by purrpurr 9 Replies latest jw friends
I was recently told by an American I was chatting to online that in the USA people are not allowed to grow their own food. She said that if you have a vegetable patch or something that the government will come along and bulldoze it? She said that farmers are not allowed to grow food either and that the government bulldozes the crops if they grow?
Is this right? Surely it can't be right?
Someone's blowing smoke up your skirt...
In some areas Americans are not allowed to grow anything but flowers and shrubs on the front of the property (the side facing the road), if they do some municipalities will remove the objectionable plantings, usually vegetables. This is changing in some places where public opinion is with the gardener.
There are, or were, Federal government programs which paid farmers not to grow certain crops in order to keep the economy balanced according to plan. There have been cases where the government came in and destroyed crops but it's not common.
Yes its true - and we only eat Vitamin Pills too:)
Don't believe silly things:)
Actually there is an ongoing upsurge in eating organically and growing your own vegetables or buying from local farms. Most towns have farmers markets weekly on the town green and we are seeing more and more people with chickens, so they get the real eggs and free range meat. Local farms with livestock have stores where you can buy the pricey meat that is far superior to supermarket cuts that come from animals that have been artificially induced to faster heavier growth to pump up big agra profits.
Your info is really whacko!
It is a bit of an exaggeration but in some suburban communites especially those with a HomeOwners Association there is typically some type of covenant in place. You might not be able to raise chickens in your back yard for instance and as mentioned most likely a veggie garden in the front yard would not be tolerated. YMMV.
Yes there are some neighborhoods like that in America...they wouldn't come bulldoze it probably, but there are rules...lots of rules...about what is and isn't acceptable. I would never live anywhere where theres a homeowner's association!! Someone telling you what your front yard should be like, what color your curtains should be...had enough of that stupid stuff growing up witness :P.
Tikis right, there's generally a movement in America to have your own organic vegetable garden, raise chickens, have a beehive etc. That stuff also brings simple pleasures and personal satisfaction. I think it truly is the simple things in life that make us happy.
Years ago there was an American guy over in the UK visiting the company I worked for at the time. As we were driving along we went past a load of Allotments and there were all the little sheds and the typical older people working on their plots.
He looked puzzled and asked "what are those?"
We told him that was an "Elders Farm" where old people were sent once they reached a certain age if they couldn't afford rent and they were given a small hut to live in and could grow their own food to try and survive.
He was very horrified. LOL
It's not unusual in North America to have some local rules in how your property looks and what is and isn't allowed in your yard, front and back. If we let our front grass grow too long someone would come and cut it and give us the bill. It's not like the UK where you can park a rusty car on your front lawn.
And, who knows whether your non-homeowner's association home could be incorporated into a homeowner's association at any time. You get several people on either side of your home to join, and you are right in the middle. Too many rules--about when you can put up Christmas decorations and what you can put up, along with everything else. Most of them are examples of communism on a small scale.
Yes, there is a law--S510 with its companion S3767 that passed a few years ago that just about bans growing vegetable gardens. There are so many regulations around that, that growing vegetables can get you in trouble. However, you are more likely to get in trouble if you sell or distribute those vegetables than if you grow them for personal consumption.
Texas has a great many private vegetable gardens which are quite popular. This state is very aggressive about infringement on State's rights issues.
As far as I know, nothing in the way of alarm has been aroused over this issue since all the Glenn Beck hubub a few years ago. Beck lives close by in Dallas, so I think I would have heard something if this was an actual problem because I monitor his website for the latest lunatic fringe rumours.
