This bill has NOTHING to do with socialism and EVERYTHING to do with capitalism. The profits of big agriculture are written all over this bill. I've spent weeks 'dissecting' every word in the bill and researching the co sponsors and the wretched politicians that wrote it , you should do the same. It does in fact impact farmers markets or any vegetable that is sold or meant for human consumption. It makes all growers comply with industry regulations ie insect control/pest nematodes,bacterial disease control and on and on. It hardly impacts the current agriculture monopolies and impacts the small farmers that don't have the resources to comply with regulations. Tom Vilsak (one of the bills authors) is heavily in favor of large industrial farms and genetically modified crops. Political spin confuses people, it is not about socialism per say , if we want to be intellectually honest HR 875 was born out of corporate monopolies infiltrating Washington with their money and influence. This bill is capitalism out of control,paradoxically the profit motive of corporate monopolies is behind this bill. They see the threat of small farmers and back yard growers and they want to stop it. This is all about $ business $....thats capitalism for you.

Our farmers Market is a year- round indoor market. for the farmers it is a growers only market with a wide variety of meats eggs vegetables fruit and one dairy then we have food vendors that make fresh from scratch foods ethnic foods , breads and other bake goods, homemade pimento cheese, salsa ,granola etc. We have 2 free trade coffee and 1 tea vendor. Then we have craft/art vendors everything from earrings,aprons and clothing, knitted items, pottery, metal sculpture, photography, candles , soap, Homemade cleaning etc these are hand made items. This works for our market- making it the place to be on Saturday mornings. Customers can eat breakfast sip coffee talk with friends and get almost everything on there shopping list from local vendors instead of heading to "Walmart" . It is nothing like a flea market either! Being a year round market the non farm vendors help keep the market going all winter. After all how many people think about going to a farmers market after the summer is ended. We (with season extention) we are able to sell till at least Jan. but if we didn't have other vendors we wouldn't have enough farmers to draw people there in the fall winter months. I think we help each other not hurt. During the summer when berries and produce are plentyful people are there to buy fresh produce first and may buy craft items if they are buying for a special occasion and during the late fall folks are thnking about holiday shopping and come for the crafts and then realize there is fresh produce still avalable. Most of our farmers have tried to come up with craft type or value added items we can sell for holiday shoppers too.

Actually it is total business sense if this market was in an uban area. I live in one and go to them but they are totally different than a farm market that sells in bulk. They are not selling to people who put up produce, they are trying to get repeat customers who come in every week to buy a little of this and that for the table. If you want produce to put up, go directly to the farm, or establish a relationship with one of the farmers, call ahead and they will bring in extra to deliver to you. I do this when I want produce for canning. Or, there are actually produce auctions where farmers take the stuff they can't sell as top grade, and that's where you can get some buys if there is a glut. That's the way to put up food economically. You can also buy stuff at a greengrocer although that stuff will almost always be from the west, south or Mexico. Could be good, could not be good, depends on the growing conditions in that part of the country and the shipping circumstances. I imagine it is different in rural parts of the country like where Annie lives and where I was brought up, although it is getting harder and harder to find farms where they grow in bulk, particularly if you want organic. Perhaps a CSC, but urban organic farms are usually small because they are near the urban areas, and they survive by charging prices the upscale urbanites will pay. I'm sure that's what she meant by a "fair" price. The upscale price is probably a 400% markup, but that's the price you pay for farm fresh brought to you in the city. To pay less, you have to go to the farms. Yes, it is tragi-comic, and it does concern me that we have come so far away from basic sustenance. Less than 3% of the population is involved in agriculture and even that figure may drop when the present generation dies out. I imagine it is rather disconcerting when you're idea of a farm market is trucks filled with just picked stuff. Nowdays, the best business plan for a fruit or vegetable farmer is to grow specialty crops, and to sell chi chi varieties in small batches to those who can pay. However, many of the folks I know are more than happy to sell to you for preserving if you let them know what's going on and they can make arrangements outside of the market scene. As a side note, some friends of mine joined a CSA and started to get suspicious when their produce allotment every week looked so carpy, and yet when they went to the farm the stuff in the fields looked pretty good. As it went, the farmer was taking the best stuff to the city farm markets where they could get top dollar for it, and giving the leftovers to the CSA members. It's very hard to come up with a great business model in farming, there are so mnay variables that are almost impossible to predict and control.

Soapbox here - Tomatoes grown in hoop houses (or green houses, hot houses) or grown hydroponically can easily be ready in June and can be considered locally grown. Perfectly shaped because they can be manipulated sun-wise with grow lights to get the right light all they way around - different than open field grown, and are bug/virus/critter free. Why they are not quite ripe depends on when they are picked. If a Market is on Saturday they have to be picked Wed to Fri. If they are perfectly ripe on Tuesday they will be mush on Saturday. I have also watched people pick up every single fresh tomato of 200 or so on a table, turn each one over, inspect it, put it down, then walk away. Figure 100 people doing that per hour and that poor ripe tomato is mush. Under ripe are sturdier. Just saying. On the subject of "perfect" - a question I'd like to put to my customers who want their piece of pie "perfect" I should ask (but I am too polite) - "Are you going to photograph it or eat it"? Homemade is not picture perfect because a machine didn't make it!!!!! Same for produce. A few shot holes in beet greens do not make them less tasty, a wriggly carrot might just be a lot sweeter than a perfectly straight one, an asymmetrical potato grown in a field 10 miles away tastes better than a perfect one shipped from Idaho 2,000 miles away and chemically treated to not sprout so you get to eat that stuff too. As for "locally grown", please ask the farmer where his/her farm is. But, 75 miles is acceptable for my Market which means my 7B can easily be almost zone 8 and a full four weeks earlier in warmth then here! It's OK for me. Ask if you could visit their farm, to drive-by, not inspect. Ask the Market Manager if they visit their vendor's farms to verify where the produce they offer comes from. If they don't it means that the Market is a free-for-all. Produce could be shipped in from China or Brazil or Mexico - not local but selling locally. We have a State Farmers Market and before it opens the sales people line up in the way back to buy bushels of produce that were grown all over the State - mostly by high production commercial farms, not mom and pop ones. Those behind the table taking your money may never have set foot on a farm - they are just employees and what they offer is exactly the same as what the grocery store offers, they get it from the same commercial farms. So, local is relative - it only means from the State of NC to that Market here. If you find a local Market vendor who is the farmer (as my Market verifies) then bypass the grocery store with the perfect-perfect produce and buy the slightly imperfect from your Market. We can't grow rhubarb, lemons, or bananas in NC. If your Market has vendors offering things that don't grow in your State, then go to the grocery store. Donna - I am with you. Importing food and eliminating local farming with the lost knowledge of how-to farm puts our food supply at risk, just like Venezuela. 80% of small farms have disappeared. Here is the reality of farming in the US. Farming Changes in US And, here is why: Small Farms - Young People Not Interested When was the last time you heard some little one say they wanted to grow up to be a farmer? I support the farm vendors at my Market for their small local farm products whose prices are higher than the grocery store.