The Mediterranean nation of Malta is known for stuffat tal-fenek, or rabbit stew. While rabbit meat is common Europe and other parts of the world, it's difficult to find in Connecticut. (Tribune Content Agency) (aina.z // Shutterstock)

Daniela Larese is a farmer in Ashford. With her partner Nick Weinstock, their 41-acre BOTL Farm raises and sells pasture-raised pork, lamb, chicken and goat meat, as well as eggs, raw honey, vegetables, fruits and nuts. They used to sell rabbit meat, too, but they stopped. They would like to start again.

“It was difficult to do it legally within the USDA gray area that exists now in this state,” Larese said. “The system set up to do it is inefficient compared to all other species. We want legal clarification.”

Larese and Weinstock are keeping a close eye on two bills making their way through the state General Assembly, which would make it easier for small Connecticut farms to sell rabbits for consumption to restaurants and household consumers.

The bills are supported by small farmers and state agricultural officials. But animal-rights activists, many from out of state and even out of the country, have crowded hearings on the topic to oppose the bills.

One side argues rabbits are a quick-breeding, low-fat and environmentally friendly source of protein as well as a revenue opportunity for farmers too small to benefit from a system that favors factory farms’ economy of scale. The other insists that rabbits, being popular pets, should not be considered meat, and that the fur, cosmetics and pet-store industries have moved away from profiting from rabbits.

“I am appalled, as are most animal lovers in CT, that as the country recognizes the elevated role rabbits play as household pets, Connecticut has chosen to initiate a program that will expedite killing and processing of rabbits for food,” Jo-Anne Basile, executive director of CT Votes for Animals, declared in her opposition to the HB-5263.

HB-5263, sponsored by Rep. Brian Lanoue (R-District 45) and Rep. Dave W. Yaccarino (R-District 87), is in the Commerce Committee. That bill asks the state to put into place a USDA exemption aimed at small farms, to transfer the responsibility for sanitary inspections from the federal to the state government.

The USDA exemption has been in place for decades, but each state must pass legislation to enact it.

The second bill, HB-5295, submitted by the Department of Agriculture and now in the Environment Committee, makes the same request, as one element of a large agricultural package.

Lanoue sponsored similar legislation in 2020, with Rep. Doug Dubitsky (R-District 47), at the request of a local farmer. That bill had a public hearing on March 6, 2020, one week before the state went into COVID-19 lockdown. The bill, which also had strong opposition, did not advance past the Environment Committee.

The Department of Agriculture requested similar legislation last year in its annual policy package. It was removed from the bill, said Bryan Hurlburt, state commissioner of agriculture.

Even without that exemption, small Connecticut farms still can sell rabbit meat, using one of two methods. They can sell a live rabbit to a customer, then the customer would return later to pick up the processed meat. The second method is to take multiple rabbits to a USDA-approved facility for processing, then take them back to the farm to sell.

Hurlburt said both methods are problematic. The on-demand method is inefficient. The USDA processing method is expensive.

“A USDA-certified processing center costs hundreds of dollars an hour. If you don’t have a lot of animals, it’s cost-prohibitive. Farmers can’t get the product to market in a way that can be supported,” he said.

Larese and Weinstock are familiar with this dilemma.

“If you can find a USDA poultry plant that will do it, you have to pay to get the animals under inspection. By the time you add in these inspection fees out of pocket, that adds $20 a pound just for slaughter and inspection. We were already selling at $10 a pound,” Larese said. “It’s completely unrealistic to do that. If you’re doing it in massive batches, it makes sense, but we are a small farm.”

Weinstock estimated that in any given year when they were custom-selling rabbits, they would sell from 100 to a few hundred a year. They could have sold more with a more streamlined process.

“We had more demand than we could meet, but it’s such an inefficient system,” he said.

The bills, if passed, would let farmers process no more than 1,000 rabbits a year on their own farms, not just on demand but pre-sale, saving them facility money and letting them scale up their production. Each farm would be subject to inspection not by the USDA but by state agricultural authorities.

“This is something the legislature did a decade or so ago for Connecticut-grown poultry, chickens and turkeys. It made a big difference to the industry. They could raise and process animals continually, not just when one customer at a time said ‘that’s the one I want,’” Hurlburt said.

Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm in Sterling was one of the facilities that benefited from that legal change affecting poultry. Before it was enacted, Ekonk Hill did only custom processing.

Ekonk Hill owner Rick Hermonot said, “It was a big deal. It really helped out our business tremendously. We process our turkeys in our facility and sell them from our store right from the farm.”

Hermonot said the USDA exemptions exist for efficiency reasons.

