Joyce Brown, DVM
There are all kinds of reasons members leave a raw milk herdshare—perhaps they aren’t drinking as much milk as they once did, or they find an alternative source of milk closer to home, or they don’t like the farmer’s sanitation practices, or they are moving to another state. Whatever the reason, people who leave herdshares usually depart quietly, end their contract and move on.
For some reason, though, when Joyce Brown decided to leave the herdshare run by Highland Haven Farm in Hillsboro, OH, last fall, after four-and-a-half years of membership, she turned her departure into a nasty experience, publicly trashing the farm’s owner, Adam Hershberger, with other members and with a number of outside organizations. Among her actions:
- She commandeered the herdshare’s email list and began using it as her own, sending out long messages accusing Hershberger of arbitrarily changing the herdshare’s contract, of using unsanitary practices in his milk bottling procedures, and an assortment of other transgressions.
- She set up an opposition web site (highland haven herdshare dot com) and Facebook page (search in Facebook for Highland Haven Herdshare).
- She suggested on her new web site and in emails she circulated that she had support for at least some of her legal views from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.
- She blamed Hershberger’s decision to use an online ordering system from FarmMatch for seriously undermining the terms of the herdshare, which she contended made members vulnerable to unspecified legal action.
- She complained to a dairy official at the Ohio Department of Agriculture about the farm’s sanitation practices.
- She threatened to file complaints with the Ohio Attorney General.
- She emailed meat regulators at the Ohio Department of Agriculture complaining about the farm’s slaughtering practices.
If she wanted to upset Hershberger, a 33-year-old Amish farmer, she succeeded. “There were times when I couldn’t eat or sleep,” says the father of five.
She scared off about half a dozen herdshare members with her email warnings that listeria contamination could occur.
Beyond the upset and fear, it’s difficult to know what other destruction she has left in her wake. The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund declines to comment on her suggestions that it supports her legal allegations that Hershberger has seriously violated the herdshare agreement and put members at legal risk. By Brown’s own admission, the Ohio Department of Agriculture let her know it wasn’t interested in becoming involved in regulating Hershberger’s dairy, or any raw milk dairy. The state sanctioned herdshares beginning in 2008, after losing a 2006 court case brought by a raw dairy and its lawyer, Gary Cox, who was then in private practice (and is now with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund).
She did apparently convince an ODA agent to briefly visit the farm a couple weeks ago about Brown’s claim of meat problems. According to Hershberger, when he asked the agent for his evidence of problems, the agent pulled out an email from Brown accusing Hershberger of illegally butchering and selling lamb, pork, and beef. When I inquired with the ODA it declined comment except to say it was “looking into this case/operation.”
Why would a herdshare member launch the equivalent of a scorched-earth campaign against an unassuming farmer, whose dairy hasn’t been associated with any illnesses or other notable problems? Indeed, Joyce Brown had been a loyal and enthusiastic member, by all accounts.
Trying to understand Joyce Brown is a difficult undertaking, because it requires dealing with a tedious communication style in which Brown seemingly has an answer or objection to any point being made. An associate of Hershberger notes that she and others at the farm eventually took to referring to Brown’s lengthy emails as “books.” “Instead of saying we received another email from her, we’d say we received a book,” says the associate.
All agree, the immediate problems began last September, when Adam Hershberger sought to make several changes to the herdshare operations. A key one was shifting ordering from a clunky old online system to one custom developed by FarmMatch. Making that change entailed a change in how bottles were handled—instead of always re-using the same bottles, shareholders would return their bottles for washing and receive new bottles randomly.
Finally, and this is key, Hershberger wanted to make a change in the personnel who handled herdshare administration—membership, ordering, deliveries. He wanted to bring in a new coordinator to work with the existing coordinator, who appeared to be having difficulty tending to all the tasks that needed doing. When that didn’t work, he decided to go with the new coordinator.
While Joyce Brown has complained at length about violations of the herdshare contract stemming from the decision to go with FarmMarch, the decision about administrators seems to be the one that sent her onto the war path. She seemed to somehow think that, as a herdshare member, she was the one to determine who ran the herdshare.
In an email to members in September, she said, “With [the previous administrator] no longer acting as our watchdog, I have no confidence in safety going forward. [The previous administrator] had advocated against rushing into this system, and had advocated against the shared bottling system entirely. Without going into all the other legal and management issues, my concern is that Adam now has managers with no experience with these issues (Morgan is 16 and her mom Diane, who works with her, told me directly in this meeting last week that she, Diane, has no prior experience with herdshares and no experience with any businesses with legal issues.)”
Hershberger attempted to answer Brown’s concerns about the change in administration in an email response to members (sent by his administrator), in which he listed some of Brown’s concerns/complaints. With regard to Brown’s allegation that “the herdshare significantly increases the risk of health and safety issues,” he replied: “I want to make it clear that our production practices HAVE NOT CHANGED AT ALL. Absolutely no one has contacted me indicating that there is an increased health or safety risk, now or ever. I have personally tightened up the glass bottle sanitation policy. My objective is to REMOVE any possible health or safety risk. How could one conclude this?” After sending that message, Hershberger says now, he did hear from “a few” members who expressed concern about the cleanliness of bottles, and he says any problems were fixed. He acknowledges that Brown’s expression of concerns “made us step back and look at our whole operation and look for weak links,” though he insists that would have happened if she had made her complaints directly to him instead of going public.
It’s interesting, I “met” the current coordinator, Morgan Phelps, during a phone conversation last week, and she introduced me to the sorry mess of the herdshare battle with Joyce Brown. Phelps called me because she said Hershberger had a legal question he wanted my opinion about. After I rendered my opinion, we got to talking about what prompted the question, and Morgan provided me with a concise and organized explanation of the Joyce Brown campaign—how it came to be, what forms it has taken, what the accusations have been—without expressing any judgments or characterizations of Brown. At the end of her recitation, before I had a chance to respond, she paused, and said, “You should know, I’m 16 years old.”
She wasn’t bragging, but just alerting me to a fact I might want to consider in assessing what I had just heard. I wasn’t put off, simply amazed. I have continued to be amazed by her maturity and smarts at such a young age, as she has answered some of my requests for documentation.
I relate that story by way of pointing out that the fact that Adam Hershberger chose a 16-year-old to handle coordination duties somehow threw Joyce Brown for a loop.
In a 2,600-word email to me Thursday, following a 20-minute phone interview we did Wednesday, Brown ranted about legal problems associated with Morgan’s age, along with a litany of seemingly endless ethical, business, tax, and other issues she says taint Adam Hershberger. She added she had been in touch with Gary Cox of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund about some of the issues, and is a member of the organization. The FTCLDF declined formal comment, president Pete Kennedy telling me, “It’s not appropriate to discuss publicly a matter involving a member.”
Beyond the system change last September, is there a larger issue, like perhaps a political agenda, involved here? After years as one of the most hostile states for raw milk, Ohio transformed itself over the last seven years into a national success model for herdshares. Dozens of herdshares serve raw milk drinkers, and conflict and charges about illnesses have faded away.
One of the things I find curious about Brown is how skillfully she has used her knowledge about various organizations/institutions involved in raw milk in Ohio—the herdshare model, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, FarmMatch, the Ohio Department of Agriculture— via an anti-raw-milk slant. If the conventional dairy industry or a national regulatory agency wanted to create an updated anti-raw-milk campaign with credibility, Joyce Brown’s approach of fear and accusations of legal wrongdoing might well be what the campaign looked like.
I asked her several times during our interview if she was being paid for her activities, and if she was an agent for a dairy association or the FDA or some other agency, and she vehemently denied my suggestion. “I am not being paid,” she said. She insisted she is motivated entirely by the lifelong oath she took upon receiving her veterinary degree from the University of Tennessee, which included a commitment “to protect the public health. I take that oath very seriously.”
If she’s not a hired gun, then perhaps her sudden about-face on raw milk last fall was simply a matter of a health-care professional being unable to let go of anti-raw-milk teachings that are part and parcel of the education of doctors, public health professionals, and veterinarians in the United States.
The good news is that Hershberger appears to be well on the path to recovery from the Brown assault. Recovery began, he says, when he decided last November to not engage further with Brown. Other shareholders have followed suit, and Brown’s Highland Haven Facebook page consists nearly entirely of her own assertions, and has five members besides herself.
The herdshare is back on the upswing, with 150 to 175 active members—its most ever. Hershberger credits the FarmMatch system with helping improve efficiency and ease of ordering.
Are there lessons for other herdshare or private food club operations in the Joyce Brown episode? I see at least three:
-Closely guard your email list. Highland Haven had apparently sent out at least some emails last summer with the names of the recipients visible to everyone. That made it easy for Brown to copy the emails and use the list as her own.
-Be wary of accepting health care professionals as members. I know there are open-minded professionals out there, and they are certainly entitled to their raw milk and good food as much as anyone. Just be aware that you never know when they might return to the teachings that guided their professional education, and quickly forget about their commitment to privately settle concerns within a private organization like a herdshare or food club.
-Watch out for Joyce Brown, or any imitators, at your herdshare. She says she has joined another Ohio herdshare. I don’t know which it is, but the farmer who serves it may want to stay alert to her activities.
Adam Hershberger says he harbors no bitterness. “In looking back, I am thankful I went through this experience. It has broadened my horizon. It’s made me more comfortable dealing with obstacles in the future. We felt the fear and we went through it and it didn’t hurt us long term.”
To challenge a doctor goes against all of the sacred post doctorate dogmas. She must know it all!!
As a DVM, I can assure you she knows little about raw milk,,pathogens, epidemiology, host immunity, pathogen virility, zoonotic disease and raw milk related pathogens, pathogen testing technologies, RAMP etc….safety data or even listeria. The literature, when reviewed, is missing much of this body of research….because no funds have been invested to truly and honestly study it!!
She just thinks she knows it all…but has not been humbled by the scarcity of true knowledge that anyone really has about raw milk. Any true raw milk scholar is humble as hell, reads incessantly, scavenges from experirnced producers and others and listens to learn… more than anything. Nature is in charge and when any of us thinks we know it all….we have learned and know essentially nothing. I strongly suggest that this vet goes back to the school of humility and humanity. So much more can be done by cooperation, compassionate collaboration and being a suppotivd part of the solution. Being a destructive voice only racks up negative karma points. She certainly seems to be having FDA authority mediated medical school pharma flash backs.
I do not know this vet,,…so I take quite a risk saying what I have said. But I do know Daviid Gumpert and he does not write stories without doing his homework. I also know many vets and PHDs. None of them act like this DVM. None of them. I hope she can recognize the short sighted and poorly spirited methods she has chosen and perhaps evolve. To be friends of raw milk and then become its enemy says quite a lot.
I hope David Gumpert sends her your comments!! She needs to hear this!
Mark: You said it best: “Nature is in charge.”
It may be our greatest sin to think we know much of anything at all about anything, when we truly don’t. Living well and honorably is a lifelong path of learning. Most of what I learned about teaching that was of value, I learned from my students, not from professors. This was possible only because I was open to it. The good news here is that the farmer has recovered.
Mark, she definitely could benefit from a dose of humble pie. She shows an arrogance that is common to many medical professionals.
Like you, I don’t know other medical professionals who have chosen such extreme behavior to express their discomfort about a situation. I hesitated to single vets out in my recommendations at the end of the post (advising herdshares to beware of medical professionals as members); indeed, some of my best friends are medical professionals, as we say.
However, I do think medical professionals, in particular, have a difficult time with notions of private, self-regulated communities handling food production and distribution. Their instinct, based on their training, is to turn to conventional public regulation and courts to solve problems. So, when Joyce Brown came up against a situation at the herdshare that made her uncomfortable (a change in administrators), she turned immediately for solutions to the established legal and regulatory order (seeking confirmation from the FTCLDF and the ODA). When you join a private food community that is private in large measure to give members choices outside the public realm, you are making a decision to solve problems differently….or at least that should be your orientation.
She is obviously a sleeper cell, an industrial corporate spy.
I think she sounds like a very lonely person with too much institutionalized education and not enough real life experience. She makes enemies because she cannot make friends, apparently.
Or she could have a problem similar to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and the raw milk issue may have been a concern she thought needed to be addressed. As Dr. Gumpert observed, “One of the things I find curious about Brown is how skillfully she has used her knowledge about various organizations/institutions involved in raw milk in Ohio—the herdshare model, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, FarmMatch, the Ohio Department of Agriculture— via an anti-raw-milk slant.” Four and a half years involvement with the herd share program may have simply been a ruse to acquire ammunition to attack raw milk producers. Apparently, it didn’t work.
