Last March, there was a three-day preliminary hearing in Ventura County about the allegations of fraud against James Stewart and two other principles in the Rawesome affair–Sharon Palmer and Larry Otting. The allegations mostly concern a mortgage transaction and loans in connection with the acquisition of Healthy Family Farms, where Palmer does her farming, in 2008. 
The hearing was held so the judge could hear evidence in the case, and determine whether it seemed a substantial enough case to move forward in the judicial proceedings.The felony charges are serious enough that the penalties for Stewart and Palmer could be more than 30 years in jail. Over the three days, about a dozen witnesses testified, including investigators for the Ventura County District Attorney’s office, an officer of the bank that extended a mortgage on the property, an individual who loaned money to Sharon Palmer, and Larry Otting, the real estate developer and Rawesome member who used his credit to obtain a mortgage on the farm.
Contrary to all the perceptions about James Stewart as being totally averse to lawyers, he had a lawyer representing him during those three days, Ajna Sharma-Wilson, who practices out of Beverly Hills. She cross-examined each witness, asking about James Stewart’s role in the fund-raising, negotiations, and signing of legal documents that led to about $2 million being raised for acquisition of the farm.
No one placed Stewart in the negotiations for the deal, and there wasn’t a single piece of paper anyone could point to with his signature…and, as in any complicated real estate transaction, there were many signatures on many pieces of paper. The three DA investigators, who mostly interviewed individuals who had loaned money to Palmer, barely knew who Stewart was. The closest anyone could come to linking Stewart directly to the transaction was a relative of a Rawesome member who loaned money to Palmer, who said Stewart had told him Palmer was seeking to raise money to buy the farm. There was also a flyer inviting members to meet Palmer and learn about the farm, which a Rawesome member put up on a bulletin board at the buying club, along with the routine announcements about services for hire and apartments for rent. The prosecution suggested Stewart had something to do with the flyer, but under questioning by the defense, investigators could provide no linkage.
No one even implied Stewart received compensation for making the introductions. His only motivation for encouraging the transaction seemed to be to secure a local source of food for Rawesome Food Club.
Despite the absence of evidence tying Stewart to the securities fraud alleged in the Ventura County charges, the judge ruled at the end of three days that the case could go forward as it was, including Stewart.
Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Stewart and asked him what he thought after watching the three days of proceedings. “There is no justice,” he said simply. I tried to encourage him, telling him he could well win in a trial, that there are all kinds of cases in which victims of overly aggressive prosecutors wind up winning.
“Yes, that’s what they say. You also hear about people winning in Las Vegas. They want you to think you can win, but we know that most people lose in Las Vegas.”
In retrospect, it now seems as if Stewart may well have lost any semblance of faith remaining in the legal system after watching those three days of testimony in Ventura County, and hearing the judge essentially say there was enough evidence for a full trial that could lead to him possibly being sent to jail for more than 30 years. If a jury believed the state, there was no reason for Stewart not to think that a judge who had heard the flimsy case against him wouldn’t also send the 65-year-old Stewart away for the rest of his life. And remember, this all followed on Stewart having been jailed for a week, and abused during some of that time.
Others who know Stewart say he never fully got over his first jailing in L.A. County, for two days, in connection with the original Rawesome raw milk case nearly a year ago. At one point during that time, he saw a man in line behind him, who seemed to be behaving normally, targeted by guards and beaten up.
I can’t imagine a jury convicting Stewart based on the evidence that was presented last March, but then, I’m not in Stewart’s jail cell. Even if there’s a 10% chance of being convicted, that’s a pretty scary prospect.
None of this justifies Stewart having skipped bail, and jeopardizing the financial backing he had from Mark McAfee and others. Perhaps more significant, Stewart’s behavior, understandable as it may be, plays into the hands of the prosecutors and state and federal regulators who are monitoring this situation. It shows them they have succeeded in one of their key goals: intimidating Stewart so much, that he’ll take ill-advised steps and, eventually, be open to a settlement of the case whereby the prosecutors can claim victory–that herdshares are illegal, that raw milk shouldn’t be allowed, that those who promote the right to access raw milk and privately access the foods of their choice are a bunch of kooks and weirdos.
