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homestead

Michigan Right to Farm gone now? Looking for more info

Posts: 128

Location: Detroit, Michigan

posted 6 years ago

I came across this article this morning -- http://www.inquisitr.com/1235774/michigan-loses-right-to-farm-this-week-a-farewell-to-backyard-chickens-and-beekeepers/ in which contains a link for this - http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/04/holda_change_in_rules_for_mich.html

It seems that there is some confusion.

We are preparing to move to SE Michigan with the plan of buying some acreage for a small homestead in the next few years. I'm posting here to find out if anyone has more solid info how these changes will affect homesteaders. TIA.

New to Detroit. Looking to help out with current permaculture and urban farming projects. Here is my blog from when I was an urban homesteader in Ohio but I am continuing to post about our suburban adventures in Permaculture. http://crunchymamasurbanhomestead.wordpress.com/

Jenna Sanders

Posts: 54

Location: Michigan, zone 5

posted 6 years ago

I just heard about this also, and I still have fire spewing from my ears. Once I finished planning my starvation campaign, I was able to calm down enough to talk to my brother who was able to clarify it a bit...
The way zoning works, usually, in Michigan, especially rural areas is that they won't bother you unless there is a complaint...so keeps your friends close and your enemies closer...bribe them with eggs, veggies...etc. and lay low. There is also the hold your ground act...look that one up

There are a few petitions floating around you can sign as well...
I would love to hear others input on this too...

“The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.” Robert Louis Stevenson

Sam Barber

Posts: 641

Location: Missoula Mt

posted 6 years ago

You just need to organize a protest. Get a dump truck full of cow manure and dump it right in front of the state capital!

If no one from the future comes to stop you is it really that bad of a decision?

Peter Ellis

Posts: 1526

Location: Fennville MI

posted 6 years ago

My wife and I also plan to relocate to SE Michigan and this new interpretation of the law appears to be a travesty, turning the meaning of the existing law 180 degrees.
It would take years and multiple court cases to really clarify the meaning, but my gut reaction is that it was done to please developers who want to get a foot in the door and then kick the farmers out. I also think big as supports it because it does not threaten them, but can put small farms that they are frightened of out of business.
I need to read the actual regulatory ruling and get past the press spin to try and understand it fully. But as I said, my gut feeling on it is very bad.

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allen lumley

pollinator

Posts: 4154

Location: Northern New York Zone4-5 the OUTER 'RONDACs percip 36''

I like...

posted 6 years ago

- there have to be a 1000 Petitions out there someone post the 1st link, Silly laws like this do get passed, and local neighbor hoods get together and ban
mailboxes and deny your right to dry, My rule is never live in a Town with a Stop Light, and never live in a house that you can't pee off of your
own back porch ! Big AL !

Success has a Thousand Fathers , Failure is an Orphan

LOOK AT THE " SIMILAR THREADS " BELOW !

Jenna Sanders

Posts: 54

Location: Michigan, zone 5

posted 6 years ago

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/get-your-right-to-farm.fb46?source=s.icn.fb&r_by=10461674

This is petition my husband and I signed.

allen lumley

pollinator

Posts: 4154

Location: Northern New York Zone4-5 the OUTER 'RONDACs percip 36''

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posted 6 years ago

Jenna Sanders : one note, one vote done and done !

Success has a Thousand Fathers , Failure is an Orphan

LOOK AT THE " SIMILAR THREADS " BELOW !

Jerry Ward

Posts: 232

Location: S.E. Michigan - Zone 6a

posted 6 years ago

This was also a great surprise to me as well. I didn't hear anything about it until after it is done. I also can't really tell what it means. It sounds like someone could come and build a house within 250" of your farm and then try to get ordinance passed to stop you from farming. This made the MI Right To Farm Act almost meaningless. Even more disturbing is the MI Farm Bureau supported this change. How can you develop a business when at any time you could be forced out of business by a zoning or ordinance change.

Love to hear from anyone in MI who can figure out what this really means.

Starting on developing a 10 acre permaculture homestead in a sub-urban area. see http://www.my10acres.info

John Polk

steward

Posts: 7926

Location: Currently in Lake Stevens, WA. Home in Spokane

318

posted 6 years ago

I am not from MI, though I have spent some summers in St. Joseph county.
I was seriously looking at some land in the UP.

Anywhere except Mi, this would be a no-brainer: just buy property outside of city limits, and you should be OK.
MI, however has that 'township' thing going on.
You might be an hours drive to a township with a population of 100, but are still included as being in the township, as if you actually lived in the town. Does that mean that you are still within the restrictions that the township has set up for 'in town'?

MI has some serious economic issues. Detroit, and surrounding areas are probably at half (or less) of their previous populations. The high wage union assembly line jobs are gone, yet the politicians continue "living in the good old days" when there seemed to be an endless supply of dollar bills flowing through the system. The tax burden on the survivors is overwhelming. Henry Ford, Louis Chevrolet, and the union bosses can no longer offer them lavish gifts, but they still want to relive the good old days. Are they looking at BigAg to replace the auto industry to keep their golden chariots in the race?

Peter Ellis

Posts: 1526

Location: Fennville MI

posted 6 years ago

John, Michigan is hardly the only state with townships

Honestly, I think the current administration works for the Corporate Citizens and not the Human Citizens.

I think this rule interpretation is intended to let developers force farms out of areas, because the developers are corporate citizen types and the farms they will force out are just family type operations.

One semi-positive note, after reading the regulation about new or expanded livestock facilities - the average permie type homestead skates in under the number of "animal units" at which one is required to go through their certification process.

One aspect of the right to farm law to keep in mind - it never really protected a right to farm, but it did provide a set of guidelines to follow and if you followed those guidelines then it provided a defense against civil suits to shut down your farm for being a farm. So you had to farm according their rules to get any benefit from the law.

John Polk

steward

Posts: 7926

Location: Currently in Lake Stevens, WA. Home in Spokane

318

posted 6 years ago

John, Michigan is hardly the only state with townships

I realize this. However, in most states, once you get outside of city limits, you are pretty much 'on your own'. You can pretty much do as you please.

My friends from MI are telling me that the entire 'Right to farm' issue started a couple decades ago when city folks began moving beyond the suburbs, building McMansions, and then complaining that their neighbor's farm smelled, raised dust, had noisy machinery running too early in the mornings, etc. It was a measure to protect the rights of the farmers in agricultural regions. Now, (according to some), people have been misinterpreting the rulings to believe that they have the right to bring goat/pig/chicken farms into the city and suburban areas. That is the opposite of what the original ruling was trying to address.

To be honest, with the state of the MI economy right now, they should be overjoyed that anybody, anywhere in the state is producing food for local consumption. Those politicians that used to wine & dine with the UAW big wigs, are now under the thumbs of BigAg, who sees their monopoly being eroded.

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