Brigitte Ruthman is a Massachusetts dairy farmer who just received a second Cease-and-Desist order from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. (Here is the story of her first one, received 15 months ago.) In this guest post, she seeks to interpret what has occurred, and debates whether to continue on her chosen path.
Brigitte Ruthman in her barnI milk two cows in a small town in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts. This, and so much more of the details of a small farm, seem to be ammunition lately to use against me by a government agency determined to protect corporate dairy interests and not small farms.
I received my second Cease-and-Desist order this week, this one specifically citing newspaper articles and my membership in a local sustainable food organization, Berkshire Grown.
Perhaps I should give up. Even a dream has limits, realistically, to survive.
But they keep coming…raw milk drinkers, that is. People who want a safe, nutrient dense food source. They want their children to know that milk doesn’t originate on a supermarket shelf, and that cows dont give milk without giving birth to a calf. These individuals are angry, defiant, and determined to preserve their food source. These are their cows.
It took decades for me to arrive at a sense of incredible pride to nurture a pasture back to life, turn it over to cows raised from calves, and collect milk. Maybe it was the magic of risking a dream for everything that nobody but me could see, but it happened. I began milking in 2010, proper legal documents in hand and a safe and efficient milking quarter complete.
The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources took the liberty of interpreting its right of jurisdiction over small farms that don’t have certificates of registry or class A dairy licenses. It assumed control over a third option–a private contractual arrangement, very much like a CSA , which gives people the right to choose to own a share of a cow when they would rather not milk it in their own back yard. This controversy is currently being thrashed out in several states, most notably in California, where a formal set of standards could be developed and used throughout the country.
The question is whether small farmers should relinquish control over private contracts to state control. State and federal departments of agriculture are now poised to negotiate. Could this be because they see the tide finally turning against them? Better for them, it would seem, to harness control before milk processing plants fall silent.
Far from a whimsical attempt to thwart regulations, herd and cowshare models are based on English laws also known as agister agreements. These laws were valid in colonial America and remain valid today. Shareholders become owners. They want and understand fresh milk from a familiar source.
Who am I? I was the kid who drove a toy tractor behind my father’s lawn mower, pretending the grass clippings to be hay, the teenager who begged to work for $2 an hour picking hay bales from farmers fields, before dairies were subdivided in southern Connecticut, and the young adult who went to work as a herdsman in Morgan Center, VT, to learn skills among Ayreshires, breeders and milkmen I draw from today- traditions lost on commercial dairies.
This is not the time to recite the poetry of small scale farming, which is its engine more than profit. At issue, supposedly, is safety.
No one in Massachusetts has fallen ill after drinking raw milk- either from a licensed, registered or unregistered dairy. None. Not one, rumored or not. Three Massachusetts residents died after drinking pasteurized milk in 2007. There is no verifiable science, no proof, to support warnings that fresh milk is inherently unsafe. Even though the FDA likes to say that one per cent of the public drinks fresh milk, the CDC says the number is three percent on average.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote that today’s industrial farms have become insipid food assembly lines, leaving us with food that lacks soul, but may contain pathogens. Far from imminent health hazards, small farms where cows have names and not numbers are far safer than industrial farms which have sickened so many Americans.
As to any concerns that there might be a groundswell of profit-seeking dairy farmers cropping up, it won’t happen. I simply don’t have enough working lifetime left to ever make back my investment. Unlike any of the certificate holders on cow farms, I began not with an existing commercial enterprise, but raw land. How to convince others to do the same before valuable farmland is lost to development?
Of the few small-scale dairy farmers left, all give priority to healthy, clean environments and their animals. They have answered a growing clamor for transparency in sustainable agriculture, a demand made by people who have a right, not a privilege, to choose their food sources.
The World Health Organization recently urged world leaders to pay heed to food inflation costs. Food, it seems, will be the next oil. 12 per cent of the American population depends on food stamps and we have lost nine out of ten of our dairy farms over the last 40 years. One in six Americans goes hungry every day.
New England, once a patchwork of quintessential farmland, has lost much of its defining agricultural landscape, and is at risk of losing its historical identity as a place where resilient independent farmers once defined community and nurtured the land to provide a local food supply. Some of what exists remains beautiful and potentially bountiful today.
In Vermont where I learned to milk, I recall being told not worry when a cow kicked the milk machine claw to the gutter where it sucked up manure and pathogens. Aghast as I was, I was assured that the milk was destined to be boiled. The allowable level of bacteria in the collection tank was therefore high. It was a running joke that city people didn’t know they were drinking sanitized manure. Teats were simply “dipped” in an iodine solution. It wasn’t efficient to wash them as I do now, until the udder is pink squeaky clean.
