Drug regulation—via the FDA —works far better than the european drug approval process. In fact the europeans are attempting to replicate the process in the Eu Drug Regulatory Agency. Plenty of drugs are approved in Europe way before the US precisely because the FDA’s demands are far more stringent.

And I will repeat that Socialism is a movement of the left.

Slocum—pasteurization has been required for a long time; that can confuse matters quite a lot as all kinds of additional things get lumped in to “pasteurization requirements”. Fifty years ago, a facility to process legal-for-sale milk cost as much as 10 cows; today, it costs as much as 500 cows. Also, cheese-makers didn’t have to use pasteurized milk until the 70’s or 80’s (for cows milk) and until a couple years ago (for other milk). And enforcement matters and has been hugely stepped up—it used to be that you weren’t SUPPOSED to sell raw milk, and you couldn’t sell it in a store, but selling a few gallons to neighbors was OK.

And zoning is probably the biggest problem of all (note how much of Salatin’s complaint has to do with zoning law), and is still new in rural areas; 20 years ago, the county I grew up in had no zoning at all.

Nevertheless, farming in Europe is still ‘free-market’ and ‘profit based’ (or did I miss the part where European farms were organized into state-owned collectives?)

Slocum, reread your last sentence. You do realize your example here supports my position, not yours?

What has happened with cider pasteurization is that it is not de-jure mandated, but it is nearly de-facto mandated, and even unpasteurized cider production is much more heavily regulated than before. Many small producers, faced with the loss of outlets that will no longer sell unpasteurized cider, have shut down rather than make the expensive investment in pasteurization equipment. Others have adapted by emphasizing the ‘fall theme park’ aspect of the business (pumpkins, ponies, hay rides, etc). AFAIK, none of this was driven by the interests of big agribusiness.

Unpasteurized cider was not banned completely because there are enough people who want to go out for a drive in the fall and buy cider from small mill where they can watch it being pressed. But even so unpasteurized cider was pushed out of most retail grocers because, apart from the trip to the cider mill in the fall, most customers don’t care that much about raw cider and the grocers don’t want to take any chance of be involved in an E. coli incident.

Western Europe has done far more to preserve traditional farming practices than the US. Is that even debatable?

It’s also not the case that such regulations are introduced in the U.S. because of a lack of a tradition of craft production. For example, pasteurization recently became an issue in Apple cider production which is very often produced by small-scale producers. The tradition is there and, as I understand it, pasteurization is yet mandated

Sloum, reread your last sentence. You do realize your example here supports my position, not yours?

I doubt that—there many laws and regulations in the U.S. that provide exceptions for small businesses and family operations. Off the top of my head, for example, the ‘Family and Medical Leave Act’ applies only to companies with more than 50 employees.

But before we decide that operations like Salatini’s should be exempt, consider this:

http://www.allbusiness.com/furniture-related/office-furniture-including/760351-1.html

One of the ways that the Amish earn a living is with craft furniture manufacturing—should they be allowed to employ their children in the work? Certainly, this is a traditional way to learn a craft, but wood-working is obviously hazardous. As is farming, BTW —statistically, it’s a hazardous occupation. Do you think these regulations are unreasonable? If Salatini accepted interns, should he have to keep them away from sows with suckling pigs, off ladders, and out of grain silos:

http://www.ext.vt.edu/news/periodicals/fmu/1999-06/minorsag.html

If the government allowed farming interns of the sort Salatini wants, and no-minimum-size houses, it would be a matter of seconds before his big farming mates down the road were packing 15 year old latino farm labourers into sardine tins. It’s likely that at least some of the regulations he describes have sprung from historical experience with these things. The author describes himself as a misfit, and the reason is probably that he wants to farm naturally, give rewarding jobs to people, etc. It’s worth asking why this makes him a misfit, and how a society can function if it doesn’t regulate the people he is different from. I certainly don’t get the sense he is blaming his misfit status on the rules – he is simply pleading to be excused the rules which (maybe) are designed to protect everyone else from people who are not like the author.

But the 900 sqft house thing, and the stuff about composting toilets – that’s just madness.

Western Europe also has ‘free-market, profit-based agriculture’, no?

And milk pasteurization regulations are not some recent scourge introduced by lobbyists for big agribusiness, but were introduced 100 years ago during the progressive era:

http://ssh.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/refs/31/3/411

It’s also not the case that such regulations are introduced in the U.S. because of a lack of a tradition of craft production. For example, pasteurization recently became an issue in Apple cider production which is very often produced by small-scale producers. The tradition is there and, as I understand it, pasteurization is yet mandated, but retailers now commonly refuse to stock raw cider. I have a hard time seeing the fingerprints of big agribusiness here, for example:

http://www.aginfo.psu.edu/news/november99/cider.html

It seems to me that the simple explanation is the Europeans are more worried about industrial food practices than about ‘natural’ pathogens and for Americans, the reverse is true, and the food regulations in both places reflect those beliefs and priorities.

Very interesting article. Thanks! Most of us are probably familiar with Salatin through The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but I had never read any of his own writing before.

The piece very nicely illustrates my point—the US has heavily regulated agriculture precisely because it has free-market, profit-based agriculture. As Salatin repeatedly points out, the regulations that make no sense as applied to his farm are absolutely necessary for the massive agribusinesses that dominate the US farm sector.

Seems to me that both Henry and Crook are using “regulation” as shorthand for non-market or market-constraining institutions. When the opposite is closer to the truth.

(Of course we’ll have to wait for his research project to see how far this critique goes.)

As for regulation, product safety, anti-trust, etc—the thing is that to a great extent the same products are bought and sold, the same companies operate, the same drugs are approved, regulators in both the U.S. and E.U. have to approve the same multinational mergers and acquisitions, the airlines fly the same aircraft with the same air traffic rules and maintenance practices, and so on. Culturally, we watch a lot of the same movies and listen to the same music.

With respect to the idea that the U.S. is some sort of regulation-free zone, I thought this was interesting—you may all be familiar with it, but I hadn’t seen it before. I suppose you’d call this guy a left-libertarian?

http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Everything-Is-Illegal1esp03.htm