Why Does the State of Utah Want To Register Survival Gardens?

Gun registration is often a prelude to confiscation – so is it reasonable to suspect that garden registration could eventually lead to government seizure of independently grown food — including survival gardens?

Any time a government wants to “register” something, it’s reasonable to believe that bureaucrats have eventual confiscation in mind. Think of how the tax collection bureaucracy strives to account for every penny of income people earn, spend, and invest. It’s also worthwhile to remember how firearms registration lists have been used to track down and confiscate personally owned firearms during times of emergency; this has happened during U.S. military operations abroad, such as the 1994 mission in Haiti, and in the aftermath of domestic disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina.

Here is a sound survival axiom in dealing with government bureaucracies: If they know what you’ve got, you should expect them to take it when times get tough. This is the perspective that should inform a proposed garden registry in Utah.

The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food is sponsoring an initiative it calls the “Utah Garden Challenge,” through which the agency is trying to entice 10,000 gardeners in the state to “come forward and document their gardens…. Whether locals grow a tomato in a pot, a row in a community garden, have backyard gardens, a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program or work a fruit and vegetable farm, Utah is encouraging its denizens to register their gardens! There is no garden too small!”

Why does the state want its “denizens” – an odd and mildly pejorative description for the state’s inhabitants, who are more commonly called “citizens” – to register their gardens with a government agency? One possible answer is found nestled among the buzzwords that litter the initiative.

According to the UDAF, “The 10,000 Garden Challenge is an example of the local movement for sustainable agritourism and living.” “Sustainable” is a term of art that grows out of the UN-centered Agenda 21 initiative, which if implemented would require regimentation, by administrative bodies populated with wise and far-seeing bureaucrats, of all human interactions with the natural world.

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