On this last point about kooks and weirdos, they even have McAfee playing into the game promoted by Amanda Rose, Kristen, Milky Way, and others–the game of distracting people from the real issues here. His statement following my previous post suggesting that Rawesome “at its core…was an alternative reality…” is unfortunate. I’ve met many of the people at Rawesome, and at their core, they are ordinary people very worried about the quality of the factory food available in the public food marketplace. They are people who decided to buy different food, on a private basis. If they didn’t approve of events taking place at Rawesome, it was their choice to leave Rawesome, and join another club, or go back to the public marketplace. Few of them left Rawesome.
And that gets to the real point here, actually two points.This case is about two key issues:
1.Our right to organize and obtain our food privately. The people trying to confuse things here, at their core, want us to think that all food distribution is public, and thus under the iron fist of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and all the state and local agencies that feed off the FDA.
2.Related to the previous, our right to organize herdshare and cowshare agreements. The original L.A. County charges against The Rawesome Three accuse them of selling milk that was being distributed via a herdshare through Rawesome.
To the extent we lose sight of those two points, we risk a major loss of rights via the Rawesome case. The authorities in L.A. County and Ventura County are working in tandem, and they are both trying to please their handlers in Washington at the FDA. The last thing they want to see is a jury trial, ether in L.A. County or Ventura County, on the charges at hand, and they will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid that.
Natural News is reporting that James Stewart has engaged a lawyer, who is seeking to have the Ventura County case dismissed. I wouldn’t count on that happening, given the proceedings in Ventura County last March that I described. It’s still a long road to jury trials in these two cases. But these two cases against James Stewart are winnable. To the extent that people who care about the rights at hand turn their back on Stewart, we will all lose big time.
**
As long as we’re on the subject of Food Rights, I was interviewed by Kevin Brown of Liberation Wellness last week. I answered a number of questions he had about the origination of the food rights and raw milk issues–the 20-minute program can be viewed online. .
In my comment, I eluded to the leadership and influence of people like Aajonus and others and a Rawesome culture that was not conducive to intelligent strategic clear thinking. Leadership at Rawesome that led James into an alternative reality and finally taking the DOOMING advice from Fred Gutierez.
I agree….Rawesome had plenty of wonderful, very clear thinking and clean eating people coming to buy every week. No question, but… the idea that no taxes, no permits, no public health inspections, no worries, un-permitted use of property, all cash…was not very smart or intuitive.
If at the very beginning Rawesome had embraced the set of conditions that would have created a protected market this story would have been entirely different.
After the first raid:
Rawesome should have sold legal products and shunned black market suppliers.
Rawesome should have applied for and recieved a permit to do business.
Rawesome should have probably moved to an approved location so it could be inspected and met code conditions.
There are other operations in LA area that are 100% legal…but also 100% smart and they are thriving, they are providing much of the same kinds of unprocessed foods that Rawesome supplied to their customers and so much more. I will not name these providers of wonderful foods….those that live in LA know who they are and respect them deeply. They are grounded and they are doing great and they are not going to get into trouble.
It was a cultural thing….embracing a concept of being the “Sovereign Man” and failing to see the whole picture of being a whole American.
As Americans we are interdependent and we must stand up together if we ever want to have a great nation. “Sovereign” means to hell with everyone else….not a good culture. Sovereign means you can call #911 if you need help…but you never pay for it.
All very niave and childlike and fails to engagement in the hard work to change America and make it more fair, more just and more healthy. This is hard work….not escape-ism or avoid-ism…this is engage-ism.
This is the work of true patriots with long term grounded consumer educational goals and backed by science and market building. This will make America better and stronger.
You are so right….that is why I posted James Bail to begin with…it is a flimsy, stupid, harrassing, overreaching case that should be thrown out immediately. The intent of this case was to dragnet everyone into a sticky messy conflict and cost the defendents a fortune.
It sure has worked…so far!
What is needed is a strong lawyer that can see things more globally and execute with strategy and precision to extricate James from this web of muck. Then keep him out of the mud in the future.
James needs to re-start Rawesome ( with a good group of business people at its core )….a new “Awesome Rawesome”. One that complies with all laws and does everything legally. He has the love and following of so many….it would be a raging success. He has the fame and the love of so many. He just needs to surround himself with clear thinking reasonable people. He needs the stability and normalcy and it would be very good for him.
We all know that a chefs acedemy can legally make all sorts of foods that are not generally available to the public and it can be sold legally to their members. A business permit and a proper location would make this all work.
