The tough thing about Cottage Food laws

A number of states including Michigan have "Cottage Food" laws on the books. Designed to provide farmers with a way to generate additional income by selling certain foods that can safely be made in home kitchens without commercial certification. In Michigan these include jams, jellies and baked goods. The law requires specific labeling and disclosure that the product was made in a kitchen that wasn't certified by the powers that be. So far so good.

The challenge comes from the fact that anyone can create product under this law and sell it through the approved channels - most likely farmers markets. And in speaking today with a Market Manager from a nearby community, the unintended consequence is that they are being overwhelmed with folks who are now baking cookies or muffins or making Aunt Sallie's jam and so they are having to turn away lots of interested sellers. Having 10 vendors at a market selling chocolate chip cookies - no matter how good - doesn't benefit the market and it doesn't benefit the vendors.

Small scale agriculture is challenging on a good day. It's too bad that this positively intended law may not be helping as much as it might have been hoped.

Michigan - the other agricultural state

Unless you are from around here (the mid-midwest) I suspect that the idea of Michigan being an agricultural state doesn't come to mind as quickly as the images of snow, auto industry or, perhaps, Motown sound. But agricultural it has long been and still is.

In a three-day series of articles I briefly profile the state's farming heritage, talk with three couples committed to the more rural life, growing and using local ingredients, and look at the future of small scale agriculture on the SimpleGoodandTasty website starting Tuesday, February 15. It was great fun to write and I hope you enjoy reading it!

The Migrant Project

A friend forwarded a blog post to me yesterday that had in it - almost hidden away - a link to an exhibit in California about migrant workers. This is a group of people who are not often in most people's consciousness, yet they are a key link between the food in the ground and the food on the table.

Michigan used to have a large migrant worker population, but over the years that declined as the nature of growing food in Michigan changed. I suspect the crops that workers worked on have disappeared, been automated or other changes have occurred, resulting in far fewer individuals and families making the annual trip to Michigan to care for and harvest the most important thing we grow - food.

While the exhibit relates to workers half a continent away, I suspect that the story has relevance here as well. Take a look at The Migrant Project - it may change the way you look at food...