After All We Do For You, This Is How You Thank Us? Maybe It's Time to Take a Different View of Herdshares and Co-ops
Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 05:18PM 
Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, and to digest the comments on my previous post, I’d like to take another stab at answering the question I posed about what “the real message” of authorities was in the Stowers raid.
I suggested it may have had to do with concerns about the growth of herdshares, co-ops, buying clubs, and other such approaches consumers are devising to gain access to nutrient-dense foods, and I still do think that’s part of it. But I also think it’s likely bigger than that.
I was struck by a comment in the podcast from the Buckeye Institute (which, along with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, is providing legal representation to the Stowers and Manna Storehouse), in which Maurice Thompson of the Buckeye Institute explains the legal and circumstantial background of the case. He says in the interview that he spoke briefly with a Lorain County health official who said he “didn’t like the tone” of a letter the Stowers family had written to health officials a year earlier, requesting further information on why the Manna Storehouse should be considered a retail establishment.
Back before the Civil Right movement of the 1960s, Southern law enforcement officials would frequently use that same excuse for arresting and prosecuting blacks—they weren’t “respectful enough” or were “acting uppity.”
I also remembered something the California regulator I reported on last month had said: "’The scientific evidence on the health benefits (of raw milk) are not accepted by the scientific community,’ she said. So its attitude is, ‘Why can't you just pasteurize raw milk?’" The frustration in the comment was obvious.
It’s almost as if these exasperated officials are telling us: After all we do for you, making sure all food dealers are licensed, and making sure your milk is pasteurized, and inspecting meat plants to be sure your meat is safe, this is the appreciation you show? It’s like something a parent sometimes says to a disrespectful teenager—We give you this car and new clothes and send you to private school, and this is how you pay us back?
I sense a good deal of that going on in Washington to cope with the financial crisis. Congress rejected a bailout of the auto industry a couple weeks ago, so President Bush, the supreme regulator, stepped in and gave the industry its bailout money anyway. "Hey, I know Mom wouldn’t give you the money, son, but sometimes her judgment is a little off, so here's $17 billion, go have a good time."
And then last week, the Federal Reserve, the regulators of our money supply, lowered the interest rate to nearly zero, as if to say, “You silly consumers and business owners think you don’t want to borrow, that maybe you want to be more responsible and save some money? Well, let us tell you, you’re going to borrow, because... because... how could you not want to borrow when we’re making it so attractive, and besides, you’re just going to because...because...we know it’s the best thing for all of us.”
There’s an excellent article in today’s Wall Street Journal by money expert James Grant, which says in part: “The public has been slow to anger in this costliest and scariest of post World War II financial crises...But pointing fingers rarely find the Federal Reserve, whose low, low interest rates helped to set house prices levitating in the first place.”
Okay, enough philosophizing. How do you deal with regulators who are so full of their self importance and omnipotence that they will wave guns at women and children? Mark McAfee has an excellent suggestion about farmers and food co-op directors having video cameras at the ready. I also think, as several people make clear following my previous post, there is a need for a more organized response.
Maybe a way to get started is to begin viewing herdshares and food co-ops and food buying clubs not just as access vehicles to food, but as political organizations. They require financial support, and a political orientation. The latter may include preparedness training for government raids and regulatory actions--in addition to having the video cameras ready, providing instant text messages to members to assemble and protest during police raids, rehearsing how to handle harassing regulatory inspections, and organizing followup demonstrations at the offices of regulators who have conducted raids. It's time to begin turning the tables on our wardens.
Reader Comments (47)
You might find that dinging around within change.org will provide you with a geo-sampling of what is on the minds of some people. Some good, some scary and some, well, downright frightening.
Hope you will go vote. The Stop NAIS cause is first in the agriculture division, with 558 votes. Sad, huh? There should be 5,000 votes. The raw milk cause is 13th place in health care with 148 votes. Maybe by posting it here the number will jump. The whole deal is over on 31 Dec.
Sharon
Your curious, reasonable and increasingly politicized blog has been the best journalism I've read this year. Never has the like happened. Much Thanks, praise and love.
You bring us to the same conclusion as FTCLDF and many others - organize, take part in our government, and systematically challenge and change it.
To quote an Arlo Guthrie song; "Inch by inch, row by row, got to help this garden grow...
