My buddy up in Maine was called the Chickenman also. He had ongoing battles with the USDA regs and had to get Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, the useless Senators to help him from being put out of business. It all centered around slaughtering. He had a certified facility, but the new regs were designd for the big producers, as previously noted. I grew mushrooms. Shiitake, oyster, reishi, several others. I had to fill out the USDA Census, but mine was every year. It was required. A couple times I was late in sending it in and they CALLED me to threaten under penalty of blah blah blah. And I was levied a fee to support a mushroom lobbying group in DC. That case went to the Supreme Court and the lobbyists won, forcing all mushroom growers to finance the fat cats in suits. It was infuriating. People have no fucking clue on earth what farmers, even micro niche farmers, have to go through. Now you can't have kids help you. When I first moved to Maine in the early 80's the blueberry crop was harvested by kids so they could earn back to school money. Also many adults raked berries and made some decent money if you went at it. Then they banned children (teenagers) from raking and there weren't enough adults so in came the Mexicans. Then there had to be housing( up to federal standards don't you know), as well as medical care. And the towns got stuck footing the bill for migrants who never left and were indigent. A perfectly good rural agricultural model blown to bits by the State. Just recently the USDA tried to ban folks from letting their OWN CHILDREN do chores on the farm. That rule was killed but it shows you where they are headed.