Some symptoms of OCD: Demanding reassurances, Constant, irrational worry about dirt, germs, or contamination, Following a strict routine, Excessive concern about accidentally or purposefully injuring another person, Feeling overly responsible for the safety of others.
Dr. Gumpert, you are familiar with her writing. Are some of these symptoms evident in her lengthy rants?
Classic Cointelpro
Julie, the classic cointelpro came to my mind as well. What course of action would a cointelpro take? First, ingratiate yourself into the group. 4.5 years of herdshare membership, acting like a gung-ho member. Check. Then the problem-reaction-solution. Made up Problem – administrative changes. Reaction – harass herdshare owner and other members. Solution – get official agencies involved, hope for a shutdown, or at least the attention of people like Food Safety News. If Joyce Brown was a cointelpro, wouldn’t she be adamantly denying being an agent or getting paid?
We do need to be careful to distinguish people with legitimate concerns from cointelpros. But it’s hard to see any legitimacy in Joyce Brown’s concerns.
Wow! Blondes really do have more fun. Wonder what Vernon thinks…..
Pete – well…. not surprised other than most of the cases he was involved with in the 90’s were pretty much public knowledge – at least the entire NAIS community were aware. What a big change for WAPF’s most famous toddler (ftc)… PR is king!!
And Cox?? ROFLMAO. No surprises there either
Obviously some folks are unaware of both the history as well as science. Or at least they would love for us to believe so –
The Joyce Browns of the world teach us not to waste our precious time stressing over trolls. Joyce is a troll of the worst sort: an actual saboteur. Saboteurs are narcissists needing massive quantities of attention. The best thing to do is to cut that off without another glance back. I’m glad to hear that’s the path Adam chose.
To unhinge any attention Joyce gets from this article, I’d unlink from her websites and Facebook pages, just write out the urls for anyone to copy and paste. Two reasons: active links from a credible website (yours) gives credibility and SEO love to websites it links to. Why give her any attention at all? It also can downgrade your SEO ranking when you link to a site of questionable reputation.
Sally, good point about unlinking from her website and Facebook page.
As to your point about not giving attention to Brown, I must confess I wasn’t at all sure I should post about this situation. For one thing, I knew I would be giving Brown more attention than she deserves. For another, I would be opening this blog to what could be tedious and tangential legal responses from Brown or supporters, trying to distract attention away from her hostile actions.
In the end, I decided that ignoring her highly public hostile actions sends either of two possible messages: that people agree, or that they are afraid, of her actions. Better to expose them to the light of the day, and see how it looks there.
David, et al, your investigative work needs serious FACTS…
1) the Hershberger herdshare CEASED to EXIST by Adam Hershberger’s own doing. READ THE CONTRACT that every original member signed. That contract is the MODEL that made Ohio safe for raw milk drinkers. When Adam switched to the fancy website (how dare you denigrate a website based on snazz) in order to get more growth and allow credit cards, he CHANGED THE ENTIRE LEGAL STRUCTURE OF THE HERDSHARE…. no more ‘ownership’ of the cows and no *share* in milk in proportion to the shares owned….
Nope, the snazzy website was *SELLING* RAW MILK IN CONTRADICTION TO OHIO LAW… buy as much as you want… the document that defined the original structure, the model, was nowhere to be honored by the new website… Adam told those of us who prefer to avoid breaking the law when there is a sensible way to own the cows that ‘he thought it was time to push the envelop’ and take steps that plowed new ground… OY!!
GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT… that ripping up of the contract by Adam, opened up all the original signers to the potential wrath of the LAW AND ITS CROOKS…..
2) That law breaking of the model we all signed opened SEVERAL members who were in LAW ENFORCEMENT to extreme professional hazard..
3) That nicey bottle-sharing idea EVENTUALLY got revoked IIRC, because THERE WERE MEMBERS (SOME WHO SIMPLY LEFT) WHO HAD EXTREME HEALTH NEEDS, INCLUDING ONE FAMILY WITH A CHILD WITH HEART TRANSPLANT…. how dare you dismiss the genuine uproar that members tried to share with one another in order to keep the herdshare and its agreed operation. The ‘new’ helpers barged into an operatoin with NO LAW APPRECIATION, no familiarity with the member’s needs and nothing else but over eager ‘help’
4) .As for the use of the email list, my , my how horrible does the situation have to get to warrant disturbing members with the potential disasters that the naive switch to Farm Match was creating…. Especially since the new ‘help’ SANITIZED COMMENTS OFF THE FACEBOOK PAGE USUALLY ONLY ABOUT WHO MISSED DELIVERY ETC…. Comments about the illegality that we were being thrust into, gone, . Bottle worries, oh no, member’s professional risks.. hush… so email was the last resort…
5) ETC…on an on, with more law violations on the use of an underage worker used for some driving tasks as well… Some of those issues were dealt with because of Joyce Brown’s AWARENESS of what RISKS were in IGNORANCE OF THE LAWS…. guess law and individual circumstance of 150 unique individuals does generate lengthy emails… We even shared the court docs on the crucial case that established our Ohio path to see that the contract was crucial….
AND WITH JOYCE’s CONTACTS IN AGRICULTURE DPT, WE HEARD THAT THE KEY WAS TO PRESENT THE OFFICIAL WARNINGS ABOUT HAZARDS and then the department didn’t care about watching us any closer than they already *did*….. That’s golden to know, and Joyce put up her webpage with the official warnings (whether we believe them to be a good picture of raw milk or not) so at least we were informed like the warnings on cigs, etc… Hugely complex and tangled, that’s the nature of tar babies…. ttyl
SJ Rechyk,
You just love to complain, don’t you. You don’t like the way your private herdshare is run, so you join Joyce Brown in going crying to the state. Please protect us, dear Ohio, from our farmer who isn’t giving us all the CDC warnings about raw milk. And protect us from our farmer, who changed the bottling system. And when Ohio tells you to go screw yourselves, because you are the ones who demanded to be left alone to run your own private organization, you cry louder. PROTECT US!!!
If Ohio stepped in and started regulating all the herdshares, you’d be crying about how the State is interfering in your private affairs.
The solution is simple. You don’t like this herdshare, go find another one. And just stop the whining. It is very annoying.
You are losing your credibility… You mouth the line that Ohio has an excellent solution IN THEIR MODEL LAW, then you bad mouth the members of the Hershberger GROUP who objected to the DESTRUCTION of their PROTECTION IN THAT MODEL CONTRACT LAW.
READ THE FARM MATCH HERSHBERGER DEAL… Adam’s new member growth people are NOT JOINING A LAW-DEFINED HERDSHARE…!
ADAM DESTROYED THE HERDSHARE WITH THE *NEW* DEAL THE NEWBIES WROTE.
The contract defines the LEGAL ENTITY. The FarmMatch contract-doc that now defines the operation people are joining VIOLATES THE COURT’S EXPRESSED LEGAL-OPINION THAT GUIDES WHAT THE JUSTICE SYSTEM JUDGES AS LEGAL…..
The court said that the milk benefits were like a ‘dividend’ given in proportion to the number of shares owned…. the FarmMatch deal that Adam (under the newbies) put in-place says YOU CAN ORDER WHATEVER AMOUNT YOU WANT — so first come first serve, get your orders in early or you could end up ‘out of luck’ if the supply is sold out before the end of ordering window-time…
A future judge will look at the case law precedent and say “Mr Hershberger, you can *name* your group a “herdshare”, but clearly this document defines a BUYING CLUB, and the milk being received is not a dividend-share of the group operation… GUILTY AS CHARGED!….. BAILIFF PUT THE CUFFS ON MR HERSHBERGER AND TAKE HIM AWAY… NO BAIL, NO EXCUSES”
SO WE MEMBERS DON’T WANT THAT *SEEABLE** COURT HAZARD RESPONSIBILITY — WITH ALL OF US HAVING TO FOOT A WHOLE BUNCH OF LAWYER-TIME BILLS AND PERSONAL TIME SPENT FIGHTING A LOSING COURT CASE…. WOULD YOU?
We in the court-savvy public read what we sign and carefully ensure that it’s kosher under the existing practices in case law and insist that the other parties to the contract live according to the deal signed in the document…
You and your followers instead ignore my stated facts about the contract CHANGES and run headlong into the maw of the justice system’s machine…. clearly not law-awake and instead favoring your own blogging entertainment…. you persist to refuse to look at or listen to till it’s too late, then you scream for donations, preferring now a bunch of phony psycho-babble analyses .
Clearly you benefit your book-sales and future employment…. FTCLD lawyers originally disliked and warned that the new arrangement wasn’t kosher, but Adam and the newbies wanted more sales and FTCLD *now* seems reluctant to handicap FarmMatch buying club growth just to keep the smaller herdshare segment safe….. guess they’re also handicapped by future employment…. lol
Not enough money in the old way under the original GENUINE HERDSHARE MODEL CONTRACT.. too bad.. the other herdshares genuinely following the ownership-model have consciously chosen to remain small and in control of their operation… unlike the recklessly ambitious, envelop-pushing newbie&Mr Hershberger….. Bon Appetite.
You finally said one thing that begins to make a little sense. “A future judge will look at the case law precedent….” In order for that to happen, someone will have to file a suit challenging the legality of the herdshare. It’s another way of asking the State to resolve a private dispute. But probably a more palatable way than getting the regulators involved. In the meantime, you make reckless and likely inaccurate statements, like this: “FTCLDF lawyers originally disliked and warned that the new arrangement wasn’t kosher.” That isn’t what the FTCLDF lawyers told me. But they asked not to be quoted about Joyce Brown, as I state in the post, so I respected their wishes, unlike you, who likely misrepresented their assessment. As I said, you don’t like Hershberger, find yourself another herdshare, or go to the supermarket and buy its milk.
On the contrary, we very good relationships with our agister, reading his letter each month and watching his family grow and how they lived and worked. Worrying about his hitchhiking to get access to some cows for sale upstate.
But our area of Ohio was/is going through some turbulent times in court battles over law enforocement. Plus members were concerned that the prosecutor in Highland county was ambitious..
As Don Neeper pointed out, our original contract was the operating doc and we each paid a fixed $35 a month PER SHARE to cover the costs of caring for the cows and doing the production. For that we each got a gallon of milk (or equivalent cream, cottage cheese, or such) FOR EACH SHARE WE OWNED. Never were we buying milk.
THAT IS THE PROPER HERDSHARE DEFINITION and the newbies changing our defining contract and engaging in SALES was precisely forbidden in both the law and in the contract. The issue of it being a private contract stops when the law forbids the sale of raw milk then THE COUNTY PROSECUTOR IS THE OPPONENT YOU WILL FACE (just like a drug dealer) not just one of your fellow shareholders.
So in this conversation those in the uproar were among the ones who had watched a herdshare agister get cuffed and hauled to jail in a BUST with FBI, state and local cops descending on a delivery site and dismissing the members waving their contracts as proof that it was legal, because the agister and his farm were across the river in KY which got the whole thing out of control…
We tried to make people see the reality of what this new snazzy creditcard game of a BUYING CLUB (not even a CSA) would make us liable for, and the whole enchilada burst open with the bottles-issues (for the EXTREME SANITATION FOR SOME MEMBERS SUCH AS THE CHILD WITH THE HEART TRANSPLANT) and the underage driver as the new ‘coordinator’…
Clearly this buying club idea was not favored when Joyce got in touch with the FTCLD and there was a long period in which we waited for their researchers to look at current case law if any and wondered what possible moves were likely since the DIRECTOR OF THE OHIO AGRI DPT IS IN adam’s and joyce’s county….
And the act of choosing to break the law (BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE GROUP WAS DOING) was an extreme hazard also for several law enforcement people who also were advocates of raw milk. Somehow, the idea that law enforcement people are only skulking about and not moving to new ideas themselves is rather blind to REAL PEOPLE…
Is creditcard convenience worth CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, which is about all we could have PLED….. those are the realities of the dispute… not your biased view…
Calm down, MJ. You’ve gotten yourself terribly worked up over something, and I’m not sure what it is. That bust you refer to occurred in early 2006, when Kentucky farmer Gary Oakes was shaken down while delivering milk in Cincinnati. It was a bad scene, but it occurred BEFORE the court decision in late 2006 that paved the way for today’s raw dairy peace in Ohio. That court decision upheld one particular herdshare agreement. But the state never actually defined a herdshare, that I am aware of. So you see variations on the theme in the dozens of arrangements around Ohio. You suggest Adam Hershberger somehow decided to “break the law” when he changed terms of his herdshare by signing up with FarmMatch….But there is no law. Just a judge’s decision that said the state didn’t define its prohibition of raw milk real well, and then a governor’s decision not to appeal that judge’s decision. You’re getting way ahead of yourself, sounding like Joyce Brown, convinced you have done something wrong or the farmer has done something wrong, pleading with the regulators to tell you what bad children you are. Here’s a suggestion: Try sitting quietly, listen to your breath, and appreciate your raw milk. Everything will be okay.
