How are Small Farms Coping with the Food Safety Modernization Act?

Blame the looming loss of ethanol subsidies. Blame the controversial Food Safety Modernization Act (thanks, Obama). Blame Monsanto, chemtrails, or whatever your conspiracy theory of choice happens to be.
In 2016 America, farmers have less security than they enjoyed in generations past, and many say the Obama administration’s policies are a big part of the problem. While the FSMA was meant to be a proactive solution to occasional food-borne illness outbreaks, countless farmers say it’s putting constricting regulations on small and new farms.
?I can think of no other set of regulations that is going to discourage new farmers from getting started and existing farmers from scaling up than the FSMA rules. The results could be horrific for the advancement of a sustainable food system and do little if anything to reduce deleterious pathogens in our food supply,” wrote Rebecca Thistlethwaite, a farmer and writer for LocalHarvest.com, which connects small farms with local buyers.
If there’s one thing the mainstream media loves more than reporting about Donald Trump, it’s Chicken Little-style stories. In reality, the fate of America’s farm land isn’t quite so dire as it’s often made out to be. Farm realtors report that ranches, farms and agricultural land for sale has been attracting major investment from Wall Street titans over the past five years.
America still has an insatiable appetite for meat, and new organic and farm-to-table movements have created new markets for American farmers. Now, farm realtors report that many entrepreneurial farmers have found another way to make money off their land. No, they aren’t putting their farm lots for sale.
All over the country, farmers and landowners are discovering they can increase their income by converting some of their land into solar or wind power generators. In fact, many farm lots for sale are sitting on prime spots for wind towers and solar panels, and instead of selling, many farmers are leasing their land to energy companies.
On farms in the Great Plains and American West, countless farmers have earned extra income after striking oil and letting an oil company build a rig on their land. It’s a low-risk, high reward venture, and now the same thing is happening with wind and solar. Increasingly, many ranch and farm realtors are factoring in this revenue potential when determining the value of farm real estate for sale.