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by flagrant_taco 1128 days ago
One big hurdle to jump will be the need for fundamental change in government regulations for food production.

The requirements are ridiculous particularly with meat production. I can't sell cuts of meat unless the animal walks off the trailer at a state or federally regulated processing facility. Getting in line at the processor is not easy and though lead time isn't as bad as it SAS during the pandemic response, it can still require planning months ahead on exactly when you will process one animal.

Beyond that, there are very real animal welfare concerns if you ever look into how those facilities work. Animals walk of the trailer and spend their last hours extremely stressed, stuffed into concrete holding pens and chutes with other animals they don't know in a building that must smell unmistakably of death.

The meat is processed in very specific ways, including spraying it with bleach. There's no way around that, and may stamped USDA has been treated that way.

I do understand how we ended up with so many regulations and health concerns, but they are all byproducts of an over-centralized system that attempts to produce an entire country's worth of meat in one place and distribute it nationality so that every store shelf looks the same. Those regulations have grown so l large that is nearly unsustainable to attempt to raise meat on a smaller, more local scale.