Nothing like being able to sleep at night and be among friends and feed people.
He could do this. The best payback is success….in their face success !!
Turn the lemons of questionable notariety into the sweet organic lemonade of true success. Let this all be a bad chapter…gone good.
Yet I am a distractor, not your dearly beloved McAfee. Glad to know I’m so omnipotent to create a game that he “played” into. If I’m a distractor, then you all are fools.
James has retained the lawyer Sharon dumped. His name sounds familiar, Bromund. Must be a great lawyer.
Mark,
I must correct both your comments following this post, and the happy vision you paint for Rawesome, in particular your reference to permits and “black market” products. As I’m sure you are aware, Rawesome was a private membership organization mainly so it could make available to its members certain products not allowed in (public) retail stores, like unrefrigerated eggs, custom slaughtered meat, and raw milk that didn’t come from permitted CA dairies (OPDC or Claravale). I’m not sure which of these, or other products, you consider “black market.” Is the raw milk “black market” because it didn’t come from OPDC or Claravale? I hope you are not saying that, because it is not true, and something I thought you had come to accept in your role working with CA herdshares. In any event, Rawesome likely couldn’t have passed a public health inspection with such products…which is why it organized as a private food club. It could be Rawesome should have had other permits, though there were a number of gray areas. For example, it operated out of a couple of shipping containers, which could be considered temporary structures, not requiring a building permit. As I recall, OPDC operated out of a number of trailers for many years, which didn’t require permits because you claimed they were temporary structures. My point here is the issue of permits and products is much more involved than you portray it, and at the heart of the legal and political struggle Rawesome and its operators have experienced. In CA, as well as WI, MN, and other states, the public health and agriculture establishments are trying to destroy the fast-growing private food system, and force all food to be sold through the public factory system. You have chosen to be part of the public system. But I hope you respect the rights of the private system. Your comments here sound as if you don’t.
He has been vocal in regards to the private system for years and it hasn’t been favorable.
Kristen, years ago when I took on the VA, no one thought I’d win. I quietly put my case together and went before them in Waco. Had that failed, DC was next. I used their own regulations and laws in my case. I also shared information with those who wanted to know. I’ve learned that those who what to know, will seek out information, those who don’t want to know..well it’s their choice.
Whatever property/bank fraud rawesome did is between the law and them. If they broke those laws, what other unsavory actions have they done? I have no sympathy for them. The part that I find distasteful is where Sharon and James were selling outsourced foods and NOT informing the customers. That is unforgivable fraud, a broken trust that would never be restored.
Also…it is critical that you take the battle to your oposition and not wait for them to raid you. You need to meet with them…..understand the loop holes, hold hearings about their conduct and not yours, negotiate the best deals, they need to know your name, you need to concur with them were you can and conflict with them were you can not. You need to take as much ground as possible and you go forward. It is a battle of smart engagement.
Here is a great example of effective engagement….when the CA Cow Shares were being raided and shut down 18 months ago ( Mike Hulme etc )….what did Yannick Phillups ( a lobbyist with the Grange ) and Pattie Chelsea ( a family cow owner ) together with me….do???..we called for a meeting with the Secretary of Agriculture and all the top brass at the CDFA and DPH….they all showed up and the raids stopped. A process called the ” CA Small Herd Working Group” was established and a comprehensive dialogue was initiated. Now we have relative peace and a cease fire after seven meetings. We even have draft Standards for Self Certification of Small Family Operated Dairies that can sell extra milk to the public ( RAWMI assisted to create this draft set of Standards ).
Enegagement is the Mike Schmidt and OPDC methodology and it works…every well. It is the democratic, very frustrating road that takes hard work and you do not win every turn. That is America and democracy.
RAWESOME did not engage….James hid away and denied reality. Cops and regulators love this….they can then make you into a criminal and give you a nasty label and arrest you and spill your Ohio raw milk down the drain.
Intellegence means learning from others and not repeating errors and missteps. Lets all be smart. This private verses public debate is really something very interesting. It is all very simple…
If it enters commerce it is no longer private. That is the way that the regulators and the law sees it. So that is the starting point for debate and dialogue. Commerce is something that is not agreed upon and is in flux. Each state has their own take on what this all means. Colorado has agreed that commerce means something different than what other states have interpreted to mean.
We get what we can locally and regionally negotiate. We get what we engage in and fight for.
