This blog has chronicled seemingly endless abuses of power against farmers merely trying to do what farmers have done for centuriesgrow food and sell it to friends and neighbors.
It seems at times as if few beyond those directly affected are paying attention, especially when those in authority wield their powers with an iron fist. We have seen arbitrary decisions, like the court injunction placed on Maine raw dairy farmer Dan Brown that drove him out of farming, and the huge fine and other regulatory actions against Michigan farmer Mark Baker that destroyed his hog business. South Dakota late last year tightened rules against raw milk at the behest of regulators.
Yet, in all these places, and others, we see signs that farmers and their customers are gaining adherents, making the old power structure shake and bend. They are doing it using old-fashioned tools and new techniques alike to publicize these injustices, and they are doing it with increasing skill.
I thought it would be useful to run through the techniques food rights proponents are using to influence growing numbers of people, with growing effectiveness.
Old-fashioned political organizing. Take Maine, The gubernatorial veto of legislation allowing very small farms, like that owned by Dan Brown, to sell raw milk directly to individuals created a huge backlash against a governor who wanted to be seen as friendly to farmers. Now, the farmers and consumers who organized for Food Sovereignty ordinances in ten Maine towns and who organized for the doomed legislation last summer, are at it again, fighting for the same legislation the governor vetoed last summer.
Lo and behold, a number of the opponents to last year’s legislation have changed their tunes, reports Heather Retberg, one of the organizers of the legislative initiative, as well as the Food Sovereignty ordinances in effect in ten towns. Those singing a different tune at a legislative hearing this week include the Farm Bureau and the Cheese Guildformerly opponents to helping small dairies to sell raw milk without the need for permits. Even the state Department of Agriculture is now in favor, which suggests the governor may well be on board as well.
Similar organizing efforts are going on around the country. In Massachusetts, a campaign is under way to legalize raw milk in the small town of Groton. In South Dakota, a serious legislative effort is under way to loosen restrictions tightened last year. In New Jersey, where legislation to legalize the sale of raw milk from farms was defeated last year, a new legislative effort to allow sales from dairy farms is being revived. And in California, a couple of years of negotiation between owners of small dairies involved in herdshare arrangements, and state agriculture officials, has led to introduction of “home dairy farm” bill in the Assembly; it would “authorized farm families in California to exchange, share, or sell limited quantities of raw milk produced at a home dairy farm that is in excess of household needs…” via less regulation than necessary for permitted dairies.
Leveraging the legal system. We know that judges tend to accept the opinions of regulators over farmers and their supporters. But we may have begun to see a shift in the Mark Baker case in Michigan, where the judge showed sensitivity to the rights of the farmer, so much so that the state was afraid to try the case. The best example we have of how the legal system can be helpful is last springs legal victory by Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger. He left his fate in the hands of a dozen of his fellow citizens, who quickly understood what was happening, and not only acquitted him of all licensing charges, but saw several join his food club.
The effect has been to freeze Wisconsins campaign against raw dairy farmers. Sure, its not an end to the the dairy industry campaign against raw milk farmers, but it is a shift.
Keep that video camera handy. Michigan hog farmer Mark Baker was accused by some of fomenting violence because he owned guns, but in reality he became a force to be reckoned with because he aimed video cameras, not guns, on regulators seeking to carry out their corporate agenda. He had been producing periodic videos for months prior to the fateful hearing last month that wound up sanctioning his raising of supposedly feral pigs, in contravention of a new state regulation.
But the use of a video camera by his supporters to capture the now famous assistant attorney general, Harold Martin, threatening him has turned into a near scandal for Martins boss, Attorney General Bill Schuette. Now we learn that a political opponent has this week declared his candidacy for Michigan attorney general. I dont know anything about Schuettes political opponent, but I do know that Schuette wont be helped in his re-election campaign by repeated showing of the assistant AG telling Baker, You dont get it, do you.
Exploit the social media. The substantial crowds that turned out for hearings on a Maryland raw milk legislative proposal as well as a Massachusetts towns efforts to tighten raw milk regulations (Foxboro) didnt just happen by accident. Much of the outpouring was due to the skillful use of social mediaby activist Liz Reitzig in Maryland and a variety of supporters of MA farmer Terri Lawton in MA.
