Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) believes that food industry laws should be scale-appropriate in order to allow casual barter arrangements, micro-enterprise, and small businesses to thrive. This winter, California State Assemblymember Mariko Yamada introduced a bill, AB 2505, to allow small-scale home dairy farms to sell and exchange small amounts of excess milk without needing to have a large and expensive processing facility and jump through other legal hoops.

SELC wrote the following letter of support for AB 2505. If you want to write a support letter, too, you can fax it to Assemblymember Yamada's office at (916) 319-2104 or email it to [email protected].

Dear Assemblymember Yamada,

Thank you for introducing AB 2505 to allow small-scale, home dairies to exchange, sell or share excess milk with others. We at the Sustainable Economies Law Center provide legal research, education, advice and advocacy to individuals and small enterprises that are building more sustainable economies in California and beyond. Much of our work revolves around the increasing popularity of food producing activities that do not neatly fall into either category of commercial or personal activities as our laws rigidly confine them. As many individuals and families are increasingly seeking to produce their own food for health, economic and environmental reasons, they want to share excess fresh food with friends and neighbors, and having the right to exchange small amounts of farm products for for money or other goods helps support family farms. AB 2505 is a practical and safe solution to this dilemma in the context of milk produced on small farms.

We wish to express our gratitude and support for your efforts to enable more localized food economies.

Sincerely,

Christina Oatfield

Policy Director