On the other hand, how many New Age, small, organic farmer types happily vote for regulations on everyone else?
Define *small*.
The organic farmers I know are doing about $1.5-$3M annually. When queried about these regulations, they shrug and say “We are already doing all this.”
These businesses supply the restaurants in large cities 250 miles away, while also running the CSAs. Every year, a handful of newbies comes out from the cities and every year another handful of them run back to make more money to keep the farm operating.
They are already regulated. Their workers are hired through the government programs in Mexico. The farmers provide housing and meals as well as a salary and the airfare for the workers to return to Mexico in the winter. There are fees to participate in the worker program and tons of paperwork.
The tiny gardener who sells at the Farmer’s Market will likely be regulated because they take EBT. The small processor who has a $400k federal grant is housed in an incubator that runs under another grant and is regulated as the government sees fit. The country’s largest organic co-op is in my area and it was started under several years worth of State grants totally above $5M. It has already been called out years ago for importing cattle feed from China. Nothing came of the *scandal*. It is run with an iron fist and is always a campaign stop for Dem candidates, to whom it donates.
Documenting wild animals on a farm is insane. Probably put in there to have something to leave out, eventually. Maybe the farmers will have to install security cams and pay someone to monitor them? Maybe a way to mandate very expensive fencing? It all sounds like just another way to keep the tiny entrepreneur out of the industry. OTOH, wildlife eats produce, so the producer may see an upside. Certainly corn fields have long been a good place to find deer and no one fences row crops.