Supporters of Mark Baker used Facebook to enable the video of Harold Martin to go viral, and now the Michigan Attorney Generals office has been so deluged with calls its officials are reportedly asked people to file their complaints via email instead.
Yes, farmers and their supporters are getting the hang of what it takes to fight back. They are learning to use the tools that were part of their subjugation. There is a long way to go, and there will be defeats along the way. But, as Heather Retberg put it to me, the ground has begun to move. It has begun to move because brave farmers have stood up and let their stories be told. They are telling those stories more skillfully than ever and, unbeknownst to organizers, lots of people have been listening, and learning.
The tools are there. More people are worried about their food, and want good food. The word is getting around.
David thank you for noting this piece of progress. Tomorrow I fly to Santa Fe NM as an elected delegate representing CA farmers at the 112th National Farmers Union convention. We will try to set national policy that supports farmers and enhances nutrition for our nations consumers. Tom Vilsack, the sec of Ag will be speaking. Last year we adopted four huge raw milk policy positions including support for responsibly produced raw milk, interstate commerce of raw milk! This is huge! It also demonstrated the alliances between CA, Pennsylvania and other raw milk producing states. When we stood up together, the rest of the states took jealous notice! And even voted with us because of our compelling arguments.
Raw milk is emerging. Next step….lets make sure we use good standards and it is consistently safe. Raw milk dairymen are our brothers keepers. Mentoring must be unselfishly exercised and “people before profit” must be priority one.
It’s been my sad experience that emails are often simply deleted and thus are kinda sorta useless in this fight. You know, someone in the office smiles, presses a delete button and says “oops” – and then there’s a toothy smile that follows.
If you really want to DO something and you can’t “show up and stand up”, get out a pen and some paper and a stamped envelope and WRITE your concerns and MAIL it via USPS to your local/State regulators. The only time email is plausible is when the deadline is too close for the mail call. But likely the email will have no impact, so keep deluging them with phone calls and hand-written letters. Or type it on your computer, print if off, hand sign it and send it off in the mail. Whatever works, but email is not the best option.
Mark, your comment reminded me that there is new legislation being proposed in California related to the ongoing negotiations between small dairies offering herdshares and CDFA, the “Home Dairy Farm Raw Milk Safety Act”. I have added info and a link to the bill in my post.
Georgia
http://savannahnow.com/news/2014-03-04/legislative-deadline-kills-hundreds-bills#.UxrGJcuYZD8
Louisiana
http://www.knoe.com/story/24911123/raw-milk-sales-could-soon-be-legal
Hunger for real food never gives up.
In a world so full of wealth and waste there is no excuse for sickness and starvation.
People who have switched to raw milk(fresh milk) know it’s safety and value.
The CDC has inadvertently proven that raw milk has a negative risk factor and prevents foodborne illness.
As many as 15% of Americans get sick each year from foodborne diseases, according to the CDC. http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2010/r101215.html
Health officials in Minnesota say based on a 10-year(CDC sponsored) study that only 1.7% of the states residents who drink raw milk get sick each year. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sn-minnesota-raw-milk-20131211,0,1666103.story#axzz2tOoRRo3j
This means people who don’t drink raw milk are 9 times more likely to suffer a foodborne illness.
… Bureaucratic adversaries of the Campaign for REAL MILK cleave to the same school of thought as Adolph Hitler / Josep Stalin and, laterly, Barry Suetoro ( known officially as Barack Obama. Whose ultimate position is : “MIGHT MAKES RIGHT”. ie. : ‘we have the guns’.
In the photogallery of my website, see a photo of Fraser Health Inspector Rod Asplin. on December 16 2009. A minute before that pic was taken, he’d received word over his cellphone that we were NOT allowed to take away our property, our milk. Saying to me = straight out of the script taught in their schools of public administration = “nothing personal, just doing my job”, the smirk on the face of this little prick gives away how he’s gloating about showing us ‘who’s the Boss’. Inspector Asplin could do that ONLY because he knew that if I got cantankerous, the RCMP would be on the scene within minutes = GUNS DRAWN. No, I’m not exaggerating.