Mark
Engage….and be excellent!!
Well Mark I guess that would depend on the consumer and whether or not he or she wants untrustworthy bureaucrats meddling with their choice of food.
Ken
That has been demonstrated all over the USA. There are examples showing a vast array of different responses to commerce challenges and “private verses public” depending on what area of the country.
CDFA legal representatives actually said that if ” true equity” is shown, Cow Shares could be something that CDFA would not challange.
[excerpt from article]:
Once upon a time, as all good morality legends begin, mankind lived in a natural habitat. People toiled, but none worked at anything like what is today called a job. They hunted, fished, trapped and gathered berries, fruits and edible roots. Later people learned to cultivate land and domesticate and herd animals. Yields were shared with all members of their clansthe young and the aged, the able and the disabled, the well and the ill. From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs was common practice, not an ideological precept. And the human race flourished. Villages around cultivated plots grew into towns and towns into cities. But somewhere in the progression, something went horribly wrong. People stopped sharing! People with a this began to trade with others for a that, and what is now known as commerce began.
Trouble is, having been removed from a natural habitat to an unnatural, artificial one, everyone didn’t have a *this* to trade for a *that*. (emphasis mine) The haves became distinguished from the have-nots. What were the have-nots to do? Well, they could beg or sell themselves or revert to being what they would have been in their natural habitathunters and gatherers! But now the prey were the haves and their property became gatherable. So what were the haves to do?
They could have gone back to sharing, but they didn’t! Instead, they developed ways of guarding what they had. They assigned some to enact rules and others to enforce them. Some people got jobs, rulegivers and guards. Whenever a rulebreaker was caught, s/he had to be tried. More jobs were createdlawyer and judge. When convicted, the rulebreaker had to be punished, and prisons came into being with their wardens and guards. When prisoners were released, they had to be monitored so now probation officers were needed. All of this costs the haves a lot. Wouldn’t sharing have been cheaper?
Perhaps, but people couldn’t revert to that now. For all of these guard-workers, as they are now often called in the literature, constitute an economic activity in itself. To go back to sharing would turn them all into have-nots. But these are now important and powerful people. Judges, lawyers, legislators! Have-nots? Heavens no! Although loath to think of themselves in this way, these people are nothing but ballyhooed security guards. Compared to fish, they are the aquarium’s bottom feeders. What would they be without crime?
[end of excerpt]
Taken from this link – – -> http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32125
The rest of the article is about economics, mostly, but is still excellent reading if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
Yes, where would we all be without crime?!
Only Post Cards are allowed. That really sucks….!!
David, I didn’t see where he was maced? Certainly hope he doesn’t whine like that in jail. If that is what he did in the past, I can see why he had such a hard time.
http://criminal.lawyers.com/Criminal-Law-Basics/Skipping-Bail-A-Bounty-Hunter-Will-Likely-Follow.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/036613_Mark_McAfee_James_Stewart_arrest.html
“37 felony counts related to his role in a real estate investment fraud scheme. = *His evasion from the courts seem to be for something entirely different than the Raw Milk…issue”
Per the above poster from the link….Some things just make you go Hmmmmm
I almost hope this ISN’T about raw milk, to be honest. Us real food foodies have a hard enough time on a daily basis without all the brouhaha of this sort.
Sylvia, I believe he was maced when the agents pulled him from the car, which isn’t on the video.
Your statement, If it enters commerce it is no longer private doesnt make sense.
What exactly do you mean by if it enters commerce?
Are you referring to a transaction between two or more individuals?
If so governments are increasingly making it their business to regulate all sorts of things whether a transaction occurs or not, do you not think its a stretch of the imagination to suggest that a mere transaction between two individuals gives regulators the authority to undermine private agreements or contracts and dictate what a consumers chooses to eat or from whom a consumer chooses to purchase their food?
Ken
I can only guess that Mark called the bounty hunters because James was a no-show and Mark stood to loose a lot.
Ken,
Your questioning of “commerce” is absolutely key here, and underlies the conflict over private acquisition of food. Meriam-Webster defines commerce as: “the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place.” The U.S. Constitution gives the federal government authority to regulate “interstate commerce.” Purchases by individuals of food from a farmer do not qualify as “commerce” by any stretch of the imagination. If the buyer arranges for delivery of the food, even across state lines, we are still not into “commerce.” That is what happens with most buying clubs. The FDA and state public health and ag regulators would have us think this is commerce, because they want to smash private food arrangements. Eventually, the courts, and perhaps the highest court, will need to settle this matter. It’s unfortunate when those who proclaim themselves in favor of food rights join the food police chorus.
