Everyone knows that municipalities wield enormous power and influence — they can switch water on or off, for example, and make residents’ lives a misery. But here’s a municipality that thought itself powerful enough to redefine a mushroom. Not just that; it persuaded the magistrate’s court to accept its new definition as well.The peculiar story emerges from a case brought by the Breede Valley municipality against farmer Hannes Jacobs of Royal Mushrooms at De Doorns in the Western Cape. Initially helpful, officials approved a number of structures on Jacobs’ property, but then they received complaints about a smell coming from the farm, Modderdrift.All parties agreed this problem had been sorted out, and though the municipality later said the high court did not have to consider the smell issue, it seems to have sparked an idea: officials began to wonder whether growing mushrooms really was "farming".If not, they reasoned, Jacobs had to apply for the farm to be rezoned from being for a...
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