Colorado small flock chicken and turkey farmers are faced with a Catch-22 in the food safety laws. The U.S. Department of Agriculture allows small farmers and homesteaders to process and sell fewer than 1,000 birds per year for meat. However, Colorado does not recognize the exemption, and requires USDA inspection that is not practical or easily available to small producers.Slaughtering, processing and packaging poultry products in unsanitary conditions can lead to salmonella and campylobacter diseases in consumers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ìIf the person processes the chicken and eats it themselves, then they are exempt,î said Christi Lightcap, communications director at the Colorado Department of Agriculture. ìIf they are selling it, the USDA still exempts them, but the CDA still requires them to get a USDA inspection.îThe conflict between state and federal regulations is the opposite of the recreational marijuana legal status in Colorado. Whereas marijuana is legal at the state level but remains illegal at the federal level, small-scale pasture-raised and on-farm processed poultry is the opposite. ìThat defies logic,î said Lindsey Mote of Colorado Springs, who purchases processed chicken from local farms for her family. ìI can go out to the pasture, see the chickens and know where the meat is coming from, and that’s not OK?îSome meat locker and wild game processing companies also process poultry for flock owners who choose not to process their birds themselves. ìWe do have a custom meat processing program, but that is strictly for personal use, and the meat can’t be sold or given away,î Lightcap said. ìIt must be consumed by the animals’ owner.îìThe state of Colorado doesn’t have its own poultry inspection program,î said Katherine Scheidt of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. ìIf they had a state program, flocks that were small enough could be inspected by the state. However, any small farmers that were interested in selling food could work with a federally inspected facility and be sold with a USDA stamp.îìYou can count on one hand the USDA facilities that are open to the public in the state,î said Craig McHugh of Pikes Peak Small Farms. McHugh previously owned Joyful Noise Farm in Black Forest. ìEspecially if you’re a small scale producer, that’s a three or four hour drive, so you’re going to have some pretty stressed out birds,î McHugh said. ìThey don’t take stress very well. You’re probably going to have at least 10 percent dead loss. Plus, with the fuel, it doesn’t pencil out to making any money for the farmer.î The drive times that McHugh described were based on a poultry processing facility in Nunn, near the Wyoming border, which recently closed. Using information from the Colorado Department of Agriculture, The New Falcon Herald was not able to locate any remaining USDA-inspected poultry facilities that accept birds from the public.Several small farms along the Front Range continue to offer home-grown and processed chicken through Internet advertising or word-of-mouth. Many have the machinery and practices required by USDA inspectors, but they are not currently being inspected, McHugh said. ìA lot of times, it goes back to the relationship to the farmer,î McHugh said. ìOtherwise, farmers are bending or breaking the letter of the law. If you want to stay in the letter of the law, it’s virtually impossible.îCreative methods to comply with the letter of the law ó if not the intended effect ó include classes on how to process chickens. ìPeople will sell live birds, then hold a processing class and ‘teach’ ñ- with the air quotes (two-finger quotation marks gestured in the air) ó people to slaughter ‘their’ birds,î McHugh said.Producers that fall under the USDA’s small flock exemption can still apply for a federal grant of inspection, Scheidt said. The USDA’s website (http://fsis.usda.gov) provides information about the hazard-analysis/critical-control point and the sanitation standard operating procedures program instituted in1996. Once the prospective processor completes the requirements and sets up the facility, the USDA will provide an inspector.Building a separate facility that will meet stringent USDA sanitation and safety requirements is cost prohibitive for a small farm. ìI don’t have $250,000 to build a USDA-ready facility, and that’s really the fly in the ointment, as far as how you can do it,î McHugh said.Some consumers choose to take their chances when weighing the risk of bacterial contamination during processing at small farms against the flavor and perceived nutritional differences in small pasture flock birds. ìHonestly, I really don’t care,î Mote said. ìIt doesn’t bother me because I think the legality is less important to me than the health of my family. If buying something illegal means feeding my family a healthy chicken, then I’ll do it.î The purchaser doesn’t take on any of the legal liability, which impacts the buying decision, Mote said.Allowing small-scale producers to legally grow, process and sell their backyard chickens will take political changes that are unlikely because of food safety concerns, McHugh said.ìI’ve spoken to everyone up the line,î McHugh said. ìThe answer is always the same, do it in a ‘sanitary manner,í and the answer to that is always a USDA facility. When you try to lean on politicians about food, it’s politically poisonous in case someone gets sick or dies.î