This entire ordeal is sad, a waste and hurts my heart.
I wrote a letter to James in Jail…His friend James Hopson will be reading it to him when he visits him this weekend. Letters are not permitted but reading a letter is ok…
My only wish is that James and Rawesome were still selling great food to people right now…instead they are out of business and fighting for their basic freedoms and their lives. This course of events gives the FDA exactly what they wanted.
An alternative course could have been chosen two years ago. Engagement and strategic compliance…
When OPDC violated FDA interstate regulations for shipment of raw milk over statelines, and “got seriously busted”….did we continue to violate that stupid law and get thrown in jail and shut down? No we did not. Instead we continued teaching and CA market building and growing. We helped to establish RAWMI and now we teach across state lines and raw milk is thriving over state lines as a direct result.
Long term vision, engagement ( like the CA Small Herd Working Group ), educational work, market building and other strategic efforts….. that course will win raw milk for us of all. Playing into the power of guns and the corruptness of the FDA is a dead ender. America is not fair…but there are smart ways to get even, get free and get our food.
So at maybe $10,000-$20,000 or more for the bounty hunters, Mark is still out a good sum of money.
Lynn
even as they advertise “we know people who are getting rid of debt / getting the IRS off their backs”, these Pay-triots for Profit cannot produce one single victory in Court. Not only are they idiots = they are DANGEROUS idiots
his website is a snapshot of the craziness … a couple of glimmers of truth, as bait for the suckers born every minute. No-one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American
http://www.morningliberty.com/tag/fred-gutierrez/
From David’s previous post;
“Stewart was out on bail in both cases–$30,000 in the L.A. County case and $100,000 in the Ventura County case. The $30,000 bail in L.A. County had been provided by a friend, and the $100,000 in Ventura County was provided by Mark McAfee, in the form of the deed on his Fresno, CA, home. Once Stewart failed to show for the two cases, the nearly 10% upfront cash bond paid in each case (about $3,000 in L.A. County and $9,000 in Ventura County) by a relative and a friend was immediately forfeited. ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail
You pay a percentage of what the courts designate bail to be. Mark put up his home and had James not been arrested, The state could have foreclosed on his home. (I think that is it in a nutshell) I don’t know who paid the bounty hunters. And I’ve no doubt Mark lost money on this gamble.
My bigger point is to reemphasize that Stewart cost a few of his friends a lot of money by his failure to appear in court, and for no gain. He personally suffered by taking the uncertainty of future jail time upon conviction and turning it into a certainty of being jailed now while he has to wait for his cases to wind their way through the courts. He will have much time to rue his decision as he sits in jail.
Unfortunately, most of us are not very scientific in our approach – it is easier just to give things a whirl, see what happens and decide later whether or not it is good or bad for us. The problem with this approach is that certain venues are less forgiving than others – our legal system for example.
There are a lot of people who make extraordinary legal claims and who present legal theories and strategies that are way outside the norm with grandiose claims about the power and efficacy of their methods. Most all of them require that you represent yourself in court. I, myself, have experimented with some of these alternative strategies with mild success.
What I’ve come to realize is that even though some of these alternative strategies may be constitutionally sound or follow some legal logic, none of them are really worth pursuing if they have no teeth. If these people cannot show you multiple court transcripts or published cases that prove the efficacy of their methods – don’t be your own guinea pig.
I’ve tried to steer James away from various outrageous methods over the years, to no avail. Minor successes at public hearings, traffic court or motion hearings, often serve to convince people that something is actually working when, more than likely, the issue just wasn’t serious enough for the prosecutor to pursue.
James is very impatient and often would change strategies multiple times between hearing dates, looking for something that would provide instant results, often sabotaging other strategies that were working. Our legal system is very tentative and unpredictable and seemingly has no real correlation to actual guilt or innocents. And legal cases can be drawn out for years, hanging over our lives, some would say worse than prison itself.
The rule of thumb I recommend when going forward with various unusual methods is “how will it look to the jury”. If the jury can’t see it, or if the government can twist it around so you look like a criminal, it doesn’t matter how right you are.
