It has been discouraging the past number of years with all the reports of how the government is making things harder for small farmers and is supporting the big factory farms. We have some good news. Maryland Department of Agriculture is developing a certification and inspection program that will enable small farms to process chickens and rabbits and sell them to stores, restaurants and at farmers markets. Currently farmers are only allowed to sell chickens and turkeys to the end user at the farm under the Federal exemption. Several of us attended the processing training course on May 6. I was impressed with how they are going out of their way to make things as easy as possible for us to be certified. They are looking for ways to keep our costs as low as possible. The requirements are very reasonable and are basically what we have been doing already.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture is recognizing the demand for locally produced food and is helping you to be able to get it. A new law was also recently passed that reduces the permits and costs for farmers selling at farmers markets.

The next question is, when will we start selling chickens in the stores? We do not know. We are not sure if that is a direction that we want to go or not. We are currently selling eggs in eight stores in Maryland. To sell chickens even to one store would mean significantly increasing our production as well as processing one day a week rather than just once a month. Processing chickens is the least fun job and it is hard work. We are not sure at this point if we want to take on the additional work that would be required to sell to the stores.