“The big guys are huge — Tyson, Purdue, Butterball — producing millions of birds. Those facilities are USDA inspected. The USDA just doesn’t have the manpower to go out to a place doing 200 chickens,” Hermonot said. “The rationale behind the exemptions is that they don’t want to put all these little guys out of business. You do not need to be USDA inspected but do need to be inspected, by your state.”

Opponents also have cited in their testimonies that there is little demand for rabbit meat. In testimony against the bill, Annie Hornish, the Connecticut senior state director of the Humane Society of the United States, wrote “a few years ago, the rabbit meat market was tested, and vigorous public outcry resulted in the discontinuation of the sale of rabbit meat by Whole Foods and other stores.” Another opponent, Elizabeth Abee of Glastonbury, wrote “a caring public will oppose a market for rabbit meat!”

Some supporters say that opinion is culturally unenlightened, as rabbit, common in grocery stores and markets in Europe, is a traditional staple in the diets of many foreign countries, and thousands of natives of those countries now live in Connecticut.

According to a report by meat industry publication beef2live.com citing 2019 figures, the top countries where rabbit meat is widely produced are China (59.42%), followed by North Korea, Egypt, Italy, Russia and Ukraine. The United States is not in the top 25 on that list.

“The premise that there is no public demand for rabbit meat, on its best day is ignorant and insensitive of other cultures,” said Joe Emenheiser, a UConn Extension educator focused in the area of meat livestock, who voiced support of the bill.

Most grocery stores in the state don’t sell rabbit. Highland Park Market in Manchester, Farmington and Glastonbury does, on special order, delivered frozen from large suppliers out of state. “We go to them for the unusual meats like rabbit, frog’s legs, ostrich,” said Joe Panaro, manager of Highland Park in Manchester.

Not many restaurants in Connecticut serve rabbit either. A few do, restaurants that serve ethnic cuisine. Kouneli Stifado, a traditional Greek rabbit stew, is the favorite food of Dino Kolitsas, owner of Greca Mediterranean Kitchen + Bar in New Milford and in White Plains, New York. It’s not on his regular menu, but he offers it as a special two or three times a year.

“A lot of Greeks see it on the menu and will run to the place. But not just Greeks order it. Our customers trust us. They know we stand behind our food. So they order it, and they love it. An old high school friend of mine, I got him to try it. He said, ‘The next time you make it, text me,’” he said. “People who eat it are not put off by the cute little bunny connection.”

He said he would put rabbit on the menu more frequently if meat from Connecticut farms was more readily available. “We’re always looking for stuff that is locally farm raised,” he said.

Olivia Benson has seen this. The co-owner, with her husband Justin, of FoxView Farm in Canterbury submitted written testimony regarding the 2020 bill and discussed her talks with Connecticut restaurateurs. “There was no lack of enthusiasm as I introduced myself and my product. One owner and chef whom I spoke with explained how he had been searching for locally raised rabbit for well over a year, and had come up empty-handed. As a farm-to-table restaurateur, he simply refuses to purchase frozen rabbit meat from a national distributor, but wants nothing more than to introduce his patrons to the amazing culinary opportunity that rabbit meat provides.”

Benson would deny that there is no demand among the general public. Potential customers have told her that they want to try rabbit, but as an unfamiliar meat, they don’t know how to cook it. “They’re nervous to take that step. They want to leave that to the professionals. That’s where restaurants would find most of their market for it. People want to give it a try but don’t want to make something where there is a lack of knowledge of how to prepare it,” Benson said.

Another opposition brought up by many opponents is concern that the rabbits would be subjected to conditions often common at large-scale production facilities. “This bill will allow the processing of thousands of rabbits and will bring factory-like farming conditions of rabbits to Connecticut under the guise of promoting farming in the state,” Danielle Heller of Hamden wrote in her opposition to HB-5263.

Larese, a small farmer, is of a like mind with the opponents in her aversion to factory farming.

“I absolutely agree that factory farming is inhumane and shouldn’t be allowed to exist at all. There are right ways to farm and several not right ways to farm. That nuance often gets lost in the conversation,” she said. “We have worked so hard on our farm to size our operation, not toward making money but on the humane aspect of how we grow.”

Dubitsky, who co-sponsored Lanoue’s 2020 bill and plans to co-sponsor the new bill, pointed out that the exemption would benefit small farmers only. He said in his mind, the bill is about helping those farmers make a living.

“The farmers are trying to increase the variety of foods people can eat and have access to in the state,” he said. “If farmers want to make a business out of it, it should be easy to be able to sell.”

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.