If you want to put your local beekeeper out of the business of selling honey, then by all means, complain about an inadequate regulatory state. Because that's who the bureaucrats will go after.
Regulation can ensure that businesses doing things right can actually complete. How the hell is my local beekeeper supposed to compete against people selling jars of corn syrup?
> Regulation can ensure that businesses doing things right can actually complete
Regulation adds fixed costs. That always increases barriers to entry.
The aim is to make that barrier worth it. (You can also directly mitigate it, but this is less common.) But in the cases of food and medicine, regulation has absolutely forced consolidation. The pitch from Big Pharma and Big Ag when buying out biotech and food start-ups (or small producers) is they've mastered the global compliance network, and can thus scale and thus outcompete small producers.
What it does seem we need is liability by large distributors around selling fraudulent products. That still adds a barrier to entry, since those distributors will have a testing programme. But at least you get multiple programs that have an incentive to reduce costs.
Word of mouth. Not the best option, but it's balanced against the cost of regulation. The cost of complying with regulation (not changes in the product, but proving you comply) can destroy any hope of profit from a smaller business; but the cost doesn't increase at the same rate as business size, so the big businesses have no issue.
Regulations are important, but they have a distinct cost.
What Buraeucrats are actually administering for anyone wondering:
Insurance Programs
Market-based risk management tools to strengthen the economic stability of agricultural
producers and rural communities.
Apiculture
Rainfall Index
The Apiculture Pilot Insurance Program (RI-API) provides a safety net for beekeepers’ primary
income sources – honey, pollen collection, wax, and breeding stock. Beekeepers can purchase
RI-API through a crop insurance agent that works for an Approved Insurance Provider.
Whole-Farm
Revenue Protection
Whole-Farm Revenue Protection provides a risk management safety net for all commodities,
including honey, on the farm under one insurance policy. This insurance plan is tailored for
any farm with up to $8.5 million in insured revenue.
Micro Farm
Program
A new insurance option for small, diverse farms that sell locally. The policy offers revenue
guarantees for beekeepers producing honey, bees, queens, and other products of the hive
when facing unavoidable adverse events, such as drought and other weather-related events.
It also simplifies recordkeeping and covers post-production costs and value-added products,
such as bottled honey, to make crop insurance more useful to smaller beekeepers and
agricultural producers.
Disaster Assistance Programs
Offers disaster assistance programs in instances where beekeepers have been hit hard
by natural disaster events.
Emergency Livestock
Assistance Program
The Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-Raised Fish program provides
financial assistance to eligible honey bee producers for eligible adverse weather events and
losses. Drought is not an eligible cause of loss for honey bee colony losses.
Noninsured Crop
Disaster Assistance
Program (NAP)
Eligible beekeepers can quality for NAP financial assistance when losses incurred by natural
disasters are not covered by other disaster assistance programs.
Loan Programs
USDA offers a variety of direct and guaranteed loan programs for eligible beekeepers.
See guide for more information.
Farm Loan
Program (FLP)
Beekeepers whose primary business is honey production, qualify as a family farm, and
demonstrate security and eligibility can be considered for FLP guaranteed loans, which can
assist in building overwintering colony storage facilities.
Farm Storage
Facility Loan Program
This program provides low-interest financing so producers can build or upgrade facilities to
store commodities, including honey.
Microloan
Programs
Operating and ownership loans to better serve the unique financial operating needs of new,
niche, and small to mid-sized family operations.
Emergency
Loan Program
Emergency loans to help beekeepers recover from production and physical losses due
to drought, flooding, other natural disasters, or quarantine.
Beginning Farmers
and Ranchers Loans Direct and guaranteed loan programs, ownership loans, operating loans, and microloan
programs for beginning farmers and ranchers, including beekeepers.
Nonresource
Marketing
Assistance Loans –
Honey Program
Marketing assistance loans provide interim financing at harvest time to help beekeepers
meet cash flow needs without having to sell their commodities when market prices are
typically at harvest-time lows.
Grants
Local Agriculture
Market Program
(LAMP)
Multiple grants and programs are available through LAMP to support development,
coordination, and expansion of direct producer-to-consumer marketing; local and regional
food markets and enterprises; and value-added agricultural products.
Small Business
Innovation Research
(SBIR) Program
This program is open to small businesses that support the bee keeping industry in technology
development and transfer.
Sustainable
Agriculture, Research,
and Education (SARE)
Program
Producers and professionals in the beekeeping industry may apply for competitive funding
available through this program.
Diagnostic Testing
Bee Disease
Diagnosis Service
A free USDA beekeeper service to identify diseases, pests, and foulbrood resistance.
