Editor’s note: John Klar is a Vermont grass-fed beef and sheep farmer, and an attorney and pastor who lives in Irasburg.
[A]s a small farmer, I know many small farmers. By this I do not mean short people who farm, but people who operate small dairies, poultry and chicken businesses, raise a few beef or sheep, and the like. These small farms once numbered in the thousands, and managed to fuel much of our economy. As land prices have risen from pressures for housing, and as income and real estate taxes have swollen to accommodate a one-way growth in our state government, the profitability of land-based businesses (including timber as well as farming) has been dramatically compromised.
Still, the swollen government endeavors to “preserve” farmland by legislative fiat even as these economic pressures are aggravated by policies which seek to expand tourism, invite corporations to set up shop here, or underwrite new ventures with foreign capital such as with the EB-5 program. How many houses sit empty in Vermont, yet are heated year-round as second or third homes for out-of-staters?
Increasingly our state government is dominated by those who minister to these new squatters, instead of supporting the traditional farmers and local businesses that are the foundation of our culture and the preservers of our landscape. Barns fall to the ground when the animals leave; fields grow up in popple and bracken when the cows are shipped off; much of our pollution in our lakes and streams is from road runoff and urban “development,” not from farms. Only 40 percent of the runoff into Lake Champlain is from agriculture (“A look at Vermont’s efforts to clean up Lake Champlain,” Associated Press, Feb. 8, 2015).
And so it irritates many of the small farmers I know that their way of life is being destroyed by those in power who take weekends off, drive fancy cars, and think their “ship” don’t stink. Those who pass laws that purport to help us but which do the opposite.
Recently I have been challenging one specific area of such lawmaking: the on-farm slaughter laws. A cursory examination of these statutes shows that they hurt small businesses, farmers and consumers, and inflict needless stress on animals – all under the pretense of advancing health and safety and combating “unfair competition.” But these laws unfairly benefit large federally inspected slaughterhouses while undercutting our local custom processors and itinerant slaughterers, many of whom have worked very hard for decades to build up goodwill and clientele.
Many farmers and consumers question the ethics of a Legislature that will whittle away our freedoms in exchange for federal subsidies.
The truth is that the state receives federal dollars to stifle our small farms: this “funding” allows politicians to boast that they are reducing our budget even as they increase regulation; to hire more bureaucrats while imposing more real costs of recordkeeping and compliance on farms and related businesses. In short, these laws serve to increase the pressures that allow Montpelier to dominate our landscape at the expense of those who have scraped a living off the land for generations, or for those who wish to try anew.
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets (VAAFM) has been telling the Legislature that federal law mandates that we small farmers can only sell whole animals via on-farm slaughter. This is not true, as I have been “demonstrating.” Does this mean that we farmers should be able to do whatever we want? Nope. But it means that state laws which impinge on small businesses and make animals suffer should not be permitted to stand on the false pretense that otherwise Big Brother will come get us. In a Seven Days article (“A Kinder Kill,” Kathryn Flagg, Nov. 21, 2012) VAAFM representative Randy Quenneville “… says the state could face serious consequences if it ignores USDA rules and allows farmers to butcher meat on farms and sell it to whomever they like. The USDA could yank its funding for Vermont’s meat-inspection program and step in to enforce federal rules.” But New York allows purchasers to slaughter and butcher on-farm; and the rules I am fighting do not pertain to butchering but to slaughtering – I send my meat at my customers’ request to local custom slaughterers. So under these circumstances there is no threat of the USDA bogeyman “stepping in”; there is just the threat that the feds could “yank funding” from the VAAFM.
I like that latter threat – I see the VAAFM being bribed by the federal government at the expense of the local farmer, itinerant slaughterer, custom slaughterhouse, animal’s welfare and customer’s choice. Now, if I try to bribe Randy Quenneville it is a serious crime: 6 Vermont Statutes Annotated §3311(a) states that bribing Randy could fetch a farmer a $1,000 fine or up to five years in prison, or both. But being offered federal subsidies to hire more employees at more than $50,000 per year each is apparently not considered bribery. Many farmers and consumers question the ethics of a Legislature that will whittle away our freedoms in exchange for federal subsidies.
It is also clear that animal welfare does not factor in very well. We all know that it is more humane to slaughter on-farm. And the federal government noted in comments to applicable regulations “… that most states that operate meat inspection programs are not enforcing the HMSA [Humane Methods of Slaughter Act] at state-inspected establishments.” (Federal register Volume 76, No. 84, May 2, 2011, p. 24744, as referenced by Randy Quenneville in “Vermont Livestock slaughter and meat labeling regulations,” April 28, 2011). This is borne out by Randy Quenneville’s apparent failure to oversee animal cruelty at one of the plants he inspected (“Emails Suggest Vermont Meat Inspector Knew About Bushway Abuse,” Andy Bromage, Seven Days, March 24, 2010). So the more animals we Vermont farmers slaughter on-farm, the better. Our chief meat inspector has misrepresented federal law, allegedly ignored animal cruelty that included skinning a calf alive, and then has the nerve to suggest that small farmers cannot be trusted to take good care of our animals and so we need him to oversee us. (“The rules are for the safety of meat that’s to be sold, Mr. Quenneville said. ‘If you’re going to allow this, the whole point is to know your farmer, to know your food.'” “Irasburg Farmer Challenges State,” Tena Starr, The Barton Chronicle, March 23, 2016). Customers can know their farmer just as well whether they buy a half or a whole animal: the artificial distinction created by VAAFM hurts small businesses – and animals – without any rational justification.
It’s time the Vermont small farmers and their consumers had a say in what happens at the Statehouse. The Legislature supposedly drafts our laws, but the VAAFM has its fingerprints all over this legislation. Either way, our animals depend on us to fight for their rights. I have two newborn calves this week, and I do not want them skinned alive. And “skinned alive” appears to be what our government has planned for our local custom processors and itinerant slaughterers, who are having their businesses skewered by absurd and indefensible government regulations. Montpelier must reconnect with the foundation of Vermont: its small farmers.
