In This Holiday Season, Wishing for the Best, Fearing the Worst--Assessing MI, CA, and WI Developments
I am of two minds about Thanksgiving. Like most everyone, I am grateful for the bounty and family time that are part of the holiday. But I always feel a sense of uneasiness about what follows, the assault on our senses by the advertising and retailing orgy we are all supposed to join.
I am of two minds, as well, about the heartening report from Ron Klein, following my Monday post about ginger, describing his positive experiences with the Michigan Department of Agriculture. This is the same MDA that conducted a sting operation on Richard Hebron last year for distributing raw milk, and just last month had a state police swat team ready to move on Greg Niewendorp for protesting the bovine tuberculosis testing program.
Has the MDA implemented sensitivity training to its inspectors to help it work more effectively with its constituents? I don’t want to sound overly cynical, since it would be wonderful if the agency had turned a new leaf and decided it really wanted to work in cooperation with farmers and support sustainable farming practices.
Then I look around and see the opposite happening in other places. In California, Mark McAfee reports that Organic Pastures will be filing suit against the state December 17, and shortly thereafter requesting a preliminary restraining order against enforcement of the 10-coliform-per-milliliter requirement for raw milk, passed by the legislature in October.
“We are trying everything politically possible to get a delay in the enforcement letter issued,” he states. “It is not possible to see or foresee what will happen here.” He also says he’s raised 90% of the $5,000 goal for legal expenses.
In Wisconsin, the state’s Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection continues its practice begun last May to make acquisition/renewal of a dairy license contingent on participation in the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). No premises registration, no dairy license. This is forcing some Amish farmers to abandon dairy farming because registration violates their religious teachings, reports Mary Zanoni, an advocate against NAIS who has been monitoring Wisconsin happenings closely.
Virginia sustainable farming practitioner Joel Salatin has an incisive take on where the struggle over farming practices and nutrition have led us. He sees a hijacking of “sound science” by government and corporate interests that then use consensus by establishment scientists to push anti-sustainable-farming and anti-consumer agendas. It’s an intriguing notion, and well worth reading.
The encouraging trend in all this is that there's a lot more information circulating about nutritional and health issues than just a few years ago. Information makes things more open, and openness tends to spark discussion, debate...and compromise. Sometimes, after an upheaval of the sort that occurred in Michigan with Richard Hebron, all sides begin to value the attractions of compromise. But likely there need to be unheavals in any number of other places as well before we see meaningful national movement in positive directions.
The Complete Patient
in Government policy
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From the USDA food recall website:
"The products subject to recall were distributed for further processing and repackaging and will not bear the recalling firm's establishment number on the package. As the use-by date for products subject to this recall may have expired, consumers can contact their retailers to ask if they received any of these products and if so, consumers are urged to look in their freezers for these products and return or discard them if found.
The ground beef products subject to recall were produced on Oct. 10, 2007, and were distributed to retail establishments and distributors in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Virginia.
The problem was discovered through an investigation into two illnesses that was initiated by the Illinois Department of Public Health. Anyone concerned about an illness should contact a physician."
Please note the following:
There is apparently no way to immediately identify the packages of tainted meat though any sort of product coding.
The product in question is over a month old, and by now much has been consumed or is out of date.
Illnesses have been associated with the product.
The plant has most likely remained in full operation.
How can the lack of governmental consequences for this operation and many like it be reconciled with the closure and fining of a small dairy with no associated illnesses or the mandatory RFID tracking of 20 cows that were going to be sold under private contract and could likely be identified by sight alone? I realize that this is the USDA and not the FDA or state ag department, but you would think they could coordinate and calibrate their responses to properly address the realities of the situation. The consequences for smaller producers seem way out of proportion.
I agree. I do see the MDA being more mature in some of it's actions and discussions with farmers these days, but I take it with a grain of salt. Overall, I think the agenda of the MDA, as a whole, is the same.The MDA won't hesitate to run over the small farmer in their quest to follow their plan.
I have read their documents on NAIS, it isn't going to go away easily. The raw milk talks are encouraging, but those involved are very cautious in their dealings with the MDA.
It is really a time to wait and see what happens, but in the meantime to keep sending them information on our position. The public pressure after the Hebron incident had a huge impact on the MDA and they expected it to die down and hopefully slink away. We need to keep the heat on them to keep the small farmer in business and the access of real food available for consumers.
I went back to read Ron's report on his MDA experience and saw why it was so positive... he's in the process of obtaining a Grade A license. Of course they're bending over backwards... a Grade A license is for bulk sales of milk intended for pasteurization, not private sales of raw milk.
I suspect that had he talked to them of establishing raw milk cow shares, instead of a Grade A license, his experience would have been quite the other way.
I lnow that I personally have as customers for my raw goats' milk an employee of the Georgia Dept of Agriculture's Dairy division, a CDC employee, and an employee of the USDA whose job, in part, is to fight raw milk. All are raw milk proponents and buy my milk despite it's being "pet food" as the law says it must be in Georgia. For all I know, they feed it to their pets, though I doubt it based on conversations I have had with them.
Keeo in mind we may have friends in places we don't know about that can help us in the war. Before taking a hostile attitude, remember you might be dealing with a spy for our side in the war for nutritional choice who can help from the inside of the enemy camp...LOL.
Bob
We have continued to try to drag the MDA out of the dark ages by working with them at roundtable discussions, but if you think for 1 minute that they really want small farms and local food you need to realize that there is tremendous pressure on MDA from "the industry" to eliminate the threat that we pose to the Wal Marts, Krogers, and Meiers that have the real ear of the regulators. A personal relationship with the farmer is one thing they cannot compete with, and the sucess of the movement is definitely become a threat to the "industry"
Katherine Fedder, the director of MDA's food and dairy division, expressed "surprise" at the number of letters and emails they had recieved about the Hebron case. THAT was what made them back off on the police state tactics, The one thing that will keep the farm to consumer link alive is a strong consumer voice, otherwise we are going to be "regulated" away.