4 Year Old Girl’s Vegetable Garden Must Go, Says USDA

thehealthyhomeeconomist.com ^ | August 23, 2013 | Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

[moonshinner_09]

With each passing day, it seems the United States of America, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is becoming more and more like the Communist Russia I learned about in elementary school where people weren’t allowed to grow their own food unless the State “allowed” it.

In this latest crackdown on citizens simply trying to provide for themselves using the most basic of skills – gardening – the USDA’s Rural Development Agency is forbidding Rosie, an industrious 4-year old girl in South Dakota from using a small, unused area outside her subsidized housing unit to grow green vegetables.

Rosie’s mother, Mary (names changed to protect the child’s identity), is single and severely disabled. She and her daughter live on a fixed income disability payment of $628/month. The garden vegetables growing just outside her backdoor lovingly tended by Rosie provide a fresh and healthy addition to their diet that they could not otherwise easily afford.

Rosie started the garden in May 2013, but now the property management company has ordered the garden be removed this week!

The reason?

The property management company claims that gardening goes against the rules set by the USDA’s Rural Development Agency which forbids residents to have structures of any kind within landscaped areas. It seems to me that the practice of growing vegetables by the most needy in our society would take precedence over landscaping, wouldn’t you agree?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Contact the governor and have these people removed from the state.

[JudgemAll]

... But but libs told us government nicey god housing would make us free and well fed....

[bgill]

It says it’s out their backdoor but isn’t clear if it’s within their apartment’s little backyard area or if it’s on the common area. If it’s on the common area, then the management can do what they want. However, most of these homes have little areas behind them for people to put a clothes line or chairs or pot plants.

[Blackirish]

A 4 year old paying their own way?

[Amendment10]

What the property management company shamefully does not understand about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers is the following.

To begin with, the Supreme Court officially clarified in United States v. Butler that the states have never delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate agriculture.

"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden (emphasis added)." --United States v. Butler, 1936.

Note that the reason that we now now have constitutionally undefined federal agencies like the USDA telling citizens what to do is because FDR's activist justices wrongly expanded the scope of Congress's Commerce Clause powers when the Court decided Wickard v. Filburn in 1942.

Getting back to major constitutional problems with the USDA, even if the states had delegated to Congress the specific power to regulate agriculture, the Founding States had made Sections 1-3 of Article I of the Constitution to clarify that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress. In other words, Congress has a constitutional monopoly on federal legislative powers whether it wants it or not.

So not only is Congress wrongly protecting federal legislative powers from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of the previously referenced statutes by establishing rogue federal agencies like USDA, but Congress is delegating powers which the states have never granted to Congress via the Constitution.

What a mess! :^(

In other words, the corrupt federal government is wrongly expanding its powers by establishing "independent federal regulatory agencies" like the USDA and EPA. Such agencies are nothing more than a smoke-and-mirrors trick to bypass Congress's Article V requirement to petition the states for specific new powers via constitutional amendments imo.

Are we having fun yet?

So as a consequence of their inexcusable ignorance of the federal government's constitutionally limited powers evidenced by the subject of this thread, when constitutonally undefined "independent regulatory federal agencies" like the USDA order citizens to "JUMP!," citizens unthinkingly respond "how high?"

[Blackirish]

Uh oh. This little girl is dangerously close to moving off of the Democrat plantation by trying to help herself. Shut it down. Shut it down now.

---

Be sure to use a SWAT team. If pop tart is found and is gun shaped taze and charge her. Don’t forget to shoot the dog.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

As long as the taxpayers are paying for this manless family, the taxpayers should get to make the rules.

Problem with this is that the taxpayers do not make the rules. Big Government statists and the bureaucrats who work for them do, and both their ideological goals and their actual power stem from the number of people dependent on the government. This leads to a couple of results:

1) The rules the government comes up with are meant to encourage and further dependency, not to lessen it or wean people off of government assistance. This is bad for both the indigent and for the taxpayers who must pay for them.

2) The government strives to bring ever-increasing numbers of Americans into a state of dependence on the government, whether people need or want that dependence or not. Obamacare is the most outrageous example of this so far - the government now dictates that you have health insurance and will see to it that you do, whether you want it or not, whether you can pay for it yourself or not.

And by intruding on private health-care, the government is now in a position to demand that all Americans modify their eating habits and other behavior to lower health-care costs, since those costs are now a matter which involve the government.

Ever increasing government control, ever increasing taxes, less and less personal liberty for every citizen, whether a taxpayer or a welfare recipient. That's the plan, and it seems to keep rolling.

[NonValueAdded]

I’ve never heard it expressed so succinctly - do you have a recommended reading list?

[chaosagent]

Also, since it’s not her yard, can we tell all those living in gov subsidized housing that they can’t put DirecTV and Dish dishes in the yard? All the HUD units where I live have them.

---

Actually there is a law that prevents apartments/HOA’s etc. from banning satellite dishes.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/136244/

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks moonshinner_09.

...the USDA's Rural Development Agency is forbidding Rosie, an industrious 4-year old girl in South Dakota from using a small, unused area outside her subsidized housing unit to grow green vegetables. Rosie's mother, Mary (names changed to protect the child's identity), is single and severely disabled. She and her daughter live on a fixed income disability payment of $628/month. The garden vegetables growing just outside her backdoor lovingly tended by Rosie provide a fresh and healthy addition to their diet that they could not otherwise easily afford.

[MaxMax]

I grew all my tobacco and Tomatoes in containers because it's easier to
control the drip system setup. And the soil was to sandy. It was not my property
so anything I grew from the ground had to look good to the owners which was Okra (flowers every morning, large leaves)
and Squash (low to the ground, large leaves) and Peppers (lined up small bush types plants).

I cannot imagine what's wrong with their garden, and holding a four year old up
as a human shield makes me wonder what's really going on.

[TBP]

The kid might learn to be independent of the government. We must NEVER allow that!

[SkyDancer]

It’s interesting it’s the USDA and not the housing authority telling her to rip up her garden. Still, they could have put it in a window box.

[bigheadfred]

Destroy any will or initiative for self determination.

I like it.

[Reeses]

Until the 4 year old gets her Obamacare medical marijuana prescription she should stick to growing a Chia statue of Dear Leader.

[goodwithagun]

But this is gov subsidized housing, not an HOA or private apartment agreement. She can’t have a garden, something that helps her and her mother’s financial issues, yet she could have a satellite tv dish. It’s almost as if the gov is encouraging dependance.