… In the anti-abortion thing, and in the detax thing, and in the environmentalist thing I was in, mild-mannered John Q Citizens make all sorts of noises about “rights”. But when confronted with armed, govt. -uniformed thugs, doing something which is beyond argument wrong, they nearly all retreat … dazed and confused, grumbling to their little coterie about “let’s get a Petition going / let’s find a pro bono lawyer.” I see these people 20 years later, still mindboggled by the brainwashing they got in the public fool system, versus their own experience
… Our problem is : to find the way to undo the ‘cognitive dissonance” suffered by ordinary people, when told by race traitors in high places : “we’re from the government. We’re here to help you”, as they take the very food out of our mouths
Aired January 22, 2014 – 8:00am;
http://www.wpr.org/shows/racism-politics
My post was a response to My Heckman’s link. The main point was Be leery of these so called raw milk bills. I’ve seen that smirk you’re referring to, at the Hershberger trial. You are really singing to the quire on this one.
http://www.knoe.com/story/24911123/raw-milk-sales-could-soon-be-legal
Maybe you could ask Vilsack what he thinks about raw milk as an economic opportunity for conventional dairies being killed by the rigged economics of the current system. They probably won’t allow him to be questioned, but perhaps you can get to him right before or after his speech.
I can assure you raw milk sales dont fit into this scenario.
https://www.fcc-fac.ca/en/ag-knowledge/publications/fcc-express/fcc-express-archives/20140307.html?utm_source=FCC+Emails&utm_campaign=5a0a4b1bd7-Express_March_7_2014_EN_3_7_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ec568fff6d-5a0a4b1bd7-16362657#story1
I sold my quota about 18 years ago and this just goes to proves my point that I made back in the early 1990s, The government and processing industry want absolute control of the dairy industry and are therefore, systematically introducing policies and regulations designed to get rid of small family farms. If they cant take control of the dairy industry via quota and health regulations then they will attempt other ways.
If cheap food is what the consumer wants, cheap adulterated sterile crap is what they will get!
Ken
That is scarey for those of us who don’t want that crap. At times it seems harder and harder to find unadulterated foods, not just raw dairy, but other foods as well.
I was at the grocery store the other day and looked at the bulk walnuts (country of origin was not labeled on the container) $11.99/ lb. This was not a chain grocery store. 3 apples were $6.34. A bag of Ca navel oranges $8.99. My sister will be sending me some walnuts and almonds from the farmers market in Ca.
I hear the price of boiled cafo milk will be going up soon. From one story, it is because they are exporting it to china…
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304585004579417562716139506?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304585004579417562716139506.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/19/us-usa-milk-prices-idUSBREA1I1N820140219
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/07/supermarkets-milk-price-war-dairy-farmers-tesco-cuts
4 pints = 1/2 gal
There’s a very interesting chronology of the use of antibiotics in farming in today’s NY Times, and how it might well have contributed to our obesity and other health problems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fat-drug.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
Here’s a quote:
In 1955, a crowd gathered in a hotel ballroom to watch as feed salesmen climbed onto a scale; the men were competing to see who could gain the most weight in four months, in imitation of the cattle and hogs that ate their antibiotic-laced food. Pfizer sponsored the competition.
In 1954, Alexander Fleming the Scottish biologist who discovered penicillin visited the University of Minnesota. His American hosts proudly informed him that by feeding antibiotics to hogs, farmers had already saved millions of dollars in slop. But Fleming seemed disturbed by the thought of applying that logic to humans. I cant predict that feeding penicillin to babies will do society much good, he said. Making people larger might do more harm than good.
Nonetheless, experiments were then being conducted on humans. In the 1950s, a team of scientists fed a steady diet of antibiotics to schoolchildren in Guatemala for more than a year,while Charles H. Carter, a doctor in Florida, tried a similar regimen on mentally disabled kids. Could the children, like the farm animals, grow larger? Yes, they could.
Interesting question for Sec Vilsack about opportunities in raw milk…remember, the USDA has little to do with raw milk. The entire national raw milk show is run by the FDA and the NCIMS or the processors.
