Three more local food bills have been filed this week, including the bill to expand the cottage food law! And earlier-filed bills are being assigned to committees,…
Texas Friends: Visit legislators’ home offices, Feb. 18-22
We need your help to pass bills to help local farmers and artisan food producers across Texas-from lowering permit fees to expanding home kitchen options and…
FARFA’s comments to TDA on FSMA implementation
On July 29, 2019, FARFA sent the following comments to the Texas Department of Agriculture in response to the TDA’s proposed implementation of the federal Food…
Help avert this threat to Texas’ small farmers
In 2017, the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) was given authority to implement the federal Food Safety Modernization Act’s (FSMA’s) new rule on Produce Safety in…
Advancing Local Foods in the 2019 Texas Legislature
The Texas Legislature is in session for the next 132 days, giving us a narrow window of time to pass meaningful bills to help small farmers…
FARFA & allies request extension of comment period for Texas’ FSMA implementation
FARFA and five organizations from across Texas have urged the Texas Department of Agriculture to extend the public comment period on the proposed rules to implement…
Texas Ag Department threatens to undermine the Tester-Hagan Exemption! Are other states next?
In 2010, FARFA led a national coalition, together with the Western Organization of Resource Councils, that succeeded in getting an amendment added to the Food Safety…
Texas beekeepers surveys
In the 2017 Session, the Texas Beekeepers Association put forward a bill to reform the laws and regulations that govern Texas beekeepers. But while there is…
After a long wait, FSMA deadlines now loom
After nine years of Congressional debates and regulatory wrangling over the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the deadlines for compliance are now in effect or rapidly…
USDA Opens 2017 Hurricane and Fire Disaster Assistance Application
Signup is now open for the USDA’s 2017 Wildfires and Hurricanes Indemnity Program, or “WHIP.” The program provides agricultural producers affected by 2017’s hurricanes and wildfires…