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Supervisors seek to make vendor participation easier at events on farms

The county of San Diego’s latest plans to promote local agriculture include preliminary steps to reduce the regulatory burden for those who provide goods or services at community events on commercial agricultural properties.

A 3-0 San Diego County Board of Supervisors vote May 16, with Greg Cox and Kristin Gaspar absent, directed the county’s chief administrative officer to explore options to ease the ability of local small-scale businesses to provide food and goods at community events on agriculture-producing properties, to add to the county’s legislative program support for state legislative efforts to reduce or ease regulations for local small-scale businesses seeking to provide food and goods at community-based events on agricultural property and direct marketing of agricultural products and to return to the board of supervisors within 120 days.

“It certainly fits in well with our efforts to support agriculture,” Supervisor Dianne Jacob said.

Under current state law and county code agricultural producers may host a vendor to sell locally produced food through a temporary food facility permit which is administered by the county’s Department of Environmental Health under the California Retail Food Code.

“The permit required is very cumbersome and very costly,” Jacob said.

The options the chief administrative officer will explore include a permit fee waiver program, a pilot program and revisions to the county’s Agriculture Promotion Program including zoning ordinance revisions.

The county’s Agriculture Promotion Program was approved by the board of supervisors in March 2017. The program allows commercial accessory uses on properties where agriculture is the primary use.

The zoning ordinance revisions could include a tiered system which would require permits for larger producers. The county supervisors adopted a tiered winery ordinance which bases the approval process on the production volume in 2010 and approved modifications in 2016.

A tiered equine ordinance basing the approval process on the number of horses and the available acreage was approved by the board of supervisors in 2013. The county supervisors revised the county’s beekeeping ordinance and approved a tiered ordinance which bases setback distances on the number of hives in 2015.

Author Bio

Joe Naiman, Writer

Joe Naiman has been writing for the Village News since 2001

 

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