We are a small farm. We raise 300 pasture raised, soy free, corn free broilers every year. Unfortunately in our state we have no processor open to the public that can effectively process poultry within 200 miles of our farm
Due to this, we need to transport the chickens across state lines from Washington into Oregon for processing. This limits us to the sale of poultry ONLY to the state of Oregon as these facilities are only ODA (Oregon) certified, USDA exempt processors. This deprives our community of poultry.
Allow the USDA exemption for poultry to be transported across state lines.
I would add that we need reform on chicken processing regulations in general. It is massively in favor of large processors and these regs are cost prohibitive to small producers. The issues cited by regulators are disease and they are more of a problem in the big processing facilities anyway. A local farmer near me just built a small facility but can only process his own chickens raised on his farm…. Wouldn’t it be great if I could raise chickens and have them processed in his usda approved facility? But that is not allowed under current regulations and it makes no sense! Would love to hear more thoughts on this topic.