A third category of regulation includes regulations that affect farms without necessarily regulating food such as environmental regulation and laws regarding workers.

Environmental Regulation

Agriculture lends itself to the possibility of contaminated water or air. Pesticides and fertilizer can impact wetland ecosystems and air quality issues can arise from expelled ammonia, methane, and odors. (1) Generally, large industrial farms are held to a higher standard than small farms when it comes to environmental regulation and its enforcement, but all farms, regardless of size are exposed to certain environmental regulations like the Clean Air Act. Large farms are also much more likely to be able to afford and implement environmentally friendly technology that smaller farms couldn't hope to purchase.

Labor Law

Worker safety is also an aspect of agriculture that is heavily regulated. Family farms use much less hired labor than industrial farms because, by definition, the labor source is the family in a family farm. According to the Farm Labor Survey of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, hired farmworkers account for a full third of the agricultural labor force. (2) Laws regarding laborers include the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which provided for minimum wages, set a maximum allowable number of hours to work without overtime pay, and regulated child labor. However agricultural employers that don’t use more than 6 laborers for 13 weeks of the year are exempt from the minimum wage provision. This exemption applies to over 70% of farms including most all family farms. (3)

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 aimed to ensure safe and healthful working conditions. This law has another loophole for small family farms: Members of the immediate family of the farm employer are not considered employees and are excluded from coverage by OSHA. The same exemption applies to any farm employing less than 11 workers excluding family members. Between these two exemptions, about half of all farm workers are excluded from coverage by OHSA. (3)

Another law is the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act of 1983 which protected the growing population of migrant workers in agriculture. (3)The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 requires all employers to verify the eligibility of each employee hired to work in the US and prohibits discrimination based on citizenship status. (3)

Summary

Regulation affects farms of varying sizes differently. Thanks to a few loopholes, family farms have been shielded from the bulk of the burden of complying with many of these regulations that might otherwise prove fatal to their business model and make it impossible for small-growers to participate in the economic market of farming.