Sylvia you are right. I did hire the Bond Recovery Agent Team at the recommendation and suggestion of the Bond Company. It was supposed to cost me $750 for a simple uncomplicated pick-up. It was not simple and it got complicated…and I had to find him myself. James was not anywhere to be found.
The mace, James refusal to get out of his car and cooperate and his combative behavior added $1,250 to the cost of the pick-up. Ouch…
I paid that bill. It sucked….but sure as hell beats loss of my home ( and or the $100,000 financial hit to save it ), and or a 20% fee charged ( $20,000 ) if the bail company initiates the pick up.
I considered this cheap in the greater scheme of things. When it gets serious….it is critical to be pre-emptive and stop the madness quick. I learned of the bench warrant hours after the warrant was issued. James was back in custody 36 hours later. I was not about to let Fred Gutierez ruin my life.
$2,000 verses $20,000….my decision was made in short order.
Take a walk in my shoes for a little while and see how it feels. I wanted to help James and I feel for him. Hearing that whacko Fred Gutierez was incharge of Jame’s strategy and no attorney was involved, settled it all for me. Quickly…
Michael Schmidt reporting a raid at his farm in Ontario:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151014824603101&set=a.10150177732918101.312190.671393100&type=1&theater
Mike…I send you the best energy possible.
Give them love and send them away with nothing but questions for their souls.
I thought you all might be interested in reading this information about free markets in America:
http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/05/the-free-market-doesnt-need-government-r
http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/04/setbacks-and-bizarre-turns-in-the-raw-mi
Amanda
aka “Foxy”
Fraud matters.
Not sure why you are posting this at this particular time, Amanda, but more wouldas, shouldas, and couldas than I can handle. “Fraud” is a strong term. I have never been as close to the OPDC situation as you have been, so have never been able to make an informed judgment aside from what you alleged and what Mark McAfee admitted to. Aside from that, I don’t believe McAfee has ever been charged with fraud in connection with outsourcing. I know a little more about Rawesome, and have discussed outsourcing several times. I have also written how Aajonus Vonderplanitz, by his own admission, went to the Ventura County District Attorney with allegations of outsourcing at Rawesome, and the D.A. refused to press charges of fraud in connection with outsourcing. Not sure why–probably either not enough evidence or just didn’t care.
But even assuming the worst in both situations, you ascribe much influence to me in suggesting I could have somehow changed scenarios. Much more influence than I have, I’m afraid.
You can’t change the past by asking questions and pointing fingers, Amanda. It’s over so just let it go.
If you were a man, I’d say you were wearing a shirt, a tie and a hoodie all at the same time.
Amanda is a Mole sent by Marler and the FDA to destroy raw milk. She is an enemy of raw milk and she herself is a fraud.
She is not right in the head or the heart.
OPDC has never outsourced any raw milk for bottling ever! ever! ever!!!. Her persistance in this destructive lie is a fraud and an intent to injure OPDC and also the entire raw milk movement.
It was clear, shared openly, no secret and not a fraud… that OPDC did purchase organic colostrum from several USDA certified organic dairies….that was more than 5 years ago. We have not purchased any colostrum since then.
Colostrum is life saving…denial of fresh raw colostrum to those in need is a crime. When we sold our colostrum to those in need years ago….they did not care where it came from…they cared that their loved ones had it to consume. If not for the friendship and assistance of other USDA organic dairies colostrum would not have been available. This is not outsourcing and this is not fraud. This is community helping people.
Amanda…your negativity is what stinks….OPDC operated a DPH authorized permitted composting facility and yes some of our dead cows were added into that pile prior to 2007. That facility has been closed. It did not stink and it was excellent for the soils and was part of our approved USDA wholistic organic plan.
Amandas destructive search for the negative is what truly stinks.
Ride your broom someplace else and speak negative somewhere else. I am sick of your fraud and your complete lies. Working for the FDA is a act of treason in my Karma Book.
Your actions deny children sources of safe raw milk…. your words provide aid, comfort and support to those that protect FOOD INC.
Wow, Mark lowering yourself to childish name calling is really unprofessional and makes you look like you’re trying to hide things. After all, people lower themselves to name calling when they are boxed into a corner and caught with their pants down…
“did outsource some of its colostrum from other dairies,” http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/01/dairy-ends-sales-of-raw-colostrum/
http://www.rebuild-from-depression.com/blog/2008/04/the_elephant_in_the_raw_milk_r.html
Outsourced cream? Butter is made from cream.