And yes, happy cows are healthier cows–allowed pasture and not confinement and exposure to bacteria in the soil, roaming cows have a healthier immune system and don’t need high doses of antibiotics as a preventative measure. Healthy cows produce a healthier produce than factory cows that spend most of their lives in confining stanchions, where they more easily develop mastitis. The somatic cell count for heirloom breeds–those typically not found on factory farms, tend to be far better than those from cows in confined spaces.
MDAR has seemed an agency confused by its own agenda and internal struggles–one official wrote that grants are available, yet I received communication from another official in the same office that none are available. The interpretation of regulations differs according to the inspector offering them- and they seem to be conflicted by an order requiring septic systems or not. MDAR eemed to have time and tax dollars to police the Internet for milk distributors and deliver cease-and-desist orders in person, but could hardly find time two years ago to send an inspector to interpret regulations.
Four states–Idaho, Tennessee, Colorado, and Alaska–specifically allow farmers to engage in private contracts with shareholders. Four specifically forbid it and the rest, including Massachusetts, are silent. It all seems so crazy to me that my cows, pastured near the state line and milked under one set of rules in Massachusetts which claims their milk is unsafe, then walked across the state line and milked in Connecticut where their milk would be defined otherwise.
Farming is difficult enough- I tell people who dream of doing what I do to imagine the hardest they are willing to work, then double it and accept that farming is an endless series of repetitive acts, things that go wrong, and a challenge against weather, finances and daylight that threaten to defeat your spirit. A fence needs mending, a water pipe freezes.
The problems here are vast, but lets begin with the “one size fits all” government mentality, and a particular agency which has failed to follow due process in its zealous effort to police instead of assist small farms.
Follow your instinct in what is right and not what others want you to do.
What IF you just keep doing what is right?
The blessings of defiance are coming unexpected and in many different forms.
Trust in your instinct what needs to be done.
It was much more difficult for Rosa Parks to sit in the bus than us trying to revive the country side.
We have less hate from others except regulators and corporations.
Love to resist, resist with love.
If you need help call me
Warm regards
Michael
"Cowardice asks the question-is it safe?
Expediency asks the question-is it politic?
Vanity asks the question-is it popular?
But conscience asks the question-is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Oh Bridgette, these are troubled times indeed.
Michael is so so right.
The numbers of people out there who are reasserting our inalienable and indefeasible rights to grow and choose and share the nutrient-dense foods of our farms are growing day by day across North America. But they will continue to test us in spite of truth and logic and love for as long as they possibly can.
My heart goes out to you – keep your faith light glowing,
Deborah
Sometimes we wonder why we're doing what we've been led to do. It is because we've followed the whisperings of our soul. You have followed this path during your life to bring you to where you stand now.
My heart ached as I read your story; the absolute absurdity of the government menacing you, a brave woman – with TWO cows!
In the words of Frank Serpico, Retired NYC Detective:
"Sometimes you have to go up against the odds to do the right thing."
Know that there are thousands behind you, who will support you in your cause to do what your heart tells you is right.
With Love and Blessings,
Bev Hill
years ago there was a country song asking whose going to continue singing when all the old ones are gone….
Follow your gut, it won't mislead you. Rally those who are in your group.
http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/11/farm-bill-supercommittee
http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/10/freakonomics-cantaloupes-listeria
the hint of the practical way out of your predicament is towards the end of your excellent treatise = "The problems here are vast, but let's begin with the "one size fits all" government mentality, …"
this is where communism always gets to, as its tenet of "equality" reduces every individual down to a manageable unit. No surprise that the output of its industrialized agriculture is the lowest common denominator of what the consumer will accept.
The mere existence of one lone woman, actually supplying REAL MILK, witnesses against the whole monstrous system
so keep on doing it. that is Michael Schmidt's strength, and it's what's won the day for us last year in BC = Alice Jongerden's confidence in the righteousness of what she was doing, in the face of the tyrannical Law framed in mischief
I recommend you simply keep on getting up and doing the milking and handing the milk to its owners, until whatever alphabet-soup agency pretending to have more right than you do to them, shows up with jackbooted goons in flak jackets with loaded guns on their hips – as happened in Ontario – to lead the cows away. Yes, a heartbreaker … but if it's your calling to "walk through the exercise", so as to demonstrate to people how bad things are now in Ham-merica, then so be it. Some men – and women – are born for trouble as sure as the sparks fly upwards
the govt. goons are long on steroid-induced bravado, but very short on genuine courage coming from Christian morality.
