 pm
Absolutely ridiculous. And thus highlights why it’s so important for Miller to win.
Governments should not outlaw people growing their own food.
The ultimate power Elite have over the people is to control the production of food.
Always remember the Holodomor.
In the Holodomor in the 1930's in Ukraine, the same Socialists that are trying to take over the USA - cut off the food production for the people of Ukraine and killed over 10 million Kulaks through starvation. The Kulaks were being "collectivized" to death by Stalin, the great "Socialist Leader" who killed many more people than Hitler.
Alan Watt is a notable atheist, but also a realist when it comes to government and how they control the population by withholding food. Watt said that the lack of food in these other countries, like India, is not that there is not enough land and too many people, but that the Elite control all of the land and prevent it from being used for food production.
Watt said that if you get on Google Earth and zoom down to India, you will see huge areas of undeveloped land, forests and other resources that are controlled by the Elite "Caste" system in India. The Elite in India pack all of the people into the cities so they can be controlled. I looked at India and other countries on Google Earth, and it is true.
Starving people to control them is what the Elite call "Agenda 2030", where food production is limited and all of the people are packed into these "15 minute" cities. That is what they have planned for us in the USA.
The reason the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are currently the leading world food exporters is because of our economic systems and free markets. Other countries have more food potential than we do, but at present, we have more freedom to grow food, and food production is not socialized at present. The Elite are trying to change that.
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"He replaced the teachings of Christ with his own opinions, and gave us a religion based on the doctrines of men."
Ken wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 1:33 pm
It didn't take long to look up what is really going on here.
First, we aren't talking about small dairies. We are talking about "micro-dairies" or what are really hobby farms. In this day and age, when one hears the term "small dairy" one thinks of an operation with maybe 50 cows, or maybe 20 cows like an Amish operation. Nope. What they are talking about in the two articles that you cited above are hobby farms with no more than 2 cows or 9 milk goats. So any farm that has more than 2 cows or 9 goats has always had to follow the normal CAFO rules.
Secondly, the process worked as it should. People testified about this decision by the Oregon Department of Agriculture that existing CAFO rules should apply to these sorts of hobby farms and the Department listed and decided to reverse its position, and continue to treat them as exempt. https://www.capitalpress.com/state/oreg ... d488c.html
So the whole thing is a non-issue. In Oregon you can now continue to operate your hobby farm with 2 cows or 9 goats and not have to deal with CAFO rules. The government listened, reconsidered its position, and reversed course. Which is how things should work, correct?
Thanks, Ken.
Looks like the bureaucrats changed their mind just two days ago, on 3/22/24.
Apparently all of the "National News" about this outrage made an impact, and the Oregon Dept of Ag backed down.
Now if we can do that in PA, we would be on a roll.
John
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"He replaced the teachings of Christ with his own opinions, and gave us a religion based on the doctrines of men."
Josh wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 3:15 pm
In other words, the court of public opinion was needed.
These hobby farms probably provide the most humane life to the animals too. So why was the state so heavy handed?
The ordinary dairy industry (i.e. the normal commercial family dairy farms of the sort that one thinks of when one thinks of a dairy farm) complained about the growing number of small micro-dairies (essentially hobby farms) that were skating under the regulations that all regular dairies had to operate under.
The state took at look and concluded, yes, we kind of created a loophole here that wasn't what the legislature intended when they created the CAFO rules. So they proposed closing that loophole. The hobby farm folks got riled up and protested and the state reconsidered. This is how government works. The economy and societal values are constantly changing and rules have to change to keep pace. And rulemaking in a democratic society SHOULD be done through public process with proper notice and opportunity for public comment and input. Not everything is a deep-state conspiracy.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Josh wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 3:42 pm
In this case it was an attempt by big commercial interests to try to put tiny little families with 2 heads of cattle out of business.
That kind of behaviour is unjust and inexcusable.
Not out of business. Just ask them to comply with the same rules as all other dairies. In any event, the system worked as it is supposed to. The department proposed a rule change. People commented. And they reversed course. That is rulemaking in a democracy.
I find conservatives such as yourself to be strangely schizophrenic or inconsistent when it comes to government actions. On the one hand you get up in arms about this sort of very mundane agency rulemaking and screech about "government overreach" and so forth. Not you specifically. But the people who are putting out the videos above.
But then you turn around and cheer actual government overreach when it is in the service of something you approve of. For example, you are the biggest cheerleader here for the state of Texas scooping Hispanics off the street and locking them up without trial. Whether or not they are here legally. Which is most definitely government overreach and violates several provisions of the Constitution, compared to the OR Department of Ag asking small dairies to follow the same environmental rules as everyone else.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 4:37 pmI find conservatives such as yourself
When did I say I was a political "conservative"?
But then you turn around and cheer actual government overreach when it is in the service of something you approve of. For example, you are the biggest cheerleader here for the state of Texas scooping Hispanics off the street and locking them up without trial. Whether or not they are here legally. Which is most definitely government overreach and violates several provisions of the Constitution, compared to the OR Department of Ag asking small dairies to follow the same environmental rules as everyone else.
I think it's perfectly fine for a country to have borders and expect people to cross at an approved border crossing, not try to swim across a river a half mile away and trespass.
I also think that people who have had an established farm with no trouble for many years should continue to be allowed to keep their cow and goat and chickens that free-range, and that it is utterly ridiculous to claim that is a "concentrated animal feeding operation" because of a gravel walkway or a concrete sidewalk.
Do you think that putting in gravel to walk between your house and a barn means you should be regulated as a large commercial concentrated animal feeding operation?
Do you think it's good for large commercial operations to put tiny family farms out of business?
