Michigan Right to Farm Law, what does it mean?

[wingless]

The Commissioners are appointed by the Governor, and the next vote is November.

In Snyder's defense, he appointed Dru Montri, who is the only Commissioner who voted to oppose these changes.

On the other hand, all of these issues with the GAAMPs being used to deny Right to Farm protection have happened on his watch - first with the change to the GAAMPs Preface in 2012, and now with these changes to the 2014 Site Selection GAAMPs. Not to mention the issue with the DNR Invasive Species Order, and its affect on small pig farmers in Michigan. That also happened under Snyder.

 

[mcbeers]

I seriously want to know when the next vote is for their positions....

Unfortunately they are appointed by the governor.
http://www.michigan.gov/mdard/0,4610,7-125-1572_2878-8251--,00.html

 

[RaZ]

I seriously want to know when the next vote is for their positions....

Since they are appointed by the sitting governor and serve a two-year term the only way to get new blood on the commission is with a new governor. Also note that the MDARD director is also an appointed position.

And this is an election year!

 

[fuzzybutt love]

I guess the governer should have paid us more attention......

 

[RTFchickens]

I just had an idea! Lets ring it in! Lets do what we do best, support, organize, and advocate! Lets all keep MDARD's phones ringing! We can spread the word to our customers, friends, family, and for those on FB, maybe organize there too? Lets give them what they asked for in the meeting, public comment. They said that they "had to vote today, it couldn't be delayed" but they claimed that they could go back and change it later. So lets do what we can to encourage them to change it.
Does anyone agree or disagree with this idea? Having everyone possible call and voice their concern?
I don't think it could hurt...

 

[JackieandChicks]

I just had an idea! Lets ring it in! Lets do what we do best, support, organize, and advocate! Lets all keep MDARD's phones ringing! We can spread the word to our customers, friends, family, and for those on FB, maybe organize there too? Lets give them what they asked for in the meeting, public comment. They said that they "had to vote today, it couldn't be delayed" but they claimed that they could go back and change it later. So lets do what we can to encourage them to change it.
Does anyone agree or disagree with this idea? Having everyone possible call and voice their concern?
I don't think it could hurt...

And we need that recording to show what some of these people think of the small farmer. How is that going?

 

[RTFchickens]

I have the recording on YouTube. I can't seem to link it here though. Can you PM me an email address, and I can forward it to you?

 

[Mustaq Varish]

Just sent to the Governor...Debbie Stabenow is next. A word to the wise...create your comments in some off-line word processor like notepad or MS Word etc. When you go through the online comments submission web pages often used to contact your politicians, it's easy then to just cut & paste onto the web page and get them submitted.

Governor Snyder...time to check in on your AG Department Commissioners. Only Dru had the integrity to vote her conscience related to MDAARD's recent GAAMPs changes. Shame on the department for pulling the rug of protection from under residents feet related to the Michigan Right to Farm Act. They have made criminals overnight of thousands of small farmers in the state with plenty of lawsuits to follow. Even Debbie Stabenow was here last month telling us about the renewed interest in urban agriculture lately and without developing grandfathering clauses or giving individual municipalities time to create their own plans to offer and promote urban and suburban farming guidelines, your commissioners have just set us all back to 1981. With melamine and PBBs in the milk, Mad Cow Disease and e-coli in our C.A.F.O. provided beef, fecal matter in factory chicken, contaminated spinach at the salad bar and now the swine die-off from an Asian disease, caring Michigan citizens want the right to create their own healthy food where they live. The sensible thing to do was to leave well-enough alone until a new set of guidelines could be developed for small scale farming. Instead, big agribusiness had their way with your commission to the detriment of those of us that want none of their detritus for dinner. I could tell Dru was having a hard time going against the vote of her counterparts. Don't be surprised if she leaves for a job where she can feel good about the things she's been supporting in the rest of her career. The rest of those folks are shills for the industry and sell-outs to the mission they've sworn an oath to uphold. Debbie Stabenow won't be happy to have to bring this message back to D.C. either.

 

[Mustaq Varish]

I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer here JackieandChicks but we've already given them a thousand communications in the way of emails and written mail about how we feel. I seriously think that one commissioner had the gall to be soliciting calls from THE OTHER SIDE of the fence. He wants a log of telephone calls from people who are troubled by the distance changes 1/4 mile to 1/8 mile in that other GAAMP. They already know full-well how we feel about the siting GAAMP. I mean what...a thousand in support of keeping it and 23 against? I believe they considered the input from Farm Bureau insurance as carrying the day. Lump those guys in with CAFOs and Agribusiness. We are only taking money from their pockets when we try to feed ourselves quality food. Still, in defense of the reasonable comments from the one guy...backyard farmers really do need a set of guidelines that keeps us from being bad neighbors. Fairly easy to establish however. If your animals stink, your municipality already has way to get you to stop making stink "regardless of the source", if the problem is noise...same deal. If your neighbor's allowed to have four St. Bernards that each dump 2 pounds of poop in their backyard and this goes on over an unattended weekend in the middle of August with humid weather and no breeze, the "funk constant" could be said to equal 100. If that's tolerable, find out how many chicken or bee hive equivalent units are need to produce the same amount of excrement and call it a day. Assuming 24 pounds of bee poop smells as bad as canine caca you've just reached the magic number. If manure is the problem, your neighbor will be asked to clean it up and keep it clean, not get rid of his dogs. Why can people have some doo-doo producing animals and not others? Most people don't even eat their dogs so there's no benefit to humanity there. One thing we DO need to do is unify. Right now there are too many different avenues for communication and you know they use that against us. Time and time again it's "divide and conquer". We are still in the minority. The vast majority of Michiganders will eat the cheap unhealthy stuff that's being subsidized with OUR tax dollars without a whimper. Until we get more folks OUTRAGED about this we're basically pissing into the wind.

 

[Mustaq Varish]

Just sent to Karl Levin...He's a big "neonicotinoid" denier and I've been going round & round with him. He doesn't think they are harmful to insects...

Mr. Levin...no need to be concerned about neonicotinoids any longer. The Michigan AG department just adopted changes that made criminals of thousands of backyard beekeepers so those hives will soon be gone by one act of humanity or another. Thanks for your attention. P.S. I really wished I could have got some of that free money from the USDA last month but alas I live in an urbanized area. That's ok, some of the folks who qualified for the free cash will be sending it right back since they can't legally keep their hives anymore anyway...yeah right..

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2014/02/0028.xml