The USDA runs the federal marketing orders for national milk pricing…ie “the federal milk pool system”. Actually, the USDA has already brought a closeted blessing CA raw milk. Under the 2014 Farm Bill, the California Milk pool will be allowed to be merged into the Federal Milk pool system. This move if voted by the CA dairy producers will then exclude raw milk from the huge financial burdens of milk pool taxation. Nationally the USDA has little to do with raw milk. I have not met a USDA that was outwardly antirawmilk. In fact I have shared OPDC raw milk with high level USDA reps in San Diego when Dr. Heckman invited me to speak at a soils conference.
I will encourage Sec Vilsack to regulate all food and keep the FDA away from anything edible.
“bad communications corrupt good morals”
< http://www.dairyherd.com/dairy-news/Why-only-one-of-four-dairy-calves-drinks-raw-milk-249124801.html
I urge you to ask Sec Vilsack about raw milk if you get the chance.
In 2009, Dr. Kathleen Merrigan, USDA Deputy Secretary visited Rutgers University, and was promoting the new initiative Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food This was about a year after the raw milk seminars at Rutgers. Mark McAfee from Organic Pastures Dairy was one of the several seminar speakers.
Ever since I was involved in hosting those events, I have been inundated with this question: Do you know a farmer? Do you know a farmer? Where can I get this special farm fresh food? So, I asked Dr. Merrigan about this. To paraphrase her brief remarks, she was aware of a huge underground network for raw milk sales and she said that some of it works very well, some of it does not.
J Heckman
I can remember when dairy farmers in my area first started to use antibiotics to treat mastitis. They were indeed a miracle drug and were used with impunity by both farmer and veterinarian.
They were the product of an ever-growing paranoia towards microorganisms spurned on by the germ theory of disease and the medical professions ever-growing fear of microbes. The role that microbes played in our lives was poorly understood (it still is) and what knowledge we did have of this unseen world was more or less ignored. It was believed that antibiotics could do no harm and that they represented the instrument that would allow mankind to triumph over disease.
It was probably in the dairy industry where antibiotic use was first restricted and regulated because it soon became apparent that they could not make cheese if antibiotics were present in the milk. The power of the almighty buck is what initially led to the restriction of antibiotics in food.
It wasnt long before farmers were receiving substantial fines if antibiotics were discovered in their milk. Word was also going around that the industry was considering holding the dairy farmer liable for the milk stored in one of those milk silos at the cheese processing plant if it were to become contaminated with antibiotics. Theres a lot of milk in one of those silos and once contaminated with antibiotics the milk had to be discarded, or used somewhere else!?
Well it appears that mankind is hell-bent on learning the hard way and it also appears that they are still learning since antibiotics continue to be used along with arsenic and ARM (antibiotic resistant marker) gene laden GMOs as feed additives in the agriculture industry with the blessing of tptb.
If one considers the use of peanut oil as an ingredient in antibiotics and vaccines, this merely adds to the dilemma of acquired immune deficiency or malfunction.
To paraphrase CS Lewis, “tribulations cannot cease until God either sees our arrogant nature remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless.”
Ken
Thank you for planting the seed for the R-Word. With care and endless teaching it will grow.
This reminds me of a 1997 study by Mark Lipson at OFRF: Searching for the O-Word http://ofrf.org/sites/ofrf.org/files/docs/pdf/searching_for_o-word.pdf
Before that survey very little organic farming research was being done by the USDA or Land Grants. I think that study was instrumental in bringing attention to the needs of the organic farming community.
There may be a lesson here for raw milk.
Time, patience, demonstrated food safety excellence, market growth, continued decline of fluid pasteurized milk sales and then the market watchers will begin to connect the dots and recall these early comments. At that time, the organic raw milk seeds planted today will germinate and bloom. There is nothing like success to get a markets attention.
http://www.newsforage.com/2014/03/foods-that-are-banned-in-usa-41-pics.html
Raw milk is in pretty good or bad company depending… Green milk for St Patrick’s day anyone?
We now have NFU, the oldest grass roots farmer organization in America with an official policy statement that can be used to define and defend private ownership of cows and their raw milk!