Hi David,
Correct me if I’m mis-remembering, but I seem to recall a case in Ohio from 2005 or so, and it may have had something to do with raw milk being sold as pet food. I thought I remembered a judge in Ohio ruling that private buying clubs were still covered by the prohibition against raw milk sales, and the example cited was that Sam’s Club, Costco, etc. were private clubs that still needed to obtain food licenses, needed to conform to health safety laws, etc. (I’m not sure how to search for that, but it might be in the archives from your old site.)
The Grazing Producers have always kept tight control over their herdshare boarding contract and charge a one-time license fee for farms that would like to use it. It was their contract that Judge Hein reviewed back in 2006 and in their opinion, their contract has the firmest legal basis since it was put in front of a judge. (Maybe Gary Cox can comment on that?) That contract links the amount of milk to the number of shares owned, and I think it’s the unlinking and conversion to something very close to a buying club that is causing the most concern to MJ and other people in that herdshare.
You’re correct in that a herdshare has never been legally defined in Ohio, but I’m pretty sure that there has already been a ruling in regards to private buying clubs. When I was able to look at Adam’s FarmMatch site it appeared to me to work like a buying club, with the membership fee simply being called a “share”. I think what FarmMatch did was to just change the wording on its stock site, and in my opinion charging a one-time fee and then allowing unlimited retail sales ceases to become a herdshare – no matter what you call it. 🙂
I think is actually bound to happen, when raw milk operations give a false sense of what it is and how it functions. When an operation states that it is operating as a shared ownership arrangement and then fails to either disclose what the resposibilities/limitation of ownership are, and such details, then it flirts with falsehood. Add to that the calling out of support for legal action, where ownership is used as the means to gather more collective will, only for operational details and decision making to be of a sole perprietorship and there is a bad mix where someone will get upset. For a farmer to declare to the state that the consumers are the owners of the cows and have a right to their milk, and then turn around and actually have no real or substantial rights of ownership besides buying the milk is clearly falsehood. and in the raw milk business its done often, and its wrong. And this is what it sounds like to me. I have seen operations that have sold herdshares with specific costs and prices and then turned around and changed things without disclosing any details that would warrant it. In fact, even declaring that they are really just finding a loop hole to sell milk. Now fighting the corruption of governement and big business is not within reach but fighting corruption at such a level of a herdshare is. And while this blog seems to present a very bias view of raw milk where anything against a producer is deemed wrong, I hope that these comments might offer some explaination to someone’s compaign against this farmer. Bottom line, walk your talk, say what you are and disclose what it is and is not. That is the basis of developing integrity of a raw milk operation, and any operation in fact.
and certainly FarmMatch can piss off any customer. Downloading costs of administration onto the customers is just another way to increase prices. Any person in business knows that an order system will actually save time and therefor reduce costs, so why should the customers have to pay when the order system saves costs? Especially when there is much better systems in place at a cheaper overall cost, Myrealfoods.com for example. Somehow raw milk producers seem to have this attitude that the customers somehow owe them and need to take more risk, while not necessarily reaping the benefits economically in terms of price. And lets face it, raw milk is lucrative in terms of farm goods, and is a high demand item that brings customers of other farm goods too. There are not too many raw milk producers that only sell raw milk, they sell other goods too. It the raw milk that brings in the regular weekly customers that will then buy meats, garden, eggs, etc. So a hard ass, your lucky to have me attitude is not warranted and using an expensive system like FarmMatch, that charges users rather then producers is insulting.
Its clear she is acting as an owner and not simply a customer. As an owner she seems to want the means of expressing input and resolving issues with inclusion of other “owners”. The problem is that the herdshare is not really a shared owner enterprise, and her assertion is false, but only because its was presented falsely. Herdshare oeprators need to disclose to the herdshare owners that they don’t actually have any real say or input into any managment or anything to do with the herd before they sell a herdshare. Otherwise they are bound to encounter those that actually believe they have ownership in the herd and want input and agency
Wow David – thank you very much for this article! We had heard recently that Adam had been paid a visit by the ODA, and had only speculated that it had to do with his new ordering system. We had no idea of what else was going on behind the scenes!
I’ve been very silent for the past few years (mainly because I really didn’t have anything useful to contribute), but I’ve still been reading and keeping up with your site. I am still a herd shareholder in Ohio, although not with Adam’s farm and I live at the opposite side of the state. I actually wrote the “clunky old online system” that Adam replaced with FarmMatch, which is a fairly accurate assessment and I’m not offended by it. 🙂 I wrote it almost ten years ago to replace the paper/pen/email system that my farmer was originally using, later added a front-end ordering website for the shareholders and more recently added iPhone/Android apps with a mobile version of the website. The original desktop version of the ordering site is very clunky – but on the other hand, it’s worked with minimal trouble for eight or nine years and I’ve covered all the hosting costs for the farmers using it in appreciation for their hard work. I also designed it from the ground up to implement a herdshare business model, without retail costs for dairy. Part of Adam’s difficulty with the system has always been the fact that his beliefs (he’s Amish) preclude him from using the system directly, but Adam is very intelligent, he’s always been able to understand the technology and find ways to work with it. He has always needed coordinators to aggregate the orders submitted using the system, and then fax him reports used to pick the combined orders. The other farmers using the system don’t need coordinators since they can import, pick and manage their orders directly using their own laptops or PCs.
I worked with Morgan when she started acting as Adam’s coordinator, and I also helped when they transitioned to the FarmMatch system. I knew she was young, but I’m shocked to hear that she’s only sixteen! She is very intelligent for her age, and very mature to be taking on this responsibility. However, I was very concerned when I first saw FarmMatch’s implementation of Adam’s ordering site and I asked her to rely my concerns to Adam. In my opinion, the FarmMatch site is more appropriate for a traditional CSA and doesn’t handle the nuances required by a herdshare. Morgan mentioned that FarmMatch assured Adam that their site had a track record in other states, but of course each state has its own specific laws & regulations and I wanted her to let Adam know about my concerns. The FarmMatch site makes it much easier for Adam, and I understand its appeal. It’s also their business and I’d imagine that they would be more responsive to feature requests and new functionality, while I only manage my system in my spare time. (I had actually recommended to Adam that he might look for someone like FarmMatch and that I’d have no hard feelings if he wanted to stop using my system. There are some things that he wanted to do that I didn’t have the time or inclination to add to my system.)
So – thank you again, and I forwarded a link to your article to my farmer so that he’ll know what’s going on with Adam.
Don Neeper
quite entertaining, the legal education …. whilst I’m safely here off in the boondocks in BC and our milk is flowing.
… Especially = the bit about (“he’s Amish”). I see, so dis particular farmer is a stickler for NOT using computer technology – he has a Shabbat goy mediate that part for him – all the while, he has no qualms about handling that OTHER technology upon which the Babylonian world system operates, i.e., usury-based Federal Reserve Notes!
… little old Georgie Gordon solved the problem of getting around on the public highways while rejecting a licensing authority … he employed someone with a permit, to operate within the commercial system
… one more example of how ridiculously double-minded religious cults wind up, sanctimoniously pretending they’re separated from the World… if as & when it suits them!
there is a ‘bright line’ distinguishing principle between a buying club, distinguished from a herd-share ; that being = whether the entire production of the cows in milk, on a given day or week, is equally distributed among shareholders, according to one’s fraction of ownership. If – as is asserted in this instance – the packaged milk was available first-come-first-served to a member of the herdshare simply on ability to pay, then it was not operating as a true co-operative dairy. Joyce Brown may indeed be “a difficult aggrieved character”, but she’s correct on that point
… there are other ways ’round the perpetual challenge of “too much milk/ too little milk” ; a seniority list, in which a member can choose to take his / her share, or forego it completely this time, or take it later. Also : excess milk can be turned into other products and swapped-out with a stipulated value for the extra effort.
… in raw milk dairying, the money is NOT in simply producign fluid milk ; the wealth creation is, by adding value to the products. The “really big money” is in delivering it directly to the end consumer, in town
Gordon, I have this feeling you’d rather starve than obtain your raw milk from an Amish farmer….or a black farmer, or a Hispanic farmer, or a Jewish farmer, or a Muslim farmer. (BTW, a “Shabbat goy” is a derogatory term used in olden times to describe a non-Jew who turned on the heat or the lights for observant Jews who felt prohibited from doing those tasks themselves during the Sabbath.)
Mr Gumpert … your assumption is dead wrong. After about the first decade in the Campaign for REAL MILK, its demographics became un-deniable to me as a policy analyst : first and last, this movement is, white people providing raw milk for white people … in most cases, as a labor of love. It’s part of us re-awakening to the Covenant our God made with our Ancestors, about 3700 years ago at Mont Sinai. In which milk and honey are not just tokens of the bar~gain … they’re a crucial part of the deal.
66 years’ experience on this planet = seeing the character of my society changed, dramatically, by subterfuge, utterly contrary to the will of the nation = inclines me to be a “race realist”, i.e. someone who deals honestly with race as an important factor in human relations, versus the over-educated idiots who want me / my friends prosecuted for hate crime because we don’t agree with their nonsense that ‘race is just a social construct’.
I read lots of material across the spectrum of religious opinion. The term “shabbat goy” is used currently, by people of all persuasians. If it’s banned on this forum , just say so : I can abide-by the rules, as long as I know them. I used it for comic relief – how ridiculous it is for people to use a work-around so as to be seen to comply with a law, whilst breaking it. Are the Amish children, whose peculiarities are circumscribed from criticism?
I’ve been through very heavy weather ( decades ago, on other political issues) contending for the faith. So I make no apology for being caustic on apologetics. But along the way, I did learn to be “hard on the principle / easy on the people”. If I were to meet Adam Hershberger in person, of course I’d be kind to him. A bit of ‘tough love’ unloaded from an old curmudgeon ( moi ) is appropriate for a young man, to help him find his way
My main point, is : that if someone trades on his Amish-ness as a marketing device – which you must admit goes on with the raw milk – then he’s opened himself to comment on his business practices. Mr Hershberger cannot have it both ways : merchandising the cartoon that the milk is produced in some Disney-esque Amish compound, blissfully separate from the world / the GMO feeds and all the rest of the monsters of modern life, yet interacting with the Babylonian system when convenient for him.
Sadly, hearing this kind of thing puts Hershberger in a different light. Whether he is worthy of such things are not, by posting about it here I can’t help but wonder about his integrity. And then there is this Joyce Brown person who I knew nothing about but now have all sorts of opinions about. Is this some kind of public shaming? I am not sure why this is even worthy of making public. Hershberger I heard about because of a public raw milk trial, but Joyce Brown is not in the public courts, is she? And clearly if she was reeally bent on just making someone’s life miserable she could have just entered falsehood herself and gotten sick due to the milk. And then there is the potential of someone just having a mental condition. For so many reasons this blog post stuck with me as just wrong.
One possible motivation that occurred to me as I was reading through this, is that she may be taking up an offense for the previous coordinator. Perhaps they had developed some kind of friendship through the years, to the point where the coordinator would confide in Joyce and even complain to her about her employer. It would be easy enough to verify just by asking Joyce if she had direct communications with the previous coordinator during the transition period or after she was let go. In the absence of all of the other motivations that you pursued, this seems like the next most reasonable.
That is possible. It really is amazing what employees divulge about an operation. I see how its important to uphold an image of raw milk production, especially as there is a legal risk and the need for public support of those dragged through the courts. But when a bias willingly conceals any truth it creates a world of falsehoods. And it is not necessary. Standards and protocols are great, but they are only as good as they are followed. If the only supervision of a standard is a parachute third party, that themselves are in the position of a conflict of interest then its really up to the customers/herdshare owners to oversee standards. And why should that be threatening? Unlike the city folk that buy raw milk, that work in groups and have a sense for working together, farmers tend to be captains of the ship and frown uppon anyone seeming to have any authority over their choices. but if a farmer simply discloses their practice procedures and regularly requests that herdshare owners take the role of assuring that he is doing what he says he is doing then the system is safe guarded from repute. Open houses are nice, but lets face it, farmers clean everything up for the open house. So if “knowing your farmer” means you attended the open house, it does not mean you know your farmers day to day process. And it certainly is not an assurance of a day to day practice.
Steve, I think you are on to something. During my interview, Joyce Brown minimized the role of her relationship with the previous coordinator. But the email I quoted from in my post, and the followup email she wrote me after the interview, suggest that the departure of the previous coordinator was very upsetting to her.