Here in British Columbia, we are prevailing, slowly but surely. Our right to use and enjoy or private property, given to us by our God for our stewardship, is one of the core values of the British nation : He's in charge. As we assert that right, the bureaucratic thugs turn tail and slink away. I have the hard evidence now proving that the idiots in the so-called "health authorities" committed MALfeasance of public office. Probably the same where you are. Use the Freedom of Information protocol. The Pen is mightier than the Sword
Forget lawyers = your right as a private citizen can only be asserted by the belligerant claimant in person.
This thing is not over, no, not by a long shot. It took us a generation as we descended into this pigsty of communism, and it will take us a while to get out. King Solomon said "this too shall pass"
"He is off the chart sensitive to whey and has a low level of sensitivity to goats milk cheese. Whey is in both cows and goats milk. I dont know if they have a test that distinguishes between the two. Is the whey chemical makeup different in these two animals milk? Was this test measuring whey from cows milk only?"
I wish I had the answers for you. Over the last 20 years, I have been dealing with increased sensitivity to processed foods-or should I say chemically altered phoods. So I am learning what is and is not in foods and what I have to avoid. Other than my son as an infant rejecting formulas, I've only had to deal with seasonal allergies. (and they usually aren't more than a slight runny nose and watery eyes, nothing that warranted medications.) You'll know when and if you should re-introduce something to your son.
the moderator of this forum politely told you to take your discussion elsewhere
the protagonist of that thread of overwhelming morbid detail, sort of indicated she got the point, but apparently cannot let go …
MM has shown herself a monomaniac, determined to ruin good-faith dialogue on the overall topic of this website. By feeding her "pain body" you're doing her mental health more harm than good
once again I recommend you-all get your own website. The one which hosts mine = < http://www.freewebs.com/bovinity > is excellent, and FOR FREE, too!
This blog is titled THE COMPLETE PATIENT. We were discussing MILK and the affects on the body. Did you not get that?
You remind me of a typical narcissist, they engage in character assassination and projection to express themselves–trying to save their own insecure ego.
To top it off..it is NOT YOUR bloody blog, Geesh.
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/moderation-in-all-things/
Comment moderation has been off now for several days, maybe even a week, except for Gordons posts, however.
Other than Gordons posts its been back the way it was.
And that way was that commenters had to have their first comment moderated and after that they could comment and the comments would appear immediately.
Youre not the only one who had problems with Gordons posts. Ive heard much the same sentiment from others. My feeling is that many of the issues Gordon insists on discussing in a raw milk context are in fact not central to the food freedom issue at all, and have the effect of alienating potential supporters.
Brigitte – thank you, thank you, and all other farmers who persevere under the current regime of intolerance and persecution of freedom of food choice. You are the heroes.
I don't have to agree with everything someone says/believes in to have a civil conversation.
I have no bitterness or animosity towards Mary. I also don't agree with all Mark says, that doesn't mean I harbor "acrimony" towards him. I'm just not one of those followers who lack guts to question what he or anyone else says.
BTW, I do agree with Mary on many things, ie; fast/processed foods, etc.
"As to any concerns that there might be a groundswell of profit-seeking dairy farmers cropping up, it won't happen. I simply don't have enough working lifetime left to ever make back my investment. Unlike any of the certificate holders on cow farms, I began not with an existing commercial enterprise, but raw land. How to convince others to do the same before valuable farmland is lost to development?
Of the few small-scale dairy farmers left, all give priority to healthy, clean environments and their animals. They have answered a growing clamor for transparency in sustainable agriculture, a demand made by people who have a right, not a privilege, to choose their food sources."
Beautiful comment . . . absolutely beautiful . . .
Don't give up!!!! We need thousand of farmers just like you providing us clean and healthy raw milk, produce, eggs and meat to local communities . . . like what was common before the 1930's.
For some weird reason America moved away from it's agrarian roots . . . and those 70% who were living a rural farming existence prior to WWII moved to the urban areas leaving only about 1% to feed an entire country . . . and most of that . . . Big Ag . . . it is beginning to fall apart now that most are becoming aware of the state of our phood.
Please don't give up Brigitte . . .
Kind regards,
Violet
http://www.kilbyridgefarmmaine.blogspot.com
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