Note from Richmond….
Thank you to our friends at Farm to Consumer Defense Fund for the info….
Besides the senate bill 1195 that we emailed about last week (thank you to all who called the senators), here is a couple more to note….
Virginia House Bill 1897 (HB 1897) and Senate Bill 1529 (SB 1529) are companion bills introduced, respectively, by Delegate Nick Freitas and Senator Jill Holtzman Vogel to make it crystal clear that aquaculture is an agricultural activity under Virginia law. The legislation seeks not only to protect aquaculture in any zone that allows production agriculture but also to preserve the use of property for aquaculture that began prior to any change in zoning that disallows production agriculture.
Virginia House Bill 2030 (HB 2030) would allow the face-to-face sale of food products at farmers markets or through farm-based and home-based sales directly to consumers as long as the producer informs the consumer that the food product is neither certified, regulated, nor inspected. Foods sold under this bill are to be intended only for home consumption and cannot contain uninspected meat other than poultry. |