While We Weren't Looking

The federal government has reached into our lives through continuing excessive regulation for a while now, but it seems that lately it has gone into over-drive. We are all (most of us, anyway) lamenting the law that forces us to use mercury light bulbs in our homes, but there is so much more and more far reaching things coming at us. The Department of Transportation is now proposing new requirements for commercial drivers licenses for farmers. Think that this won't affect you unless you farm? Think again...

In our area, crushed by an extreme drought, farmers are being stopped and ticketed if they have more than four head of cattle in the trailer they are pulling behind their pickups. That means that it is much more difficult to move cattle from one pasture to another, as well as moving them to the sales. There are record numbers of stock now being sold because they can't be fed. I will be selling all but about 5 head of my own cattle in the coming weeks.

Don't forget the new clean air standards...if you plow a field, or if the wind blows (that never happens in the plains...duh) you are in violation of the level of allowed particulates according to the new standards. And they still haven't given up entirely on the idea of taxing livestock because of the methane they produce.

And don't forget the new food safety law...that gives the FDA the power to reach right into your back yard garden, if they so choose.

The end result of all this...well, I hope you like all those frankenfoods produced by the big corporate farms. These regulations will make family farms and small produce farms impossible to run. The small farms care about what they produce, because they eat it too. It matters what my cattle eat, because I butcher our own. The folks that sell local produce at the farmers market care about the pesticides and fertilizers they use, because they consume the same stuff they are selling.

At the end of the article I posted below, it notes that the comment period for this idiocy is open until Monday. I don't know where to go and leave my comment, but I will be looking. I ask everyone who enjoys eating to go tell these morons to just crawl back into their holes! Otherwise, if you live in an urban area, maybe you should start swapping recipes for how to cook concrete. At least there will be plenty of that where you live...

New federal license law stirring up controversy

By: Dylan Wohlenhaus, WDAY Wolverton, MN

A new federal law proposal is stirring up controversy in the farm land. The Department of Transportation is considering commercial drivers licenses for anyone who drives a tractor, pulls a cattle trailer and drives a farm licensed semi. It would also regulate hours worked in a week. That could make it a lot tougher to hire farm help and harvest crop.

All you need is a regular driver’s license to drive tractors like these now. Long haul semi drivers and bus drivers go through vigorous testing that can cost hundreds of dollars. And the new regulation could mean farmers would have to work less and couldn't hire hands as easy as they can now.

Farming isn't a job, or just a paycheck for many around here. It's a way of life, and that's no different for Kit Nichol.

Kit Nichol – Longtime Family Farmer: "Being a part of something like a harvest, it’s just exciting. It’s just fun."

She and her family have farmed for more than 20 years. Their kids grew up driving tractors, and if help was needed, they would hire on someone else. But that may change.

Nichol: "How many people get hit by a tractor in a year? If your standing in the way in the middle of the field maybe. But it’s just something that makes a whole lot of nonsense."

A new regulation proposed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association would require everyone who drives a tractor, pulls a cattle trailer and drives a farm registered semi to get a commercial drivers license. But that’s not where it ends. Commercial drivers also need to pay highway use taxes and limit hours worked in a week-Possibly meaning an end to the late night harvest.

Doug Goehring – Ag Commissioner: “This is insane. You start limiting the time they can work and what they can do, I guess the next question is how much do you want to pay for food?”

Farmers and ag experts say limiting hours, tracking miles and searching for CDL certified help would deal a huge blow to family farms like the Nichols near Wolverton.

Nichol: "That it’s just one more form of regulation trying to control people and really make everything more expensive."

The regulation proposal is open for public comment until Monday.