Dear Friend,
Back in June I wrote to you and mentioned top concerns raised by our members in response to our spring survey, including continued work on policy and the lack of access to adequate meat processing. Which reminds me, take another look at our PRIME Act action alerts HERE and take action now! Congress is in session and considering this important bill right now.
Developments at FTCLDF:
I’d like to let you know what we are planning; see below. In response to the survey, members request that FTCLDF:
- Update our maps with the most current information: we are diligently working on reviewing them and will post changes in the near future. This includes both the raw milk map and the custom slaughter map. Following these reviews we’ll be taking another look at our poultry processing and cottage food maps as well.
- Focus more on preventive efforts rather than reactive representation. A related suggestion was to provide more location-specific information on laws and regulations. We hear you. FTCLDF works with members to establish herdshare agreements and meatshare agreements to ensure that members are operating their farm businesses well rather than reacting to problems. We will be posting resources soon on federal rules concerning meat, dairy, poultry and Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requirements. It is a challenge that states and local governments have their own rules as well, and we are working to put together more general resources regarding what to look for to assist our members before there are alleged problems. And of course, we are still here when problems do arise! We’ve got your back.
- Increase in information and educational programming: we are so excited to be increasing our work in this area! In May we were lucky to host Charlotte Smith’s webinar on farm marketing. On July 2, we offered a webinar with Mike Fisher on poultry processing, and on August 18, 2020, we will host a free webinar for everyone and anyone regarding raw butter. In addition, we plan to post updates soon on changes in FMSA, along with more educational postings. We are also working to open our members’ only corner of the website, where members will be able to access past webinars and view more in-depth articles and legal information.
For more information and responses to specifics raised in the member surveys, please check out our latest post HERE.
Thank you for all you do to work towards a healthy sustainable food system.
In good health,
Alexia Kulwiec
Executive Director |
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