{"id":81097,"date":"2017-05-24T11:30:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T15:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=81097"},"modified":"2017-05-23T21:43:08","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T01:43:08","slug":"stirpe-legislation-helps-small-scale-food-producers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=81097","title":{"rendered":"Stirpe: Legislation helps small-scale food producers"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_43068\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43068\" style=\"width: 226px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?attachment_id=43068\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43068\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-43068\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Al-Stirpe.jpg?resize=226%2C222\" alt=\"\" width=\"226\" height=\"222\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Al-Stirpe.jpg?w=226&amp;ssl=1 226w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Al-Stirpe.jpg?resize=150%2C147&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 226px) 100vw, 226px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-43068\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Al Stirpe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Assemblyman Al Stirpe (D-Cicero) announced that legislation he authored to help make licensing fees more affordable for small-scale food producers has passed the Assembly Agriculture Committee, bringing it one step closer to becoming reality (A.823-A). The bill would create a two-tiered structure for licensing fees for food producers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know that eating locally grown foods is better for our health and our economy,\u201d said Stirpe. \u201cSmall-scale food producers face enough challenges with getting their business off the ground, from development to marketing to distribution. Making these licenses more affordable is a good first step to help these small businesses grow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The licensing fee is unfortunately out of reach for many small-scale food producers. Currently, the fee structure does not distinguish between a food producer that is based in a home with just a few employees and a plant with 100 workers. Stirpe\u2019s bill creates two categories for licensing fees, setting a fee of $175 per processing facility for small-scale producers. Qualified food producers would be those that are not exempt from licensing, are not a chain store and employ no more than 10 full-time workers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy helping more small businesses get started, we\u2019re moving our communities forward and putting money back in our economy \u2013 it\u2019s a win-win,\u201d said Stirpe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assemblyman Al Stirpe (D-Cicero) announced that legislation he authored to help make licensing fees more affordable for small-scale food producers has passed the Assembly Agriculture Committee, bringing it one step closer to becoming reality (A.823-A). The bill would create a two-tiered structure for licensing fees for food producers. \u201cWe know that eating locally grown foods [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23810,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-l61","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Al-Stirpe.jpg?fit=226%2C222&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}