Why would you be upset that software was changing unless somebody told you how bad it was going to be? Software has nothing to do with legalities or with production standards. Software has to do with a personal preference, and it kinda sounds like Joyce started pitching a fit right away before ever getting a chance to really test out the new software. It also sounds like, if the 16 yo is able to do all of the tasks, but the other coordinator was not, that the other coordinator either wasn’t very efficient, or was spending time doing things that wasn’t in her purview, or for some reason couldn’t use the new software well.
As far as the bottling goes, I may be misunderstanding something. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be trusting my herdshare members to clean their bottles properly. If they didn’t and somebody got sick or their milk didn’t last long (rapid spoiling happened to my friend before he got a dishwasher to put his jars through a long, high heat cycle), it would effect all of the members, not just that one. I’d be getting all of the bottles back and sterilizing them. As a herdshare member, I wouldn’t care what bottles I got, as long as my product was good, but then again, I don’t have any particular emotional attachment to any of my jars or bottles.
It kinda sounds like this coordinator had her little kingdom, and everything was just the way that she wanted, but it was not scalable, and the farmer needed something better. It sounds like resisted every change and came up with any and all objections that she could and passed them along – probably to anybody that would listen to her, perhaps painting a picture of the evil, careless, profit seeking farmer along the way. I may be reading too much into this, but it sounds like some situations that I’ve had with some of my employees, and my former business partner. There are people that the lies of my former business partner, that I haven’t spoken to in 10 years, and I still meet people who think I stole “his business” from him. If that were true, I wish I could have back all of the money that I gave him for it. :/ It really sounds like the coordinator became a problematic employee and was undermining moral and consumer confidence. I’ve thankfully avoided the “undermining consumer confidence” except in the cases of incompetence or irresponsibility, but getting rid of a cancerous employee – well you can’t explain it. You might have all sorts of logistical problems as a result, but somehow it is still all sunshine and rainbows.
That Joyce addressed her concerns to the group as a whole and not to the ownership seems to indicate wanting to be vindictive, instead of building towards a common good. Why does she need revenge or retribution unless she is taking up an offense?
Seems that this entire episode could gave bee simply avoided with good communications and a contract that disclosed all such powers and details befor hand. I think David is right that those who were not happy could just move on. Unless there is some reason,such people could get their money and find something else.
Having read through some of the other comments, I can see how people might not want to continue with the time herd share because of the contract, but the changing of the software, the use of the bottles, and other such sundries, including changing the coordinators, seem just to be smoke screen to convolute and complicate the issues. The real issues seem to be farm practices, and apparently those haven’t change, the cleansing of the bottles – an issue that seems to have been addressed, and the new contract, which may be pushing the envelop of legality, or not be legal at all. Some were content to purchase milk from this farmer, under a similar arrangement to what is proposed, when there was no legal way to do so. Some will be content to continue to do so, for loyalty, because they like the farmer, or because they think it is their right, legalities be damned. But those that don’t want to purchase illegally, if they have addressed their concerns to the farmer and he is determined to pursue this course, seems their best option is to move on. You don’t have to try to screw a business owner just because you don’t want to buy from him. They are acting like they have been personally offended – and maybe they have. And as always, there may be even more to the story.
I should also add, that just like the Green Pasture Products situation, if it can be resolved WITHOUT government, that is best. The one difference I see is that there are reports that one product is harming people, and there are no reports that the milk is harming people are there?
Steve, I thought of the comparison to the Green Pasture situation, and came to the same conclusion. There are no reports of anyone being harmed by the milk from Adam Hershberger’s dairy. Another difference between the two operations: Green Pasture sells to the public. Highland Haven sells privately, to a closed group of members.
David, you’re confusing buying clubs with herdshares here. If someone still has to buy the milk, then it’s not a real herdshare. The term “herdshare” shouldn’t be used as a euphemism for “sales,” particularly in places where selling is illegal.
As my agister says, “If you own the cow (or goat, or sheep), the milk is free.”
In a true herdshare, you’re buying the livestock, not the milk, and you and your fellow livestock co-owners then share ongoing costs related directly to such expenses as feed, land (e.g. rent/boarding), and hiring your employed professional agister — regardless of how much milk is produced. It takes hard work and commitment.
GG, I do know the difference between herdshares and buying clubs. But I do see where you think I might be confused. I definitely am not an expert on the nuances of herdshare agreements, which is part of the reason I have avoided trying to assess the arguments over the Highland Haven herdshare arrangement.
But there are also similarities between herdshares and buying clubs, the big one being that they are both private contractual arrangements. Moreover, both reside in a legal gray area in the U.S. American contract law depends in significant measure on legal precedent. How similar cases before yours helps determine how yours will be decided. The reality is that there isn’t a lot of legal precedent on the books for herdshares. So many of the claims, particularly by Joyce Brown and her sympathizers, that this, that, or the other clause or action by the farmer is a violation of the herdshare or exposes all the herdshare members to legal liability is without foundation.
Finally, herdshares and buying clubs aren’t meant only to define a legal arrangement. They are meant to define a community arrangement, outside the public corporate food system. In fact, it’s the sense of community and common purpose that drives most of these arrangements. To the extent that the community part is working, most members of either a herdshare or a buying club rarely refer to the contract underlying the arrangements. The goal is to enable people to obtain their food, and in many cases to organize themselves into carpools and other subgroups to make sure the food gets produced and distributed.
Part of what disturbs me about the Joyce Brown campaign against Adam Hershberger and Highland Haven is that it is focused entirely on the legal aspects of the herdshare arrangements. Indeed, it is using fear-mongering that we commonly see with regard to food safety (“You’re going to get sick if you eat that food”) and applying it to the legal underpinnings of the herdshare arrangement (“You’re going to get sued if you allow that bottling system or if you allow a 16-year-old to work for the herdshare.”) The reality is that the chances of getting sick are much greater than the chances of getting sued, and as we all know, the chances of getting sick are very slight. Indeed, the campaign is all about fear and divisiveness–the opposites of community and togetherness.
As I said in the blog post, herdshare arrangements have been working very well in Ohio for the last half dozen years. Perhaps too well. That might explain why a campaign developed literally out of nowhere to tear them down.
GG,
If one owns the cow or not…the milk isn’t free!!!
How a private herdshare chooses to divvy up the costs associated to the operation is up to the owners.
I didn’t want to explicitly say this in my earlier post, but in retrospect MJ Raichyk already spilled the beans so I guess it doesn’t matter at this point. The software that I designed took great care to model the legal aspects of a herdshare, and ensures that there is nothing that even smells like a retail sale in regards to dairy. The system provides an implementation of the monthly boarding fee and tracks dairy usage, but associates no costs or retail price to milk or dairy value-adds. What shocked me about the FarmMatch system is that it blatantly presents retail prices for dairy and allows members to order any amount without restriction. The FarmMatch implementation is modeled after a buyers-club, in which you pay a membership fee and can then purchase without restriction. In the past, the ODA has been exceeding aggressive in stamping out any farm-related dairy sales, sending undercover agents onto farms, wheedling farmers in selling a gallon of milk and then yanking their dairy license. My concerns were that FarmMatch looks and feels exactly like a retail sale, and worse is completely open and visible to anyone. I’m not even a shareholder and I was able to get in and see that information, and if I can see it then so can the ODA.
So, I don’t know Joyce, don’t condone her actions, and consider Adam to be a friend – but I understand completely their concerns about the new software and even my farmer has been shaking his head over what Adam may be getting himself into. If they are aware of the history in Ohio in regards to raw milk & herdshares then they may understand Adam’s exposure and remember what happened to Paul Schmitmeyer and Arlie Stutzman. Although personally I’d simply sell back my shares and find another farm instead of starting a personal vendetta against Adam.
Don
Great post, Don!
Which software is that your referring to that you designed?
I see I did not read the post. I have found farm match to be too expensive , twice what myrealfoods.com offers and way less functionality .
Theothersideofthestory – the software I designed isn’t commercially available since I put it together in my spare time specifically for my farmer, and then two other farms in Ohio also asked to use it. It was designed to mirror my farmer’s business model of herdshares and driving groups, and doesn’t work as well for individual pickups. Basically we have about ten driving groups with anywhere from 10 to 20 families in each group. Each group sets up its own driving schedule, and each week sends a driver to the farm to pick up the entire group’s order. So, the software organizes orders by group, member and date, then aggregates each group’s orders into pick list reports for fulfillment and detail reports that go back with each driver. It also has some payment management functionality, and other miscellaneous reports.
It started out as a stand-alone application that ran on my farmer’s pc, and then I later added the front-end website and mobile apps. So, the member orders are submitted and stored on the hosted database, and when the farmer is ready to pick a group’s orders he pulls the orders down into the local application, locks the date to prevent future orders and then runs the reports, updates the picked quantities and manages the orders locally. All the member and item information is managed locally, and exported up to the hosted database whenever there are changes. So, it’s a distributed system that can still be operational if the farm’s Internet link goes down, but it’s by no means a flashy or rich experience. 🙂
You can download and install the local application from the following link:
http://orderman.ohiorawmilk.info
Here is the link for the mobile ordering website, although you can also use it on your pc/laptop. The test site can be entered using the name Bill Smith, pswd 1234 and the farm FARM2U. (Note that Sencha Touch apps run on Safari, Chrome, Firefox and IE. Other browsers may or may not be fully supported.)
http://www.ohiorawmilk.info/touchoe
I’m too embarrassed to provide a link to the “clunky” desktop ordering site – trust me when I say that it’s functional, but that’s about it… 🙂
N/A
Don, I suspect you saw an early version of the FarmMatch software for Highland Haven. I tried to access its FarmMatch site several days ago, and couldn’t. It is entirely private, password protected. So regardless of how it looks to herdshare members, it is essentially serving as an electronic ordering tool for members.
Oh, good – I’m glad that at least access to the site is now restricted. When he switched over to the new software Adam & Morgan asked me to have the old site forward to the new FarmMatch link. So, when I made the change I of course took a look at his FarmMatch page, and at the time I could get right into the ordering page. Maybe some of my warnings did get back to him and he had FarmMatch lock it down. 🙂
I met Adam personally at the OEFFA conference near Columbus many years ago, and have spoken with him over the phone many times once he started using my ordering system. However, he borrows a neighbor’s phone so I can’t reach him directly and have to wait for him to get in touch with me, so I was never sure if he ever got my message.
Running a buying club for some time I could relate to the issues of finding administrative solutions for orders and membership/farms relations. Emails orders are very time consuming, which lead me to use google survey docs as a short term solution. It was still inadequate to deal with the volume and I spent far too many hours consolidating orders.
One of our members moved from New York where they were part of a raw milk buying club where one of the members created an awesome system to deal with all the complex details associated with a private raw milk order system. David Grunberg, created Myrealfoods.com for his own buying club. DAvid is a savvy computer web developer who happened to be part of a raw milk buying club. It was created with high functionality and with buying club members in mind. He handled the complexity of locations, farms, inventory, news updates, all of it in a very simple and easy to use way,
The system saved me over 20 hours a week, provided a professional interface, and keeps track of all my accounts for only 1% off the top. Very economical. I had some contacts in the industry look it over and they confirmed that it was a great interface at a very good price.
Knowing my business I was able to articulate my needs and DAvid was able to modify his system to accommodate them, making the system even better with every new user with specific needs such as mine. very private and very functional.
When FarmMatch showed up and was being endorsed by some of the louder voices in raw milk I looked into it. It was basically a modified dating site for direct farm sales. It seemed better for those selling to the public as the user interface has a proximity map locator. And it did not cost anything to set up, instead any sales would cost the users instead of the farmers. I guess this is how they got farmers to buy into it. Its great for what it does, and best for anonymous sales. But for a private member only system that was not selling to the public it completely lacked functionality and added complexity by running the money through a third party (FarmMatch). In comparison to myrealfoods.com it was inferior in many ways, overall cost be the most evident (twice the price)
It did not take long before I started to hear all the complaints from those that use the system. But what bothered me the most about it is that it was designed as a lucrative web business, unlike David’s system designed for his own club.