Milk for bottling wasn’t outsourced, what about the cream and colostrum? Were customers informed? Openness and honesty is imperative for success. If you are open and honest then when crap hits the fan, people don’t appear to freak out so much.
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/article/2009/november/4/raw-milk-outsourcing-issue-forces-us-face-serious-safety-qs-around-policing
I said very clearly….OPDC has never purchased outside raw milk for bottling!! ( Class 1 use )
In the distrant past, OPDC purchased USDA organic cream, raw milk for cheese and colostrum. We have nothing to hide…nothing. Strauss Organics does exactly the same thing. Clover Stornetta does the same thing. Organic Valley does the same thing. We have had an open book about these practices.
However, because of Amandas heart attack….the change of AB 1735 and the less than 10 coliform standard and being burned by a listeria problem from purchased organic cream, we stopped all outside pruchases of any raw dairy years ago. In fact I have lost track of when we last purchased anything from off the farm from a different organic dairy.
I do not consider this a fraud. It was never a secret. Out sourcing is not a fraud ( when it is clearly shared with consumers ). It is using your brand to represent others with similiar practices and certifications, as well as yourself and feeding people.
OPDC does not purchase outside raw dairy products from anyone….
This is one of the reasons that consumers are consistently pissed off at OPDC…we do not have the butter that we used to have years ago when we bought organic cream or organic raw milk to make cream. Now…consumers just suffer.
Yes…Amanda you are a part of why there is so little OPDC raw butter in the market place and you are one of the reasons that consumers suffer for lack of raw butter. Now do you feel better?
I have made this statement repeatedly. Sometimes I get the feeling that you can not read or that you are hard of hearing. These are the facts. Ancient facts. OPDC has not purchased raw dairy from another farmer for years….you know this also.
Wow, I did not know so many outsourced. When I did buy Strauss milk, I assumed it was from their cows only. I’d bet that most consumers believe that too.
If people are “pissed” that the supply of butter is low or out, then ask them what solution they have. Cows can only give so much, unless they wish to purchase from the cafos.
You are correct, it is not fraud if the consumers are aware of it.
Strauss Buys raw milk from at least 4 additional organic dairies and has close relationships with many more to purchase milk to produce its wonderful organic products including its award winning yogurts and ice cream.
Clover Stornetta ( the “Clover” Brand ) purchases raw milk from a huge number of organic dairies in northern CA to produce its branded products.
Organic Valley purchases raw milk from a huge number of organic dairies all over CA to make its products.
This is not fraud. These are brand relationships and utilization of common processing plants to achieve marketing and distribution etc.
What would be wrong is if you could not find out where the milk actually came from or if stories were told about what kind of farms produced the milk.
OPDC products come from only cows at OPDC. That has been made crystal clear and has been this way for many many years.
http://strausfamilycreamery.com/products/organic-milk-cream At least Straus tells you where and who their milk comes from.
It’s a shame that everything little thing requires in depth scrutiny to find out something as simple as where your milk comes from.
Pure Milk Is Better Than Purified Milk
Pasteurization and Milk Purity in Chicago, 19081916
http://ssh.dukejournals.org/content/31/3/411.full.pdf
We need to get a new “topic title” here concerning American raw milk battles, because I don’t think things like this should be posted under David’s articles concerning Canadian milk battles. Sorry if it bothers anyone that I’m keeping this thread alive!
Also, there’s a post near the bottom which appears to be an advertisement or a troll posting.
Setbacks and Bizarre Turns in the Rawsome Foods Raw Milk Saga
Today, August 10, 2012
All of this drama and politicization of raw milk wasnt always the case in this country (especially, for obvious reasons, prior to the advent of pasteurization). In fact, it was just about 100 years ago1908, to be precisethat the first American laws began requiring some dairy milk to be pasteurized. (For those interested in learning more about the politics and other machinations behind the early bans, I recommend Alan Czaplickis easily accessible 2007 article, “Pure Milk is Better Than Purified Milk,” in the journal Social Science History.)
http://youtu.be/ioN0ehlyyXI
Read the full article at Reason.com
You’ll love this TED talk (13 min): http://www.ted.com/talks/pam_warhurst_how_we_can_eat_our_landscapes.html