I was in a hurry last evening to get the news posted about the California and New York raw milk developments, so I didn’t attempt much in the way of analysis.
But Robin Anderson’s comments on that posting raise some important questions that I’d like to address, because these two situations illustrate key issues swirling around raw milk, and food issues in general.
First off, it’s difficult to know in California what’s really going on in the little interplay between Aajonus Vonderplanitz and Mark McAfee. It could be a good-cop-bad-cop routine. There could be some bad blood between the two over business dealings. Or it could be a genuine ideological type of split that is, unfortunately, not uncommon in political movements. We saw one such split vividly in the Civil Rights movement during the 1960s and 1970s between those advocating violence (Black Panthers) and those advocating non-violent protests (led by Dr. Martin Luther King).
Such splits—among individuals or groups that are in general agreement—can become even more bitter than the larger issues they are supposedly fighting to resolve, and thus very distracting. Hopefully that’s not what’s going on here.
Second, and probably more significant, is the issue Robin raises about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. She wonders why, as a body builder, his natural tendency wouldn’t be with natural food. He probably has such sympathies, but what is likely going on behind the scenes involves a struggle between the bureaucrats and the politicians.
If the legislature reverses AB 1735, it would be a huge blow to both the prestige and power of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which by all accounts was the primary force behind the stealth legislation to begin with. The CDFA is pushing the governor hard, real hard, not to give in to the changes now being considered by the legislature.
The CDFA could probably come away with a change in the coliform standard to 50 coliforms per milliliter and still save face. But a complete reversal? That would be hard to live down. And Mark McAfee, among others, would probably have some fun reminding CDFA about its failure.
The Meadowsweet Dairy situation in New York can be viewed similarly, but here as a test of the struggle between the bureaucrats and the judiciary. The NY Department of Agriculture and Markets desperately wants to avoid having the Meadowsweet case go to trial. Once again, if the judges decide to get seriously involved, then you could have a situation like what occurred in Ohio in December 2006, when a state court ruled against the Ohio Department of Agriculture and for the herdshare concept.
No, I think we’re viewing first-hand a key test in the struggle between the regulators and the politicians/judges who oversee the bureaucrats.
The bureaucrats understandably want to keep these issues out of the public arena, since the public is becoming ever more aware of the problems with our food system, and the opportunities for good health in whole foods. The politicians tend to go along with the regulators because the politicians don’t want to take strong stands on much of anything these days, for fear of the gotcha approach to campaign contests these days.
But the politicians need to at least give the appearance of listening, and sometimes responding. You know that in California, the politicians have heard a great deal from the public about raw milk and AB 1735, and want the emails and calls to stop. Over the next few weeks, we should begin to get some interesting insights into how tight the bureaucratic grip on our food really is.
I agree with Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures and Barbara and Stevel Smith of Meadowsweet Dairy, who are all urging raw milk supporters to attend the legislative, regulatory, and judicial hearings upcoming over the next couple weeks. It can only help for the people in authority to see that there are significant numbers of people who really care.
the meadowsweet dairy administrative hearing in albany new york is open to the public. i have been told that the hearing room can accommodate 100 persons.
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/content.asp?ContentId=189559
Doreen Hannes and I got Chuck Jolley at CattleNetwork to do a piece about our side of the NAIS issue. He was very fair and balanced and used our answers to his questions in full, no editing. They have a huge readership and this is the first time the cattlemen are reading the real truth.
Missing from this post, David, was any mention of where the pressure to shut down raw milk dairies is coming from. I know we all know, but writing that the ‘regulators’ are responsible leaves out the elephants in the CDFA and NYDAM offices. In PA shirah has foound that the PDA is infected with a cadre of industry insiders who apparently are bringing their own agenda into the regulation process, in the absence of legislation.
I haven’t read enough about it to know where the draconian measures against Meadowsweet and herdshare is coming from in NY. Why does Meadowsweet have to become the test case for the LLC when there has already been one in Ohio? The legality of herdshare, in the absence of legislation outlawing it would seem to have already been determined. Are there similar arrangements in other areas, CSAs come to mind, that are not targets because they aren’t perceived as threats by industrial agriculture?
In CA, was it the CDFA that asked the legislature to pass AB1735? Who wrote the bill, at whose auspices? Why not smoke out the Monsanto culprits as shirah has done in PA? The media seem to be doing a fair job of reporting these cases. It would certainly be worth feeding them the kind of information shirah has uncovered so the media can report on the narrative behind the scenes, so people understand what these cases are really all about.