So if your looking for a system that could run your herdshare and save you time and money, that designed with users in mind with high functionality I would recommend contacting David Grunberg at myrealfoods.com . and for reference let him know you read about here on this blog
Wow, this is very intriguing. Based on what I have read so far, I have a number of questions. First of all, she claims to be a ‘retired’ veterinarian, yet looks extremely young. She couldn’t have been in practice for very long. I also have a problem with her statement of: ‘As a retired veterinarian, I am not licensed to practice medicine, veterinary medicine, or law in any state’, first of all there are a number of retired veterinarians who retain their active license for various reasons, not sure why she would refer to ‘practice medicine’ as that gives a false impression of a medical practice different from animal medical practice, and why imply anything about the practice of law when that has nothing to do with a licensed veterinarian. How can she say ‘I retain full and sole legal rights to the use of the name Highland Haven Herdshare in the State of Ohio’, if she was only a member for about 4 yrs? Can she really claim this? Who actually owns the herdshare and the herdshare name? Can she really take over that name? What do the other members think about that? I find it very interesting at all of her assertions of: ‘Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, and this does not constitute legal advice’, ‘Please see full disclaimer in group description. I am not an attorney, and this does not constitute legal advice’, over and over as if implying she does have legal knowledge. Wow, I don’t know the wisdom of her doing all of this. It seems to me that she is opening up herself for potential legal action against her, as well as, potential defamation. Like everyone has stated here, if she didn’t like the way things were being done, then go somewhere else. How sad that this has come about and I think this will backfire on her in a way she never even thought about. Why do people have to be so vindictive?!
In answer to your initial question David,
Who knows… perhaps she or someone she knew was vying for the job. It’s a strange, perverse world we’ve fabricated for ourselves with our egotistical, controlling mentality!
Another whistleblower complaint!
The USDA/FDA are certainly not advocates for freedom of speech and choice much less unadulterated food.
I don’t know about you folks, but I intend to follow my gut instinct and personal experience rather then the dictates of these self-serving bureaucrats and their definition of safe and healthy food.
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/10/28/suspended-scientist-alleges-usda-tried-to-block-his-research-on-pesticides/
First, thanks to Joyce for what she has done to bring the important health and legal issues to the public. That was an act of true love for her fellow man.
Second, shame on David Gumpert for not admitting the health issues associated with swapping milk bottles as opposed to each party keeping their own bottles. Obviously, now the farmer will need to sterilize each and every bottle since the returned bottles will not be going back to the same household, and the possibility now exists for cross contamination between “customers” who have any type of contagious disease or infection in their household!
And I must question if Mr. Hershberger is recognized and accepted by most Amish groups as one of them. If he has electricity in his buildings, he is at most a “new” order Amish, and if he or his family are using motor vehicles and internet, they may be considered more Mennonite than Amish. Traditional Old Order Amish try not to form associations with “worldly” or English organizations, i.e. Farmmatch or to make contracts with their English customers, based on Second Cor. 6: 14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
I think it is David who likes to stir up trouble, rather than seek to get Adam Hershberger to conform to both Ohio’s laws and the Bible.
The issue of bottle usage may seem like a mountain but it’s really a mole hill. It’s not picking. The only real issue with such a change is how it was done. All that really needed to happen was to have some inclusion and participstion in the process. In ontario bottle deposits and bottle washing and sterilization is the norm. And in some ways has better control of potential contamination then self filling. Cause self filling makes it unclear where s pathogen may originate from.
The bigger issue is more about the claim of herd share ownership. Especially now that it’s all over the Internet. Cause the farm can not pretend they did not know at this point .
For herdshare members who don’t like the bottling system, there is an option to order their milk in disposable plastic containers. Problem solved.
Yes, what Joyce Brown did was, as you said, bring “health and legal issues to the public,” but therein lies the problem. Whatever issues there might have been, they weren’t public issues. They were private issues. She brought them public in an attempt to bring severe harm to the farmer who produced the food, put him out of business. There was no love in what she did, not in the least.
And how Adam Hershberger lives his personal life, with electricity or without, is really Adam Hershberger’s private affair. I think the Bible discourages idle gossip and passing of judgment, does it not?
yes ; idle gossip is condemned. But what Joyce Brown did… blazing the thing over the internet, engaging interested parties with her arguments… is not gossip. From what I’ve read here on this forum [ and that’s all I know ] she lowered the boom when her valid complaints were ignored. Regardless of her personal style, she has a valid point. If the State of Ohio pins Adam Hershberger’s hide to the wall, all the other raw milk co-op dairies will be in jeopardy
yes, the Bible records Jesus saying “judge not lest be judged. For with whatsoever measure you mete, so shall it be measured unto you”. But there is a time and place to make a stand for principle … even in a seemingly mole-hill issue such as this. The prophetic type is called to do the warning and informing. JC Ryle said “controversy may be our duty” one of the primary reasons this nation is in the pitiful condition it’s in, is : because Christians refuse to harken to the commandment = WHEN one judges = to “Judge righteous judgment”.
No, his lifestyle choices are not his private affair, if he’s using the cachet of his religion, as a marketing ploy. The Test is : “Does Adam Hershberger sully his hands with the commercial paper passed-around by the banksters, called “checks” ( or in the British world “cheques”) ?” If he participates in the banking racket, then his religious profession of “separation from the world” is just an act … a costume
As this thing comes in to focus, it appears da Amish-man ought to have paid attention to the Prophetess, rather than the prospect of bigger profits.
gosh, how did you make this assertion? from everything I have read so far I simply see someone that found themselves in a position where they felt they had to take certain actions from a moral collective perspective.
Sorry, Mr. Gumpert, but you are incorrect, when someone is advertising on an internet website to sell their products as the Hershberger’s are doing, they most definitely are “public”, and therefore subject to public comment and scrutiny. Also, his personal life is not a private affair if his religious affiliation is part of his sales promotion, that makes it also subject to comment, because he may be impugning the reputation of the religious group with which he is being identified if he is not living as they do. This is neither “idle” nor “gossip”, but the dissemination of important factual news. Thank you for doing your part.
When that web site is password protected, and access is limited to a defined group of people (fewer than 300), it’s called a private web site.
Well Leon, I tend to agree with you in part (the feasibility aspect that is) on the milk bottle issue. That being said however, Joyce appears to be the type of person that is intent on and will use whatever excuses and tactics she deems necessary in order to have it her way. Her communication skills leave much to be desired. As far as David is concerned you should be thanking him for delving into this unfortunate issue and attempting to shed some light on it. Hopefully with a bit of humility, some positive and constructive communication will come out of it.
david I am so happy that you posted the link to the facebook page in your piece, as I would never have had the opportunity to hear from her directly. REading her own account and communicating with her directly has allowed me to get a much better perspective on the matter. I only wish I could have just read and communicated with her here
The ODA issued a press release today on a new senior staff appointment. Coincidence – or conspiracy – you decide…. 🙂
REYNOLDSBURG, OH (Jan.12, 2016) – Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) Director David Daniels
today announced the appointment of Jared Parko as a new deputy director to the department’s senior
management team.
As deputy director, Parko will primarily focus on laboratory operations and animal health, dairy, food
safety and meat issues. Prior to his new appointment, Parko served as laboratory operations manager
for the Food Safety Net Services in Columbus, Ohio. He also previously worked in the Dairy Food Safety
Laboratory at the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. He is a graduate of
Michigan State University, with a master’s degree in food safety and a bachelor’s degree in
microbiology.
Hi Everyone, ….I’m sure that everyone who has commented on David’s post has a good reason to feel the way they do. Thank you David for keeping up with this blog as I’m sure it’s a lot of work for not a lot of pay, and thank you everyone else for your discussion and contribution as well. I figured that many of you are interested in why FarmMatch is modeled the way it is so here it goes…. I created FarmMatch a few years back, and in many ways it’s a representation of what I see going on in the food movement. There are very few farmers that sell direct and actually make a profitable living from the food production of their farm. Most farmers that sell direct do so at a financial loss because when prices increase, buyers in general naturally respond with complaints rather than understanding. It seems that empathy is tough to find in today’s world. Farmers are human beings that love their land so much that they will do anything to keep their farm…even work at a net loss. When I speak with some of these farmers that are losing money, I encourage them to raise their food prices, 99 times out of 100 the farmer responds with fear saying that they will lose their customers. It’s a scary situation to be in when the farm payment is due. Because farmers that produce the food we want can’t pay their bills, we made FarmMatch totally free for sellers. When buyer’s order they have the choice to pay $2.95/order or $3.95/month for unlimited ordering. These small affordable fees fund the entire system. The price is $3.95/month because I feel that $3.95/month is well within the budget of anyone that is interested in getting healthy farm fresh food and pro-actively supporting this movement. All of FarmMatch funds go into building the software that benefits the local food movement as a whole. Money that doesn’t go to building the actual software goes to sponsoring farming conferences and farmers scholarships. For example, next month we are sponsoring the 2016 PASA conference and are providing scholarships for 18 farmers to attend as well. The PASA conference is a great environment where these farmers will learn better soil and grazing management, and in turn create healthier food for us to eat. Even though we are a cashflow positive business, I have personally donated over 4 years of free labor to FarmMatch and have yet to draw one penny for my time. For those who are interested in some numbers, we have seen that less than 2% of the people will complain about the buying fee and the other 98% are okay with it. We have put close to $5 million in the hands of small farmers and we are doubling approximately every six months. Even if an online platform charges the seller instead of the buyer, the food prices will have to be higher to pay for the seller’s added technology business expense. I remember hearing Joel Salatin say that he itemizes a delivery fee separately on purpose so that his customers will have a clear understanding of how much the actual food costs. We took this wisdom into the FarmMatch platform. When someone buys on FarmMatch they can see the cost of the website, the cost of the delivery and the cost of the food. A fair amount of buyers prefer to have this level of food awareness and understanding. FarmMatch also provide sellers with a 100% custom ability to make buying private or not. What they show it totally at their discretion. We all know that some people in the raw milk movement are more open than others. This openness naturally happens in any movement regardless of its cause. The open activists of a movement are the ones that push a movement forward, like Martin L. King. They are the ones that we truly owe a thank you to, because they are out facing fear and persecution while the rest of us are hiding and waiting for our freedom to benefit from their loss. I know that FarmMatch is not for everyone, and for those of you who are buying on FarmMatch, know that you are funding a truly purpose driven company! I love you all and be well, Max.
Thanks Max, your post is much appreciated.
Yeah, thanks Max, for bringing us all back to the realities of what it means economically to run a small farm in this day and age.
Hi Max,
Yes, I hope that you didn’t take any of my comments as being derogatory towards FarmMatch – it’s a very professional site that does a great job managing orders for buying clubs. I wasn’t aware of FarmMatch at the time, but I had recommended to Adam that he look for a site that made a living handling orders for CSAs when he started asking for features and capabilities beyond what I could put into mine. In fact, if you’d like to add support for share/boarding fee management, driving groups, Standing Orders, non-retail/weighted/combined items and a few other features then I can finally pull the plug on my system. 🙂 (Although the shareholders might balk at the fees since I’m currently paying the hosting costs, and many people use the smartphone apps / mobile ordering site so you’ll need those as well…)
n/a – I just realized that you can’t use an ampersand in these comments – I had one above, but when I tried to edit everything after the ampersand was deleted. I tried re-posting, but then had the same problem when I tried to edit the second post. You can’t delete a post once you’ve created it, so I changed this one to be an explanation of why I have two posts. Note to others – don’t use ampersands! 🙂
Thanks max for explaining all that. the biggest reason I did not go with your system is actually the cost. It’s expensive! I simply applied my average basket size of $50 a person per week. With Myrealfoods.com I pay 1% off the top , which turns out to be $2 a month . Your system is twice that.
I could use a diversity of pament options as well.
And if my business was doing great numbers I am certain that I could negotiate to a cheaper cost, by simply comparing what IT would cost to have a custom system created, and by leveraging my business value overall.
As I said, I think your system is great for marketing to the public and for anonymous orders , I suspect what many will do is set up a farm match profile, and then just transfer new customers over as they get contacted, by passing your financial part.
If I were marketing to the public this is what I would do.
Good luck
Or we could approach IT another way. Let’s say 200 people order weekly. Your system would cost , at a min., $800 a month or $9600 a year. Wow
Take that number and one can build a custom system for that.
Cheap it is not!
Joyce isn’t a veterinarian. She no longer carries a license. She contacted me from the email list she hijacked and I told her she was crazy. Obviously she is a bitter woman full of tall tales. It’s best to move on and not ponder such rants.
1. It has been previously established that Brown is no longer a veterinarian, so why bother to mention it *again*? 2. “Obviously she is a bitter woman full of tall tales.” Seriously? A tall tale, by definition, is, “An exaggerated, unreliable story.” The problem with this blog post is that no one can read Joyce Brown’s story objectively. This post is incredibly biased towards Hershberger and his herdshare. By you saying that she is “full of tall tales,” you’re implicating that you have seen Brown’s side of the story, and not only that, you have been able to read it objectively and then make that judgement, but you haven’t. Next time, before you post a presumptuous comment online, try noticing if you even have the full story yet. Gumpert clearly won’t provide such an objective article on the event, but perhaps you can do some research yourself on the full story. Going back to your “tall tales” comment, *this* article is quite perhaps a tall tale itself. Never read and comment on an article about such a serious matter when 1. it is not objective, and 2. you don’t have the full story.
