Home Slaughter Laws

[MarkEinOz]

Hi Folks,

Not that I am a particularly bureaucratic respecter of laws and regulations, but I would like to figure out what the current regulations say about home processing of critters. I suspect that some animals have no regulations as they just don't blip on the government radar eg quails, but the land animals must surely.

Can anyone please point me to the appropriate resources available, as I cant seem to find them just at the minute?

[GaryD]

Hi Mark,

I've found, that on the matter of home processing of poultry and other micro-livestock, discretion is the best course of action.

I'm of the view that growing and processing your own food is a right....and, since it affects only me and my family and there is no public interest issue.......I'm not about to do anything which hands control of that ability to an external agency.

Conduct yourself in an hygienic manner and ensure that your neighbours' interests are respected by avoiding any ****** spectacles and by disposing of all waste in an appropriate manner.

Headless chooks doing laps of your backyard or the smell of rotting viscera will attract your local shire inspector like a rat up a drainpipe. Come to think of it, the sight of a rat up the drainpipe will attract the inspector, too.

Gary

[MarkEinOz]

Hi Gary,


Yes, that follows my usual modus operandi of "better to ask forgiveness than permission"

I do know however that we are starting to follow the well intentioned but but fraught with food security disaster of having all ruminant livestock ear tagged before sale. We cannot sell even 1 of our sheep without them being traceable to our farm and the year of birth. On the face of it, it is a good thing to help prevent OJD and other nasties from spreading, but the costs associated aren't insignificant and if you are a hobby farmer (sorry lifestyle farmer) then there is very little incentive to sell a few extra lambs off.

The bigger picture here is that by its very nature, these programs will slowly dry up local meat sources (in a village market kind of way), and you are then forced to only buy from the distributors, instead of from your local farmer and butcher as a co-op as we always have. A slippery slope indeed.

[GaryD]

Hi Mark,

I empathise with your concerns about selling ruminants and other four legged animals. I presume that you can keep un-tagged livestock so long as you only want to eat them yourselves.....a small blessing I guess.

One of the issues is that microfarmers are not (yet) politically organised. If all of the microfarmers in Australia banded together, they would have the political clout to counter the anti-competitive business practices of the agribusiness lobby because they would have become that which politicians fear most........a large group of cause-motivated voters.

I like the way that microfarmers are organised in Europe where they are encouraged to add value to the commodities that they produce....so that small sheep, goat, cattle or pig farmers become cheese-makers, specialty sausage-makers or bacon producers. Similarly, small grape-growers make and sell their own wine and vegetable growers are encouraged to add value to their produce to allow them to avoid the commodity marketing trap.

There are also many manufacturers of small-scale specialised equipment suited to the production efforts of these microfarmers.

But first we need to get politcally organised......

In the meantime, we're fortunate that you can't ear tag quail or fish.....and keeping track of soldier fly larvae or worms would confound the most pedantic of agriculture industry bureaucrats.

Gary

[MarkEinOz]

In the meantime, we're fortunate that you can't ear tag quail or fish.....and keeping track of soldier fly larvae or worms would confound the most pedantic of agriculture industry bureaucrats.

Gary

Dont think that they wont try - what with King Kevo trying to stop cows from ****ing, do you think that there is any frontier they wont try to conquer!!!


On a side note, if they outlawed lot feeding, it would a be a major health improver for both cows and us the consumers. 100% grain fed ruminants are extremely poorly treated and treats there ruminations with contempt (sorry - really really bothers me!!).

[MarkEinOz]

I do think your right though Gary about politics, and that small to micro farmers need to demand rights appropriate to their model of agri/aqua/horticulture.

There are several strong small farm organisations about, but they are mainly a front for there respective magazines that are sponsored heavy by a interest group eg alpacas etc

What we need is that voice, and a relatively uncompromising one.

I feel the beginnings of something stirring here - if even in my own self interested mind...

[GaryD]

Mark,

In Europe, farming is viewed very differently to in Australia.

Australia's farmers were historically a privileged group of people. They were the wealthy and privileged among the new arrivals in the country. They were granted huge tracts of the most productive land in the new colonies.....and the skilled convict labour that was needed to develop those holdings.

While today's farmers are far less privileged (although they have tax breaks that no other small business operator can access), they retain some of the mindsets of their forebears...particularly in terms of their conservative political affiliations.

Hundreds of thousands of European farmers are technically micro-farmers. They are politically active (to the point of rioting when the government takes a wrong turn) and their right to exist is acknowledged by politicians who (correctly is seems) would prefer to subsidise their farmers than pay unemployment benefits.

In my view, these are the only farmers who are actually deserving of subsidies.....unlike their much larger US counterparts.

Small agricultural producers are well-supported by manufacturers who make plant and equipment which allows these small enterprises to add value to the commodities that they grow. In every European country, small farmers make cheeses, wine, smallgoods and all manner of other produce.

In every traditional European backyard, food production is a cornerstone of daily life and woe betide any bureaucrat who should attempt to interfere with the process......and that's the way it should be.

Small business is the real engine room of our economy. The politicians know it.....and they capitalise on the intrinsic independence of these of small entrepreneurs.

The one thing that they really fear is the thought that small business operators should become politically organised and active......and I don't mean the limp operations that currently pass for small business associations.

We'll know that we've reached a useful point in the development of micro-enterprise when Australian micro-business operators take the argument to the Goverments in the same way that French farmers do.

If you're getting the impression that I'm passionate about micro-enterprise, you're right!......thirty years as a small business operator (and seven of those as a small business development consultant) does that for you.

Sorry, Mark you triggered a nerve.....

Gary

[djs-sa]

how small is ur parcel of land Gary???? you only have a standard house block dont you?

a smallholder eg micro farmer is bigger than the starndard house block i'm lead to believe.

[GaryD]

Hi Dale,

Where've you been? How are you and Hamish coping with the new good life?

There is no specific land area associated with the term micro-farming.... which (by definition) means farming on a small scale. Typically, micro-farmers might be anything from backyard farmers.....to urban farmers.....to hobby farmers.

My property is 3,000 square metres (about 3/4 of an acre).

Gary

[MarkEinOz]

In the US it is considered < 100 acres. But by golly you can feed an army on veggies off 100 acres!!

Here, my thoughts would be that:

upto 100 acres your a smallholding farmer.

upto 15 acres lifestyle farmer

upto 5 acres micro farmer