In my opinion one of the biggest hurdles for many food producers
is the harsh reality of conforming to a system that requires an exhaustive
amount of labelling effort.
This puts many people off for good reason. If you’re a small
producer you’ll be familiar with the fact that you’ll spend more time ticking
all the bureaucratic boxes than you will actually making the product. And what
for, just so some Gov or council wonk gets their arse covered for the
possibility that something might go wrong.
At the very heart of all this red tape is a desire to
distance the possibility of litigation against those who rubber-stamp such endeavours
and consequently they make it more and more difficult to get an idea or product
off the ground as a result. In fact it actively discourages people and just adds to the homogeny of our food choices which
are conveniently provided by, guess who, big food.
The irony is not lost on me when big food is given permission
NOT to declare what’s in their products. I mean what’s with that!
So small artisan producers must comply by revealing every
gram of an ingredient but many commercial big food products don’t have to divulge
that they might be GM or not?
You’ve got to question the motivation that our governing
bodies have in their efforts to squeeze out producers on the fringe and mire
them in red-tape? Is it too long a bow to draw to suggest that they’ve got
their snouts in the trough also?
This whole self-congratulatory Food-bowl talk is a load of
bullshit without meaningful encouragement from Government, just another sound-bite,
smile for the camera’s Kodak-moment.
2 comments:
AAAARGH! That's all I can say.
Bloody hell, I've just been told if I let my flock of 20 birds get any bigger I'll have to register as a primary producer and fulfill a squillion requirements, buy equipment, build sheds, undertake training. I've already had to apply for a temporary food outlet licence to sell vegetables. Things that grow, that people take home, wash and eat. How are they dangerous?
And my tame chef dreams of value adding some of our produce, how many hours of paperwork there?
My ideal, sustainable, micro farm business would have eggs, vegetables, fruit, honey, preserves and dried goods form our plot for sale at the farmer's market. My chooks eat weeds and pests and pay for supplementary feed with their delicious, rich, golden eggs. And isn't that what people want to buy? But every link in that chain would have to be labelled, packaged and certified within an inch of it's life. Which is unsustainable. Environmentally and socially (ie, it is doing my head in).
Screw it all, I'm going to become an anarchist, sell contraband eggs, and maybe even carrots with damp earth still on them. And make moonshine, because, frankly, now I need a drink.
Hi Paulette, Thanks for reading and commenting. Your frustration is shared by many people who get to a similar point where so many hurdles are placed in their path that they feel like giving up. I hope for our sake that you and they dont.
The whole regulatory thing seems to be an effective way to put people off, collect revenue, exercise control over those that do persist and coral the rest of us into being the consumptive and compliant sheep that big food expects us to behave like.
However, it make take many acts of civil disobedience to bring about change. Buying un-pasteurized milk, deemed only fit for 'bathing in' for instance. Or expanding your chook population-we are in the country fro crissakes! And maybe even doing things on the sly?
Crikey Tasmanians have been brewing sly grog, distilling liquor, pinching seafood and killing their own meat for years-so why not just take up that mantle and continue a proud tradition?
Post a Comment