I find it very progressive that there is no hint of anti raw milk policy being suggested at this 2014 national convention. Pennsylvania and Nebraska ( and other states as well ) stood with California 100% when it came to raw milk.
UN-learned as I am in the law, I told people that the thing was in trouble from the very start, because, as convened originally, then operated up to the time of the govt. came down on them like a ton of bricks the cowshare was an informal, oral agreement. Nothing wrong with that, as long as everyones happy. A piece of paper being only the evidence of that agreement = meeting of the minds. But the govt. has prevailed because Michael Schmidt et al. did not have their papers in order, comrade. The pivotal point : the Court faulted him for failing to produce hard evidence that those who were getting the milk, did actually own the cows.
It is telling that, after the raid on Glenncoulton farm in 2006 when the bright lights atop the legal system decided that the appropriate response to people farming to feed themselves was, shock and awe personified by a 22-member SWAT team – the cowshare carried on without a hitch, til this very day. As well, all the other dozens of cowshares in Ontari~ari~O carried-on too (thank you very much) with the authorities well-aware of who they were and what they were doing. What does it say that = out of ( probably ) millions of servings of raw milk in that time, from those dairies, no-one got sick? It says everything you need to know, about relative risk of harm to anyone with the intellectual integrity to admit it. Which lets out the health authorities whose continued employment is conditional upon approval of the Dairy cartel! Corrupt? The corruption in the Stalin-ist dairy supply-management system, is beyond words.
To the best of my knowledge, after the 2006 raid, the Glenncoulton farm was re-organized. Those who were serious about getting REAL MILK had to put up some serious $$ to purchase a fraction-ated interest in the piece of dirt, ie. the farm itself. After which, with their names on-title, able to prove that they, each, own an interest in it, the usufruct of that farm especially the raw milk is their private property. Say no more and dont come round here bothering me with your steenking badges!
The day I met her, I told Mrs Jongerden that, all we needed to do in order to stay on the right side BC provincial law, was, have handy a snapshot on any given day, of the group of owners of the cows a list of names, alongside the list of the animals in our herd. British jurisprudence is settled that a herd, as a group of animals, is a definable asset. Therefore in light of this decision by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in the Schmidt case, proof that certain Persons own a certain asset, is all we need to substantiate the legality of our contract for agistment.
Siegfried Gursche was one of the pioneers of the health food movement in North America. He said find a way to tell the Truth. 30 years worth of slogging through the halls of Her Majestys Courts taught me one thing for sure ; the answer to the asinine, utterly IL-logical policies of overbearing meddlesome bureaucrats, is NOT going to be found in Court. Justice ? : thats not where they keep it. Michael Schmidt has 60 days in which to put in an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. I say : dont bother.
The Schmidt decision is a classic “Punch + Judy show culminating in this latest bit of rank thuggery tricked-up in sophisticated language, for no good reason other than maintaining the Stalin-ist dairy quota system. The right response to communists, is : out-producing them. Plodding-along, doing the real work, day in and day out, asserting our right to use and enjoy the property God has put in our hands, for which we are appointed to be good stewards. If dragged into Court by the bureau-crazies, then we stand up and give the best answer we can, prepared to take the brunt of their stupidity. In my own situation, that means, on June 5th 2014 when my time in the penalty-box is up – Ill be right back at it, finding a way to educate people that whole fresh pure, un-cooked milk from grass-fed cows = the finest food in the world = is part of my religious heritage in this, the land of milk and honey.
So we are disappointed, but not for long … “hard-pressed on every side but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair ; persecuted but not abandoned ; struck down but not destroyed” The Campaign for REAL MILK is a movement which is gaining ground by the day. In the larger picture, this ruling stands as the last word, for the moment, but in the long run, it will be irrelevant
Gordon, meant to tell you, insightful assessment of the decision. As you say, raw milk movement “is gaining ground by the day.” And that is the part they don’t have a way to deal with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV2NIzfUqG4
Dr. Joel Wallach on High Blood Pressure
http://youtu.be/9WZHjAR_hv4
Dr. Joel Wallach – Dead Doctors Don’t Lie (full version)
http://www.thincs.org/Malcolm.htm#hypertens1
Food be thy medicine.