A recent rule change in Massachusetts has made many existing barns and animal pens illegal -- and the local health department has been enforcing this rule and prohibiting people from using their barns and fields to raise animals.
King County, Washington has the same sort of rule. You can't keep pigs less than 100' from any property line, which has meant that people with less than 2 or 3 acres usually cannot keep pigs.
Business wise, it's been a mixed bag for me. It has put a lot of 2 and 3 sow small producers out of business, but it's also meant that customers who would normally have purchased a couple of weaners in the spring don't because of concern over fines or enforcement action. So the supply goes down, and so does the demand.
that in turn means a smaller income from the local custom slaughter and custom cut-and-wrap shops, and that's infrastructure that I really must have to keep going.
Any time a town makes a change like this and discourages agriculture it makes it just that much harder for everyone else to continue.
You'll find the full story here.
Thanks to SteveP for the story.
5 weeks ago
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1 comment:
I am so glad I don't liver there since we only have just over an acre. My pigs have a large pen though. I remember asking my neighbor when she bought the property beside her what they had used a tiny little barbed wire pen for. She said those people had a pig in it. It was like 3 ft by 5 ft. I was disgusted but I am not sure why you would need two or three acres to raise a couple pigs.
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