Here’s another weird story about this survey. My sister just got one in the mail today. She’s lived in the same home for about 20 years and has never gotten one of these surveys before. The home is on less than a half acre, zoned residential, and in a residential area. She said that if you fill out the first four questions with a “no”, you’re then provided space on the survey where you’re asked to write a note stating that you’re not farming.
How bizarre.
My husband and I received this survey in the mail. On the front is stated that by Federal law we are required to fill out the survey. We do live on one acre of zoned residential land, which is also agriculturally zoned, although no one has more than two acres in this area. One neighbor has horses and several have their own very small home gardens. One has a few chickens. We did fill out “no” on those first four questions, so we didn’t have to fill out the rest of the survey, but we HAD to write a note at the top of the survey stating that we don’t farm. We wrote the word not. Now that word can be interpreted a couple of different ways like; not farming or no, not farming . . . NOT! We do grow a few tomato vines and a small stand of raspberries, which according to the survey is farming! We purposely wrote a vague, ambiguous note. It is just NOT the government’s business what we grow to eat ourselves. As also required, my husband did print his name, phone number and date on the bottom of the fourth page. This survey is clearly a result of that ridiculous bill passed last year that was the first step toward regulating local farmer’s markets, fruit stands, etc. Our talk show hosts warned that it would also lead to regulating food grown by individual homeowners for their own use. America needs to wake up; our rights are being eroded faster than I can water my 4 tomato plants.