Turn if events. I was contacted by a representative of the W. Virginia health department and legislative congress. This person is a professional lobbyist hired to work on health and laws for government agencies. She admitted that this year, a raw milk bill will pass. Every year for years…a bill has struggled and died. This year is different. According to this person, Freedom Fighters now have the upper hand and the legislature has become more responsive to Freedom issues and that includes Freedom to access raw milk, perhaps through cow shares. The reason this person was calling me was because rational health department regulators are very concerned that a 100% Freedom based bill would pass and no training,no standards or testing would be included in a raw milk bill. She was asking me to please reach out to regulators, agency personnel and others to educate them about good standards and some basic training. Of course I totally agreed to assist.
As I have said many times before: Freedom does not work unless, it is accompanied by training and basic standards and some testing. I saw this in Tennessee when a bill passed for Cow Shares, and shortly there after, a Grade A Cow Share had an ecoli outbreak with several sick kids. That Tennessee operation contacted RAWMI and became trained. She installed her own on farm lab and now has great coliform numbers. Prior to RAWMI contact, this producer did not know what a coliform was. This was a Grade A operation, yet they had no idea the difference between “raw milk for people or raw milk for people”.
After some basic training, testing, and application of standards, this Tennessee producer has applied for RAWMI Listing and has awesome numbers. Her conditions are no longer Grade A….they are now clean and low risk. Grade A is not clean or low risk.
This is a great example of progress. West Virginia has gone through a process of political pressure. Freedom Fighters have become so intense in there pressure that they have won. Yet…. I would warn our Freedom Fighter Friends must be cautious about their wins. It is not true that the raw milk that they consume on the farm as farmers…is the same raw milk that can be consumed by city folk!!! Immunity on the farm is different. City Folk will sicken from that same farm raw milk!!
I am proud of our Freedom Fighters…but they are truly needing RAWMI or something like it or they will be embarrassed and their win will quickly become an “I told you do so loss”. I strongly suggest that West Virginia friends look to RMAC in Colorado for a starting place for low risk raw milk and Cow Shares!!
Freedom is earned by taking 100% responsibility and knowing as much as possible. Freedom goes away immediately when the FDA or others capitalize on raw milk illnesses. Do not give away your wins!!!
I invite West Virginia producers to contact RAWMI. They will be welcomed with open arms. We are hear to assist. It was rawmi listed Edwin Shank that mentored the Tennessee producer and helped her become an excellent low risk producer.
In reply to don neeper.
Don, thanks for the reminder about the pet food case. It grew out of a 2006 effort by the Ohio Department of Agriculture to prevent two famers from using raw milk as pet food. The judge in the case ruled against ODA, essentially allowing the use of raw milk in pet food (and the judge ordered ODA to pay the producers’ $20,000 in legal fees). Here is the decision:
http://davidegumpert.com/wp-content/uploads/10%2029%2008%20decision.pdf
So this case, on top of the Schmitmeyer case in late 2006, which legalized Carol Schmitmeyer’s herdshare, seems to give farmers two options for distributing raw milk; via a herdshare and as pet food. Moreover, if you read the judge’s decision in the Schmitmeyer case, he is less concerned with the particulars of the herdshare than he is with the ODA’s application of its own rules, which at that time allowed a farm family to consume its own milk, but not others’ milk. He went through a number of the inconsistencies in the ODA’s policy, such as how far the idea of “family” stretches, whether the family has to be on the farm, and so forth. The judge also found the ODA’s definition of a “sale” of raw milk imprecise, in the ODA’s argument that Schmitmeyer’s herdshare was a thinly veiled device to allow it to sell milk. Those who are having anxiety attacks about whether their Ohio herdshare agreements somehow aren’t precise enough under existing law should take a look at Judge Hein’s decision. It might ease their anxiety.
http://www.ohiorawmilk.info/heindecision.pdf
In reply to David Gumpert.
David, once again you distort what I wrote above: I said that ADVERTISING on the internet makes the Hershberger’s farm sales public–you twisted that into SALES of their product, which require a password. So I and the public could still access Highland Haven’s sales page yesterday on the Farm Match webpage, with prices listed on the PUBLIC INTERNET for their meats and eggs. This is public advertising as I claimed, David, so that is NOT a private website at that point, it only becomes private for those who wish to purchase something. Further, will you admit that it has only been recently that they entered into that semi-private web link, and that before that time they were both selling and advertising on the general internet? That is what I have heard from a reliable source!
In reply to Leon Moyer.
Leon, you are correct that Highland Haven made its FarmMatch web site less public/more private in recent months. This is one of a number of changes it made, such as with bottling.
I suggest you read my response to Don Neeper, about the court cases that legalized raw milk in Ohio back in 2006…and review the cases themselves. The judges’ decisions may ease your overall anxiety about raw milk in Ohio.
Without having to look it up, can you make the point instead?
In reply to David Gumpert.
Thanks David for clearing that up – I must have gotten my cases mixed-up, and had completely forgotten that the plaintiffs actually won in the Pet Food suit. So maybe if Adam just has FarmMatch change the name of his dairy items from “Milk (gallon)” to “Milk, Pet (gallon)” then he’ll be free and clear regardless! 🙂
Just so you know, I was being facetious with my previous comment – I apologize if my attempt at humor fell a little flat… 🙂
Well, I guess you just can’t please some people. Go ahead, press Thumbs Down on this comment too – I dare you… 🙂
In reply to Max Kane.
Well, thanks for the information. When I explored your system the first thing I looked at was overall cost. our average basket size was $50 per person once a week. At 1% that equated to 50cents per order or $2 a month. I am not sure how the other system we use can do this at half the price, but I do know that if just 10 other people such as myself were to use it it would be even better, and likely even cheaper.
Overall, I do know that I could have paid someone an upfront fee to build such a system and in the long run would have brought the percentage down even more, as I do have the contacts to explore this. But I have found that I would prefer to work with the guy that built it cause I like who he is and the service he provides.
Sorry Max, the first thing is that I can get it at half the cost. and that is even before any thing like charges our members instead of myself.
To tell the truth if I wanted to charge that 1% to the members I could do that too. But the best part is that I know exactly how many hours of labor I save using such a system.
In reply to Mark mcafee.
would not freedom mean that buyers of raw milk can decide for themselves what milk they wish to buy and how they wish to process it. Just because someone buys their milk raw does not mean they consume it raw. Pastuerization of milk is not complicated to do at home. And if someone can buy raw eggs and meat why should they not be able to also buy their milk raw too?
perhaps instead of pushing for state to make your training and certification mandatory or part of the legalization framework, you could simply market your certification brand to the public and let the consumers decide for themselves. And let liability determine the choices that producers make.
In reply to Ken Conrad.
YES YES YES, we should be weary of creating the kinds of institutions that we already point to with indignation. The way in which big business has used standards to push out small farmers and processors is disgusting. In fact, these same people on this blog have pointed out these industries. And now, we should somehow embrace the idea because it appears to be in favor of our bias?
A credible standards body, is free of political bias and conflict of interest!
In reply to Mark mcafee.
“Freedom does not work unless, it is accompanied by training and basic standards and some testing”.
Mark,
If those standards and testing are indeed based on sound scientific principals and are above reproach then your statement is worthy of consideration. However, we all know what the FDA and CDC consider safe and the standards and testing they use to establish that safety, don’t we. Food that has been adulterated with GMO’s, antibiotic, hormones, pesticides, and preservative; Vaccines, with mercury, aluminum, solvent detergents and toxic biological ingredients, etc. etc. etc.
It appears that the above institutions’ thinking and approach to overall consumer safety is fundamentally skewed, do you not think? Do they and the regulators they employ truly have our best interest at heart? Are their standards and testing worthy of trust? Consider Sally O’s most recent statement.
From my perspective basic standards and cleanliness are good and make sense providing we don’t go overboard. That being said however, when it comes to microbes in our environment the tendency for humans and tptb unfortunately, is to do exactly that, “go overboard”… to the point where significant harm has been inflicted upon people, food, and the environment.
In essence Mark, what you’re statement in the context of freedom boils down to, is for enslavement to the whims of a litigation-crazed society and what some degenerate control freak bureaucrat considers safe. We aught to soberly consider Benjamin Franklin’s words, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”.
Thanks Sally,
I reposted my comment to Mark with corrections at the bottom of the page on errors I made when I wrote it at 4 this morning .
Alert: This site was just moved overnight, and it looks as if we lost a few of yesterday’s and today’s comments in the process. Hopefully they will be restored pretty shortly.
I’ve alerted the proper authorities and hope to have this resolved shortly. Thank you for your patience! Working on it!!
Yes, I noticed this morning that the comment count dropped from the 80s back to the low 70s and thought that something was amiss. 🙂
Thanks for that clarity David, whenmy comments were not here I got concerned.
Hi you all, I found the missing comments (10 in all). I posted them at the bottom here with your names (and my lovely picture.)
If you want to copy your comment, then repost with your picture, please do. If it’s a reply, you can also put it in the right thread. I’ll check back in tonight and change the time to reflect when you actually made the post, then delete the one I put in.
Thank you for your patience and so sorry for the confusion. It happens when you switch hosts sometimes!
Sorry I don’t see them
“Freedom does not work unless, it is accompanied by training and basic standards and some testing”.
Mark,
If those standards and testing are indeed based on sound scientific principals and are above reproach, then your statement is worthy of consideration. However, we all know what the FDA and CDC consider safe and the standards and testing they use to establish that safety, don’t we. Food that has been adulterated with GMO’s, antibiotic, hormones, pesticides, and preservative; Vaccines, with mercury, aluminum, solvent detergents and toxic biological ingredients, etc. etc. etc.
Do you not think that the above institutions’ thinking and approach to overall consumer safety is fundamentally skewed? Do they and the regulators they employ truly have our best interest at heart? Are their standards and testing worthy of trust? Consider Sally O’s most recent statement.
From my perspective basic standards and cleanliness are good and make sense, providing we don’t go overboard. That being said however, when it comes to microbes in our environment the tendency unfortunately for humans and tptb, is to do exactly that, “go overboard”, to the point where significant harm has been and continues to be inflicted upon people, food, and the environment.
In essence Mark, what you’re statement in the context of freedom boils down to, is for enslavement to the whims of a litigation-crazed society and what some degenerate control freak bureaucrat considers safe. We aught to soberly consider Benjamin Franklin’s words, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”.
David,
Thank you. From this blog I have been contacted by a Cow Share operation that asked for training and some help!! They have their Freedom and now they want some direction. I totally complimented this caller! This kind of maturity is essential to winning the battle of our freedom to produce safe raw milk for our consumers.
By the way…80% of the Listed RAWMI dairies are Cow Shares.
I also do agree that what defines reasonable human safety is not something that the health departments or regulators have figured out. In the past, they certainly have used ” regulatory safety standards as tools of oppression” …..that is for sure. I know all about that little trick.
I am very proud to say that at OPDC our pioneering into the world of daily pathogen rapid testing with our Test & Hold program has provided a massive amount of data and information. This last year could very well begin to fundamentally change my way of looking at raw milk safety and what really counts!!
I will give you all a couple of sneak previews.
1… “Conditions” beyond everything else is most important. Now….what does “conditions” mean??
2… Coliforms are not related very well to pathogen detection. We have seen pathogens with zero coliforms an with high coliforms. They appear unrelated. Statistically….there might or might not be a relationship when all data is reviewed, but in the near term assessment, coliforms are not a very good determinant of pathogens.
3…. BAX PCR is one hell of an accurate test. It is quick ( 10 hours to presumptive ) and very sensitive. Be careful what you look for…you will probably find it!
4… Technology is rapidly advancing and in a very short couple of years, on farm, “in the barn tests” will sort out pathogenic DNA in a couple of minutes and each cows raw milk will be cleared in real time!
5… Do not believe all the science about where pathogens come from. We have found ecoli pathogens inside of udders. All PHDs swear that ecoli 0157h7 pathogens only come from fecal manure sources. That is no longer true. OPDC found it coming from inside an udder!! Thank you Test & Hold. After searching the herd, one cow was found. She was fresh ( 10 days in milk ) and shed ecoli pathogens consistently from her udder for 5 tests in a row prior to becoming negative! No longer will I assume that the science literature is 100% right or accurate. I am proud and humbled by this discovery. This means that low coliforms does not mean that ecoli pathogens can not exist! A scary discovery. Now, we use a combination of low coliform counts and non detection of pathogens to ratchet up our low risk profile. I shared this data with UC Davis PHDs and will be sending them frozen samples to determine the genetic origins of these intra udder bad bugs. This cow did not have mastitis or positive culture problems 48 hours after birth. Her coliforms were less than 2. Yet….her milk tested hot! Wow. We would have never known.
