Small farmers are under attack in the state of Oregon, which has begun shutting down family farms throughout the state en masse under the guise of water conservation and groundwater protection.
Yanasa TV, a project of Yanasa Ama Ranch shared a roughly 20-minute video – you can watch it below – explaining what is going on in the Beaver State as bureaucrats erroneously dub small family farms as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, in order to shut them down “for the environment.”
“The state of Oregon has effectively shut down small farms and market gardens on a large scale, and they’re actually sending out cease-and-desist letters to farms and they’re using satellite technology to find their victims and send them these letters that say you can’t operate,” the rancher in the video below explains
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Small farms aren’t CAFOs
The rancher explains that there are two different laws that Oregon officials are using to conduct these shutdowns. One involves the state of Oregon’s broadly vague definition of a CAFO, which reads, in part, as follows:
“The State of Oregon defines CAFOs as the concentrated feeding or holding of animals or poultry, including but not limited to horse, cattle, sheep, or swine feeding areas, dairy confinement areas, and poultry and egg production facilities where the surface has been prepared with concrete, rock or fibrous material to support animals in wet weather.”
Based on this definition, a few-acre homestead with pasture and, say, two milking cows and some chickens qualifies as a CAFO if it has any area on the property where rock or gravel is used as a pathway to get to a small barn or coop.
“The way that they have redefined CAFOs is going to impact nearly everybody,” the rancher warns about Oregon’s “updated” CAFO definition, which impacts his property as well. “Even on our property, we don’t have animals that are necessarily contained in one area (they’re roaming on pastures).”
Back in January of this year, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of small family farms throughout Oregon, arguing that the definition of a CAFO is too broad and negatively impacts pretty much anyone who produces eggs from backyard chickens, no matter the size of their property.
The case was recently covered by National Review, explaining that Oregon’s government “joined forces” with the large-scale dairy industry to oppress and tyrannize Oregon’s small farmers.
“This law is being enforced in the state of Oregon,” the rancher warns, telling the same story as National Review about Godspeed Hollow Farm in Newburg, Ore., which has been reclassified as a CAFO simply because it has a gravel pathway from the milking machine to the pickup station just 100 feet in distance.
“[Oregon] has already shut down some farms. There is an injunction on some of the definition of the law until it can be heard in court. Currently small dairy farmers … a lot of what they’re requiring is simply too much for the small farmer.”
All Oregon groundwater, even on private property, considered public
Another thing Oregon farmers are having to deal with is the state’s rules on water. The only water that farmers are legally allowed to collect in Oregon is rainwater. Everything else, including water from rivers and streams, and even groundwater on private property, is considered a public resource.
Because of this rule, Oregon farmers are not even allowed to use water from their own private wells to irrigate their crops and hydrate their animals without a permit. Coupled with the CAFO rule, this one concerning water use is being abused in such a way as to make it prohibitive, if not impossible, for farmers to run their farms.
“This rule went into place back in 2021,” the rancher explains about how Oregon officials enacted the water rule, which just so happens to have happened at a time when everyone was being distracted and traumatized by Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “pandemic” tyranny.
“It has slowly rolled out to the point where market gardeners on a half-acre of land are now receiving cease-and-desist orders saying, ‘you can’t water your gardens; figure out another way.’”
The obvious goal in all this is to concentrate even more power and control over the food market into the hands of just a wealthy few while depriving small farmers of their livelihoods and incomes – not to mention their God-given right to grow, produce, consume, and yes, sell, the fruit of their labor for sustenance.
Be warned that if this kind of thing can happen in Oregon, it can happen everywhere. The tyranny usually starts in one area as a test case, and if the general public does not resist, it spreads like a virus elsewhere.
Americans, no matter what state they live in, have a constitutional right to food freedom.