{"id":251114,"date":"2016-06-21T10:54:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T10:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=251114"},"modified":"2016-06-21T11:47:02","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T11:47:02","slug":"michigan-loses-right-to-farm-this-week-a-farewell-to-backyard-chickens-and-beekeepers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/michigan-loses-right-to-farm-this-week-a-farewell-to-backyard-chickens-and-beekeepers\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Loses \u2018Right To Farm\u2019 This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michigan residents lost their \u201cright to farm\u201d this week thanks to a new ruling by the Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development. Gail Philburn of the Michigan Sierra Club told\u00a0<em>Michigan Live<\/em>, the news changes\u00a0\u201ceffectively remove Right to Farm Act protection for many urban and suburban backyard farmers raising small numbers of animals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Backyard and urban farming were previously protected by Michigan\u2019s Right to Farm Act. The Commission ruled that the Right to Farm Act protections no longer apply to many homeowners who keep small numbers of livestock.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Kim White, who raises chickens and rabbits, said, \u201cThey don\u2019t want us little guys feeding ourselves. They want us to go all to the big farms. They want to do away with small farms and I believe that is what\u2019s motivating it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ruling will allow local governments to arbitrarily ban goats, chickens and beehives on any property where there are 13 homes within one eighth mile or a residence within 250 feet of the property, according to\u00a0<em>Michigan Public Radio<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The Right to Farm Act was created in 1981 to protect farmers from the complaints of people from the city who moved to the country and then attempted to make it more urban with anti-farming ordinances. The new changes affect residents of rural Michigan too. It is not simply an urban or suburban concern.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Shady Grove Farm in Gwinn, Michigan is the six and a half acre home to 150 egg-laying hens that provide eggs to a local co-op and a local restaurant. The small Michigan farm also homes sheep for wool and a few turkeys and meat chickens to provide fresh healthy, local poultry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe produce food with integrity,\u201d Randy Buchler told The Blaze\u00a0about Shady Grove Farm. \u201cEverything we do here is 100 percent natural \u2014 we like to say it\u2019s beyond organic.<\/p>\n<p>Read more: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/checkoutthehealthyworld.com\/michigan-loses-right-farm-week-farewell-backyard-chickens-beekeepers\/\">Michigan Loses \u2018Right To Farm\u2019 This Week: A Farewell To Backyard Chickens and Beekeepers<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michigan residents lost their \u201cright to farm\u201d this week thanks to a new ruling by the Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development. Gail Philburn of the Michigan Sierra Club told\u00a0Michigan Live, the news changes\u00a0\u201ceffectively remove Right to Farm Act protection for many urban and suburban backyard farmers raising small numbers of animals.\u201d Backyard and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}