There is so much to learn. There is so little money to investigate. It is a world of wonder when it comes to the market decline of pasteurized milk and the rapid but yet politically unsupported emergence of raw milk.
It is up to each of us to not assume anything….keep our minds open and guts in check. We are pioneering.
One good thing…. If we are far out front and pioneering, we will not have very many regulatory surprises. They are mostly in the dark ages when it comes to raw milk, using slow and old technology and probably measuring mostly the wrong safety indicators. This is classic government. Slow & Old & Mostly missing the boat. We hav seen this time and again. Saw this in the Jack in the Box debacle in the mid 1980s and we have seen this time and time again.
Stay focused on learning and forever inquiring….why and how!! As we serve our consumers.
Or stay focused on dominating the market.
Did you really just publicly declare that 0157 E. coli can be found in the udder? While at the same time appreciate that 80 percent of cert. members are cow shares?
This is the kind of reason why standard bodies should not be driven by self interest.
Strange things happen all the time, science identifies the usual things and the things that could be determined. Let science explore phenomena. Let farmers farm, and science determine safety protocols.
Another sales pitch, with a threat
Does anyone see the irony here? How for years raw milk proponents have explosed the biased use of data by governmental agencies, to now see the same tactics used by the one person who happens to be the biggest stake holder in the country who happens to be run the only standard body of certification.
I think we all agree on safe production of milk sold raw. Is this really the only path available? To become the same thing that we despise
… so you like irony, do you, Chicken-head Avatar? … consider the fact that Organic Pastures delivers 70,000 portions of life-giving food, weekly. All the hard work they do, translates into profit, so the company has $$ to spare for world-class research, from which the entire Campaign for REAL MILK benefits … including vouz. Yet the best you can muster is a drive-by cheap shot from the anonymity of cyberspace :
.. . any time you have a viable, “alternative path”, proponents of REAL MILK all over ‘Merica, would welcome it. But you don’t. Your comments are “covetous-ness” writ large … the character dis-order which Wilhelm Reich termed “the emotional plague” … its chief symptom being : vicious hatred of someone in whom the joy of life is flowing
Hardly Gorden. Cheap shots would be to attack the person instrad of the argument.
Actually I thought you would be the last one to defend a fascist potential and developing organization in the same manner as those that now control government.
You don’t put the fox to defend the gem house.
I don’t attack Mark so much as the approach and strategy that both affects the credibility of the initiative, and carries the very real potential of some serious corruption.
If we are going to support initiatives such as a unified standard body, then we are right to demand that they be fair and inclusive and absent of bias and favouritism.
A standard body should stand on its own, and be arms length from such personal interest and conflict of interest.
You may not like it, cause you may really like Mark, but the fundamentals hold true
Mark,
Your overall comment especially what you said in #5 reiterates much of what I and others have been trying to make for a long time with respect to the internal environment of a cow’s udder. Namely, that a natural flora exists within that udder… it is not sterile and it is not scary. This is a fact that was discovered a long time ago, although not well understood or accepted.
A while back David said, “I didn’t realize campylobacter could just arise within a cow and then be transmitted in the milk, absent other obvious problems. In fact, I thought most campylobacter came from the environment–cow manure, or milking equipment or chickens, for example. Is the Claravale situation simply a strange aberration?”
In my response to his statement I said, “David,
You hit the nail squarely on the head with your above query; a nail which some of us have been trying to hammer in for a long time.
‘Ubiquitous MICROSCOPIC microbes such as campy, or listeria for that matter, don’t merely arise within a cow, nor do they comply with a specific set of sanitary rules. Their presence is a given, the extent to which they are present is relative to equilibrium. The moment natural or unnatural external forces are placed on whatever factors may contribute to the disruption of that equilibrium then problems will arise. It could be any number of things. I tend to focus on what we can control such as the use of toxic drugs and chemicals that disrupt balance and immunity; namely, antibiotics, hormones, vaccines, chlorine, pesticides, herbicides, etc. etc. etc. There is no quick fix such as pasteurization or radiation and our narrow focus and attempt to limit or eliminate specific microbes will be met with limited success.
‘A good thing to remember with respect to a cow’s udder is that it is a closed ecosystem, not a closed sterile environment. The moment we attempt to use antibiotics such as those used for dry cow treatment in order to control the environment within that ecosystem, then I guarantee an imbalance will occur and problems will arise. They may not be immediately evident and you will no doubt see the cow’s somatic cell count drop, but don’t let that fool you, they will transpire.”
“When secreted into the udder milk is indeed sterile. However following secretion and as it works it way down into the ducts it gradually becomes inoculated with microbes. This is a natural ongoing process whereby microbes from a variety of sources, primarily from the soil and the animal’s fecal matter, gain entry into the udder in order to establish a natural internal flora.”
Again I stated many moons ago, “This natural flora that exists inside a cow’s udder is of vital importance to her, her overall udder health and the health of her offspring or anyone who should happen to consume the milk.
‘This natural internal udder flora is what keeps everything in balance. If this floral balance is compromised for whatever reason whether it is via, injury, stress or the use of toxic antibacterials, then complications and problems are certain to arise. This is why I am so strongly opposed to using antiseptic udder washes, teat dips, insecticides, hormones and especially antibiotics for dry cow treatment.
‘If you undermine the internal balance from the teat end, into the internal structure of the udder, is one not opening the door to a virulent microorganism whether bacterial or fungal in nature to gain entry and take over that environment and cause complications?
‘The prophylactic use of long acting wide spectrum antibiotics, which in theory, are designed to destroy all living bacteria inside the udder of a cow is a big mistake as far as I am concerned. I know that they know that they are pushing the limit and that it does not always work and when it doesn’t work you have got a serious problem on your hands. You will either inherit a real sick cow, an untreatable chronic case mastitis, or a new mutated antibiotic resistant microbe.
‘I think we need to be very careful not to go overboard in our attempt to control the presence of microorganisms in milk or for that mater, in our overall ecosystems.
Think natural!”
I’ve discussed this issue with numerous other people on this blog including Pete, Lynn, MW, Ron, Mary and Bill etc. so rather mention what I said to all of them I will end this comment with an insightful statement made by Dave Milano, “cows are superstar performers, continually sampling the environment and adjusting their milk accordingly”
Ken: Thank you for this excellent summary of what is now known about microbial flora. Homeostasis equals health, and any input that disturbs it has consequences we cannot predict. It appears that bacterial communities are in charge, not we mere humans.
at this URL is an item in Dairy Herd Management newsletter about a 2500-cow dairy. Apparent from the analysis, the animals are considered as widgets, rather than sentient beings. At that particular CAFO 16% of the cows were found to be lame … ONLY !!
… In light of the proven fact that ‘contented cows give more, and better, milk, with more cream’ … one has to wonder about the qualities of foodstuff coming from cows who (?) are in constant pain!
http://www.dairyherd.com/news/inside-look-2500-cow-dairies-70-pounds-14m-profit
From Gordon’s link: “In facility categories, the dairies used one of two options. Of the 15, they were almost split down the middle in terms of sand-bedded (7) or deep-bedded recycled manure solids (7), with the other a mattress freestall topped with recycled manure solids. Of the seven sand-bedded herds, three used mechanical separation and four used sand settling lanes.”
What are recycled manure solids? What do they do to the manure to make it suitable bedding material?
‘recycled manure solids’ is a euphemism for ‘dried shit’. The method is to keep piling on another layer of it, for months. Then clean it all out at once. If this is one of the “best practices”, of this industry, one trembles to think about what the operators at the bottom of the scale, are doing. Believe it or not, they feed the same substance back to the cows, added to the feed : “protein is protein”, as far as the overeducated idiots in the faculty of Ag at the University, is concerned. I had the URL for the website for that company – some innocuous name – but when I posted it years ago, on another forum, it disappeared.
It’s worse than I feared then, because I never imagined they would feed it too. I suppose the claim is made that the manure is baked at high enough temperatures that the pathogens are destroyed, so it’s okay.
And how might RAWMI use science to dispute such a practice then? If the science of such practices are well established and performed by accredited universities? Or is RAMP simply there to identify procedures that will use such practices and assure safety?
And this is a point that I have some difficulty to understand as Schmit had also suggested in a bovine cmoment that that certification would somehow include feed
5 tests in a row? Would this be milk sampled at five milkings, or 5 aseptically-collected milk samples at similar spacing? Can you really rule out that she might just be a transient super-shedder during the testing; and the bacteria are still environmental contaminants? Maybe she kicks too?
Sorry, I agree that this could be an important observation, but more detail would be helpful. Thanks.
John
@ John: Who are you addressing in your above comment? Since the comments do not stay in order sometimes, it’s hard to follow who’s talking to who.
I think the big problem here with Joyce’s action is evidenced by her page on “Health Risks” which cites the usual inflammatory and fear-mongering material from the CDC. She talks about diseases and all sorts of ways that pathogen can enter milk, but never clarifies that pathogen contamination is exceedingly rare, and that illness depends on a person’s immune system plus the actual amount of pathogenic bacteria ingested.
An example: She has an entire paragraph about the nightmares of Listeria. But the CDC’s “National Outbreak Reporting System” (NORS) database itself shows that there have been NO outbreaks caused by Listeria in raw milk for the entire time that records have been kept: 1998 onward.
Another example: The average population of Ohio during the time period of 2007 to 2014 is 11,530,540. During that time period, NORS lists 25 illnesses attributed to raw milk, from 7 outbreaks, resulting in 1 hospitalization and zero deaths. Of course, we have no idea how many consumers there are in that State but if a 2006 CDC survey showing a nation-wide average of 3% is any indication, that means approximately 350,000 consumers. Okay, so we have 2,767,329 person-years of consumption in that state and 25 illness — that means that each raw milk consumer has a less-than 1-in-100,000 chance of getting ill in any one year. And a 1-in-2.7M chance each year of getting sick.
I wouldn’t classify this as a risky product.
Ken,
My comments are not what they are. I comment because I want others to benefit and I want the regulatory health agencies to hear the dialogue and appreciate that we in the raw milk movement are not crazed madmen. The data that I share is true….the experiences that we have are real.
If we ever expect to see progress, the regulatory agencies and those that control much of the food industry, will need to see our light. I agree that my comments can not be taken in a vacuum. In the right context, my comments are little pearls of information that back up our bigger movement. The FDA, CDC and many others read everyone of these posts. As pasteurized milk fails…more and more, it is just a matter of time before our younger thinkers in these alphabet soup agencies will start to awaken to our consumer and market driven existence. At that time…they will truly respect our work and our sharing!!
Time…time will change all as we continue to teach and test our products. You would be shocked by who calls me every week. The other side quietly realizes that pasteurized milk is done. It is passé and it is part of history. Even the almond milk people say this when they recite declining and eroding pasteurized milk consumption data and brag about their growth and why almond milk is growing in the dairy case.
Time is our friend…the truth and communications is our friend. Whether someone is listening is a different matter. As time passes….it is clear that the message is being absorbed. Markets show it and the calls I get show it. Keep our raw products safe and teach!!! Simple as that!! Regardless of the negative voices. They become quieter over time.
Mark, do you define negative voices as those that raise concerns? What exactly is a “negative voice”?
And why do you remain silent when concerns are raised? I would think it an opportunity to offer some assurance.
“Boosting immunity, preventing infections and colds” . . .
http://www.realfarmacy.com/european-study-banned-food/
Sounds good to me.
I really wish that these comments stayed in time sequence. It is totally confusing as to who is commenting about what and when the comment was made.
John…cow # 149 tested presumptive and then culture positive by BAX PCR at 12 hour intervals five times in a row. Each of the samples was taken by direct septic technique….including super clean udder, stripping, pre dipping with clean bovidine iodine, alcohol swabbed teat end with use of new gloves!! The same protocol used to take cultures. Trust me…she was hot for ecoli 0157h7. When samples are cultured out….that is near 100% confirmation.
As far as washed screened manure is concerned, it is great bedding. Washed or screened manure is just the fibers of manure and lacks the nitrogenous waste and smelly part. It is dry and looks like fine wood fibers. It is a preferred bedding choice.
By the way….Dr. Ton Baars is quoted in the link posted about new raw milk benefits. He is a board member with RAWMI. We got the best PHDs in the world sitting as advisors to Listed RAWMI members!!
Mark, thanks for clarifying that the recycled manure solids are washed first. Do the fibers makes up a significant proportion of the manure? How many solids are left after the washing process?
Mark and D Smith. My apologies for the unclear comment. On my screen it looked as if my reply was going to follow Mark’s first comment about the E coli cow.
Mark. Thank you for the clarification. I wonder though if she might shed again?