It’s important to get a counter-narrative out: these cases are not about germs and protecting people. They are about corporate monopolies, restraint of trade, freedom of choice and family farms. The media needs to be told the other side of the story so that when they report they have the ‘she said’ to go along with the ‘he (regulators) said’.
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Stephen Lendman has written a 3-part review of F. William Engdahl’s Seeds of Destruction: The hidden agenda of genetic manipulation, about the effort by Big Ag to control all of our food. Part 1 is here (go to home page for the rest of the review): http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7716
Henwhisperer: Thanks for the NAIS link.
Industry insiders are the skeleton of government. You knew that already, right? Look at the membership http://animalagriculture.org/aboutNIAA/members/memberdirectory.asp list for NIAA (National Institute of Animal Agriculture). This is link http://animalagriculture.org/aboutNIAA/committees/APFSS/apfs_commlist.asp to the list of Animal Production Food Safety & Security Committee.
As as it so happens, one thing leads to another. Clicking through to the National Milk Producers Federation brought me to Preliminary Results of 2007 National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments Volume 10, Issue II May, 2007. I searched, just for fun, for ‘raw’ in the pdf. Hey, guess what I came up with?
http://www.nmpf.org/files/file/NCIMS%20May%2007.pdf
This: "Establish a study committee to examine how to prevent cow share programs that circumvent the existing prohibitions against raw milk sales to consumers. This committee will examine existing state statutes and report back to the 2009 NCIMS." And this: "The following proposals were considered potentially onerous or unnecessary by NMPF and were not
passed by the Conference delegates. Consequently, they will not be incorporated into the new documents: A number of proposals to not require pasteurization of milk. These could have allowed the currently problematic raw milk sales situation to become even more widespread."
Hey, it’s business as usual. I hate to bust ya’lls balloon, but in this country corporations have become the most important thing and we, the people, be damned. And it’s not just in food either.
BILL NUMBER : A.B. No. 1735
AUTHOR : Committee on Agriculture
TOPIC : Milk and dairy products: standards.
MEASURE : A.B. No. 1735
AUTHOR(S): Committee on Agriculture (Assembly Members Parra (Chair), La Malfa (Vice Chair), Berryhill, Dymally,Fuller, Galgiani, Jones, and Mendoza).
TOPIC: Milk and dairy products: standards.
+LAST AMENDED DATE : 04/16/2007
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_1701-1750/ab_1735_bill_20071009_status.html
There you go, the authors…
http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/newcomframeset.asp?committee=53
YOu can email the above..
Yup. I just wanted to fill in some blanks that I detected in this blog entry.
So, it’s ok to ship milk in tankers interstate without pasteurizing. This means further consolidation and centralization of the bottlers, which means even more small farmers in out-of-the-way places will be put out of business because they’ll be too far away from the bottler…which means the real intent is to produce milk in huge CAFO-like factories.
It seems every effort is being made to destroy the livelihoods of all small farms of every sort. I’m also thinking here of Monsanto’s thousands of lawsuits against small farmers. With the latest news that there are plans to breed GM lettuce and Bt cabbage…….it’s too depressing to finish this sentence.
And all of these new regulations and government intrusion into our lives, restricting our freedom to even grow our own food, is being forced on us by the people who believe government is the problem and it should be ‘drowned in the bathtub’. Ha ha.
Here’s another item from the NMPF’s NCIMS 2007 Conference report:
"Update the definition of pasteurization to make it consistent with the 2002 Farm Bill changes that recognizes irradiation as a means of ensuring safe products."
I suppose this means that soon all industrial milk will be irradiated.
…………
Margo: Thanks for the complement 🙂
There was a proposal at the 2007 NCIMS to pass an amendment to the PMO (Pasteurized Milk Ordinance – model federal law) to explicitly ban raw milk/cow share arrangements. Since most of the states adopt all, or parts of the PMO as state law, this would have resulted in the need, state by state, to make sure that the offending new provision did not get adopted in each state that adopted the PMO. The proposal to ban cow shares in the PMO did NOT obtain sufficient support in the 2007 conference, and so the matter was tabled to committee as reported here. Again, vocal political opposition with state regulators who attend this conference in 2009 would obviously be important, since even if Ron Paul’s attempt (HR4077) to limit the federal ban is successful, we will still have to make sure each state permits the sale and/or cow shares. The encouraging fact was, that there was not sufficient support in 2007 to add the language to the PMO. The worrisome issue is, that some committee is busy as we speak, trying to figure out how to push it through in 2009.
It makes me sick at my stomach to see how industry and government is so intertwined. It’s like a tumor.
Anyone know how to find out what industry connections these beaurocrats have? Suggestions for other non-profit organizations the dairy industry may be using as a cover?