Young ducks at La Belle Farm in Sullivan County, N.Y.
Photo:
Alaina DiGiacomo/La Belle Farm Inc.
Good news for New York City epicures and upstate farmers: Foie gras will remain on menus in the city. They can thank the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets, which last Wednesday found that the city’s ban on the avian delicacy violated the farmers’ rights under state law.
Foie gras is made from duck or goose livers fattened through a force-feeding process called gavage—administering gradually larger amounts of feed through a small tube in the bird’s throat. The farmers who produce foie gras say the ducks remain healthy and content throughout their lives, but some animal-rights activists consider the practice cruel. In 2019 the New York City Council enacted an ordinance banning the sale of foie gras, which was scheduled to take effect last month.
That would have put
Sergio Saravia
and
Marcus Henley
out of business. Though their duck farms are in Sullivan County, some 100 miles northwest of Manhattan, city customers account for 30% of their combined revenue. It would be almost impossible for them to scale down their operations and stay afloat given the farms’ heavy fixed costs.
The farmers petitioned the Agriculture Department to review the city ordinance under a state law barring local governments from enacting regulations that “unreasonably restrict or regulate farm operations within agricultural districts.” The farms are in such a district; New York City isn’t.
The city said the state statute didn’t apply, since its ordinance merely banned the sale of a product within the five boroughs. But as the Agriculture Department noted in its determination, the statutory language isn’t limited to direct regulation. And the department found that the city law’s “intent and purpose” was to “induce the abandonment of a traditional feeding practice by denying the farms access…
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