John
In the 1920s Randolphe Hearst made quite a name for himself for “yellow journalism” basically printed lies and political hit jobs created for money and to gain influence or protect political agendas.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/02/fda-health-canada-listeria-50-to-160-times-more-likely-in-raw-milk-cheese/#.VpnEtey9KSM
This Food Safety News article qualifies for a Hearst Yellow Journalism award. The headlines read….raw milk cheeses have more listeria… Then you read the article and it says that pasteurized cheeses have been the listeria killers!!!!
They also fail to mention that hard aged raw milk cheeses have zero listeria illnesses associated with them in the CDC databases!! They compare soft unrated cheeses ( unknown if thermalized or not ) with pasteurized cheeses.
What a farce, a fake and a lie. Totally created to bend opinion and support FDA agendas.
How little has changed in the world of yellow journalism. Unfortunately, we in the raw milk community have no money to sue and expose this travesty of skewed and abused data.
To its credit, though, Food Safety News published a rebuttal I wrote to that cheese study/analysis:
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/02/fda-hones-in-on-limited-raw-milk-cheese-despite-absence-of-a-single-documented-case-in-23-years/#.VppbDzZFK_w
Unfortunately, FSN’s reflex action is to go with the government attack data first. If I hadn’t bothered with the rebuttal, the original FSN article you link to would have stood in Google searches as the main report on the defective and inflammatory FDA study.
Using recycled manure solids via mechanical separation of either fresh or anaerobically digested manure for bedding is a good idea I suppose, if a farmer can afford the initial costs to get set up and and justify the added cost in labor to manage the system.
After exploring the possibility of using such a technology in the early 1980’s I decided against it. Using recycled manure solids for bedding appears to be a method that is better suited to liquid manure operations that are located in warm arid sunny climates, where there is a short supply of bedding material and where there is lucrative market for the composted dry/moist organic matter.
From my perspective I view whole manure as an invaluable commodity. The organic matter alone from the manure and the spent bedding improves soil structure, water-retention, and ecology via dung beetles, aeration and microflora, thus allowing for longer-term release of fertilizing ingredient such as nitrogen.
So dry manure bedding is likely better optimized by operations that have a high importation of inputs, is what I glean from your comment Ken. And/or of course, a level of production to offset the capital costs associated ( if self manufacturing)
As standards tend to lean toward the absolute, whenever possible, the look at dry manure bedding as a optimal mitigation of risk can lead to an overall standard requirement ( of bedding sterilization) if it is deemed in the interests of those that control the standard. Such strategies have been used to shut down local meat processors by bigger processors looking to control the market. Offsetting organizational risks such as this is best implemented where there is the window of opportunity to do so .
Negative voice ? Or voice of reason?
Perhaps instead of pointing out the potential of folly we might be able to suggest the means by which such legitimate concerns can be mitigated.
Because risk analysis and mitigation is valued. And there are other such risks that need mitigation too
And , the sterilization of the manure in the process deems it suitable for raw milk production standards too.
And so while milk is not pastuerized, the pastuerization of manure can be optimized in the production of suitable non pastuerized milk, lol
TOSOTS. There is a small farm option. This is a cultivated compost pack. The loafing area is bedded with shavings or chopped straw. This is cultivated twice per day to mix in any dropped manure and to encourage fermentation. It is supposed to get fairly deep. The temperature at the bottom gets quite high (composting generates heat). The cows stay clean because the manure gets mixed-in and heat dries it out. The compost makes for a comfortable bed. A small tractor and S tine cultivator are all that are needed to make this work.
Some operations using manure-solids bedding in free-stalls have had issues with klebsiella mastitis. So, raw milk operations would be better to avoid this idea, I think.
as well, in the cultivated compost pack situation, the cows have the benefit of breathing-in ammonia fumes, all night long! [ sarcasm alert, folks ]
… no doubt some over-educated idiot with a few letters after his name, will find an excuse as to why that’s a benefit, too. My position remains : “filth in / filth out”
… I go back so far I remember my Dad putting “Milorganite”* on the garden. Seemed like a good idea at the time. *Pasteurized sewage, made in Milwaukee. He’d been over in Korea during the UN ‘Police action” there, and was impressed with the Orientals night-soiling their terraces. The book ( not the movie) Soylent Green came out half a century ago … and here we are, propagandists telling us how ‘sterilized excrement, is actually good for you’ !
Gordon,
In your father’s era, perhaps the heavy metal, pharmaceutical, GMO metabolite, and chemical residues found in today’s biosludge weren’t as much an issue as they are today.
my ending sentence got cut off. My full comment was: In your father’s era, perhaps the heavy metal, pharmaceutical, GMO metabolite, and chemical residues found in today’s biosludge wasn’t such an issue then.
David,
I really enjoyed reading your raw cheese article in Food Safety News. I just finished working with Cookson Beacher on a raw milk piece she is doing right now. Even though Cookson writes for Bill Marler and Food Safety News, I really believe that compelling writing and true data published through Fod Safety News can bridge the breach between we the raw milk people and the FDA.
If the real data gets promoted….the FDA will soon find themselves on a very tiny and very lonely island.
One thing that really bugs me is the utter “disregard for thermalization”. In the USA and all across Canada raw cheeses are very often subjected to intermediate heat levels just under the regulatory heat levels of pasteurization.
This type of fake raw milk cheese is in the regulatory danger zone, yet no one will speak of it!!! Thermalized milk is not raw…and it is not pasteurized either. Bacteria that are thermalized are tortured and many are killed, but survivors are still there but in fewer numbers so added cultures will work better. This allows cheap high bacteria count low quality raw milk to be used in the production of high value added ” branded raw” cheeses. Which are not really raw!! I suspect that these low quality heat damaged cheeses are the source of many listeria issues.
I am nauseated and sick and tired of politics masqarading arround as fda approved sound science. Sheehan must go!! Just sick of it. It conflicts with every moral and ethical fiber in my soul. How do they sleep at night.
For sure mark, but what does the FDA’s “disregard for thermalization” translate into?
“CONTEMPT FOR THE TRUTH”!
This is what really bugs me about federal agencies such as the FDA and CDC — it is their “utter” contempt for the truth — and no more is that evident then in their food, drug and vaccine approval process. To borrow a comment from Robert F Kennedy Jr. in describing the CDC, the FDA “is a cesspool of corruption”
There is a growing distrust with those in charge of government agencies such as the FDA and CDC so how can we in all honesty trust them when they tell us that drinking raw milk is like playing Russian roulette with ones health?
It is mind boggling to think that institutions that are entrusted with the public’s health can go about persistently deceiving so many people in so many ways. I guess, that’s what we get when we subjugate our freedom to choose for the sake of someone’s putative and biased idea of so-called safety.
Ken,
“Cesspool of corruption”….totally agree.
The question becomes , what do we as a society do about it? How did we create a society that allows this corruption ? Why and how do we continue to tolerate it?
America is in a deep coma.
profound questions, worth answering : in a nutshell = “regulatory capture” = stake-holders in an industry, make a reverse takeover of the institution which was set up by the government, to control them. An excellent summary of which is found at the URL below, explaining why the FDA – and all the rest of the alphabet agencies – operate to the detriment of the nation. America is ruled by people who hate us
Gordon: America, and the world, is ruled by the oligarchs; they neither love us or hate us; to them we are merely customers. Our political institutions have been fully captured by them. While I will continue to comment on public policy when public comment is allowed, I will no longer bother writing to any of my representatives. To them we are little more than a nuisance. I think that more folks see this than at any time I can remember; this is why Trump and Bernie have done so unexpectedly well. We can, and will, make a difference by our actions. I just don’t have any clear idea how it will play out.
Gordon,
And that URL is ?
the complete patient website clips some URLs.
…. An explanation of “regulatory capture’ is on the website Kondriateff winter.
an amusing example of which = commercial interests taking charge of the govt. body set up to oversee them = is provided by the item in the latest Dairy Herd Management newsletter… “whistling past the grave-yard”. Seeing what’s looming, the best they can muster is : deny deny deny.
……………
titled “those animal abuse videos are having an effect. Here is the lead-in to the story on Ag-World
A few days ago, I posted a story on a University of British Columbia survey of nearly U.S. 500 consumers about what their ideal dairy farm looks like.
Essentially, those surveyed want milk produced from cows housed in little, red barns grazing lush, green pastures every day where no hormones or antibiotics are used. Idyllic? For sure? Reality? Not even close.
Before anyone panics, however, it’s important to keep in mind that even the researchers who conducted the study acknowledge the results shouldn’t be considered representative of the entire U.S. population. For one thing, those surveyed heavily skewed to the young. Seventy percent were under the age of 35. And 85% had at least some college training; almost 50% had college degrees.
The bad news is that these young millennials represent the future. These folks tend to live in the digital world, get most of their news from the internet and likely consider themselves hip, savvy, sophisticated and informed. It’s more than disconcerting they pretty much believe what they see on-line.
http://www.dairyherd.com/news/all-those-animal-abuse-videos-are-having-effect
Well to begin with we make organizations in such ways as to limit the ability for corruption. To appreciate all the work done in this area and apply the wisdom gleaned by such research. In fact, I suspect that there may be a organizational standard, where by a third party may assess organization and its practices, offer practical ways to implement corruption mitigation practices.
Gosh, I would highly recommend this for RAWMI. It would be far easier to get behind an institution with assurance its mindful of corruption, in its many forms, and is committed to implement corruption motogation protocols. Seems only natural for a standard body to appreciate standards in such ways.
Your on the right path Mark
One of the more interesting aspects of this article is that your heading is, “Who Is Joyce Brown and Why Is She Tormenting an OH Herdshare?” when really what this article focuses on is the second half of that title. You didn’t focus at all on who Joyce Brown really is, and instead wrote a biased, judgmental article on something that happened in her life over the course of a few months.
One of the most important qualities in a journalist is their ability to be objective, which you have demonstrated that you clearly do not have the ability to do so. This comment is not intended to start an argument, it is merely to state that one shouldn’t believe everything they read on the internet, journalist or not. This article doesn’t show Joyce Brown’s side of the story, but I admire her for standing up for the safety of everyone in Hershberger’s Herdshare. Regardless of articles like this published by people like you, there are people out there striving to make a difference in the world for the better, and no matter how you try to shut them down, good will always win.
Carol, you’re certainly entitled to your view of what I wrote. For the record, I did show Joyce Brown’s side of the story quite extensively. I interviewed her and quoted her several times in the post. I linked to her web site about the herd share and I linked to the Facebook page she set up to criticize the herdshare. As for her “standing up for safety,” she never did document specific safety problems. For example, she never had the milk tested for bacteria counts, nor did she document any complaints of illness from consumers of the dairy’s milk.
After commenting in another forum I thought it appropriate to return here.
This situation and circumstance has brought attention to something of common concern.
A complaint was made to public agency about the potential risk to public health, and they did nothing. And there is no policy in regards to Herdshares.
That is concerning. Cause it significantly raised the possibility of public agency waiting for an eventual significant incident , to react to with force, and use their powers to write policy and shut the door.
Do pay attention
So, I’m obviously coming into this very late in the game, but I still feel inclined to include my point of view for what it’s worth. I was part of the heardshare when it was still run by the prior coordinator and I dropped out while still under that coordinator. I found the old system very tedious to work with and the old coordinator had my account/orders all messed up from the get go. It was rough and I left with a very poor taste in my mouth from the service and kind of felt bad because I was sure the farmers were great people but I wasn’t going to continue to subject myself to the errors of the coordinator.
It was a friend of mine who turned me back onto it about a year or more later when she said I ought to give them another shot. She told me about the changes to the ordering system and said there was a new coordinator, mother/daughter team. I put in an email to Diane and was given a personal phone call back from her that was so encouraging. She heard me out while I listed off all the incidents and miscommunications etc that occurred while I was a heardshare member previously. Diane was so kind and her and Morgan have continued to be so easy to work with and so helpful all the time. I really appreciate what they do, I love Adam and his farm even though I’ve never met him or been to the farm personally. I trust them all very much and I’ve had nothing but high quality food, dairy, soaps and of course wonderful customer service from all involved since all these changes occurred.
I’m not going to get on here and even pretend that I understand all this legal stuff, but I am here to say that anyone who stumbles onto this thread should also hear and know how wonderful all the people now involved in the heardshare are and how easy they system is to new users. I’m thankful for the changes. VERY thankful. Hope maybe that helps someone…
Jen, appreciate your comment. I had the good fortune to meet and work with Diane and Morgan, and was similarly impressed.
It is spelled herdshare.
Whatever happened with this? I know Adam is no longer the owner of Highland Haven and has moved out of state — did this have anything to do with that?