Right to Farm Being Stripped from Citizens: Michigan can Now Ban Animals in Backyards
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Imagine being threatened with jail time for teaching your children how to grow vegetables in the backyard garden. How about the Department of National Resources (DNR) forcing you to shoot all your pigs because they are the wrong ‘race’? This was already an unbelievable reality in the state of Michigan prior to the latest news reported by the state’s public radio station: now as a further assault on human rights and sovereignty, Michigan has ruled that local governments can now ban any animal they desire from small family farms. This means that in backyards or small acreages, they can ban chickens, bee-keeping, goat herding, and more, in a time when ‘real’ food scarcity is at an all time-high.
The criminalization of small farming is beyond an affront to the rights outlined in the Constitution. Even wild animals have a God-given right to sustain themselves.
Off The Grid News commented on this development:
“Some homesteaders in Michigan could find themselves in a complete regulatory limbo because of the Commission’s action. Blogger, writer and organic farmer Michelle Regalado Deatrick does not know if she’ll be able to keep her livestock, because about half of her 80-acre farm may not be zoned for farm animals.
‘We’re building up a mixed production farm, planning to farm during retirement, and we have a permit in hand for a livestock facility,’ Deatrick said, ‘…Now we’re having to reconsider our business plans and may sell the farm and buy a farm in a more rural area with definite [Right To Farm] protection, or move to another state that’s more welcoming and protective of small farm rights.'”
Read: Couple Forced to Dig up 17-Year-Old Organic Garden
These attacks are not just happening in Michigan, though. People across the country are being targeted any time they grow their own food, set up water catchment systems that would allow them to unplug from municipal water supplies, or try to carry out practically and self-sustaining perogative. One woman in Oklahoma recently suffered the complete destruction of her medicinal herb landscaping by local city officials who raided her home garden while she was away. Another woman’s fight to go off the grid in Cape Coral, Florida, went so viral that even Fox news had to report on it.
“Cape Coral needs to be afraid of me. I’m not afraid of them,” said Robin Speronis. This was her stance when the city had posted a notice to vacate on her home because of her off-the-grid lifestyle.
Our heritage and culture are intertwined with small local farms. This isn’t just an attack on the small farm; its an attack on food security. If our grid went down, no one could harvest, transport, and eat the food which is grown commercially in Big Ag style, but small, local farms could still produce food without electricity.
If your city or state agencies tell you can’t own livestock or grow your own vegetables, I urge you to fight back. This is absolute tyranny.
| Christina Sarich is a humanitarian and freelance writer helping you to Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and See the Big Picture. Her blog is Yoga for the New World. Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga. |