(I love this song - lyrics here : http://www.metrolyrics.com/garden-song-lyrics-arlo-guthrie.html ) It's my freedom song.
The Weston A. Price Foundation is doing this. FTCLDF is doing it. Vermont has it. Massachusetts has it. Florida is doing it. Colorado is too. California recently started doing it. IT is farmers and consumers organizing together.
And there is an initiative started on change.org - to legalize raw milk.
It doesn't have very many votes yet - need another 500 to make it into the 2nd round. But those that make the top 10 will have a real chance of being implemented. And if it doesn't, well, we'll have planted more seeds of change....and gardeners know about seeds.
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/legalize_milk
-Blair
Officials must maintain control of us using carrots when they work and the stick when all else fails.They need to maintain control or they lose their position in the society.
When we refuse to produce for the commercial market,we threaten their way of life and their access to food.Can we have a mutually beneficial relationship with these officials or is our gain necessarily their loss?
David, I think you have some insight here. But, doubt that the officials are terribly "exasperated" over raw milk; despite the dynamic exchange on this blog, raw milk and local herdshare/co-op arrangements are a very small slice of the food safety frustration pie. However, your point highlights an interesting catch 22...in general, if an outbreak occurs from any food product (including everything from "big ag" to raw milk, custom slaughter meat, etc.), the public and media are quick to accuse the officials of failing to protect them. Headlines read...the investigation was too slow, the regulations are too weak or not enforced well enough, why wasn't the public warned sooner, and on and on.
In the debate on your intriguing blog, the criticism swings the other way....investigators are too quick to name raw milk as the source and tell the public, the regulations are too strict and should not apply in these situations, enforcing the laws/regulations that are on the books is equivalent to harassment [if applied to raw milk or local herdshare/co-op arrangements?], publishing warnings about raw milk is unfair and biased, and on and on.
Hmm.
I think there is a little more going on here than people just expecting exceptional treatment in following the laws/regulations, and I think if you don't know that, you've got blinders on. Most of us live outside of those blinders, but if you want to follow where the reins are telling you to go, that is entirely your issue.
This has clearly gone way beyond health regulations. It is now an issue of food supply. It isn't tea either. In the land of plenty, people don't feel they have access to "real" food. Now, why do you think that is? The alternative media? Surely, it can't be true what all these people think. So it must be, they want exceptional treatment, and the regulating agencies should not tolerate this because THEY will get the public blame if something bad happens to a few people. That makes so much sense to me, that I think the regulating agencies need reconstructed.
Gwen
I'm not defending regulators here who invent newer and harsher versions of laws that aren't written on the books. These are ideological - and illegal - actions, and such personal interpretation is not the regulator's job either.
One of the biggest problems with current food laws - including the laws on raw milk and other raw dairy - is that they are based on large-scale or expensive technology models which are exclusionary and discriminatory in their effect. This bias goes all the way back to Sinclair's The Jungle, which large-scale food processors welcomed since it brought order into the chaos they had created. Not incidentally, the regulatory scheme also brought legal certainty since manufacturers could argue, in defense when Bad Things Happened, that they had met all regulatory requirements. And as Observer points out, people have become used-to asking, "Where the hell were the regulators," when something goes wrong, whether it's in the supermarket or (now, finally) on Wall Street.
I don't have all the answers here, but my gut tells me that the groundswell is building so that, as David suggests, concerted action will become more and more possible, and thereby more and more effective. Clearing the air by obtaining meaningful, unambiguous exemptions from the Model Food Code and the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance and, in the case of the FDA Interstate ban on raw milk (21 CFR 1240.61) by getting rid of it, would go a long way to letting small farmers and their customers do what they want to do, and by the way, letting regulators quit wasting their time and adrenalin. Changes in this area would do much, as well, to strengthen the family farm, localize food supply, reward a more environmentally responsible and sustainable system and improve health than many other "simple" changes for problems all of which seem to have huge dollars signs attached to them.
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to work on the issue of farm-to-consumer egg sales in Michigan. In the case of eggs, at least in Michigan, there are both state and federal laws which exempt farm-to-consumer sales of eggs. Under the federal law (designed to combat the most common egg pathogen, salmonella), even non-consumer sales from flocks of less than 3000 hens are exempt. It's simple. They are exempt. The law is unambiguous.
The civil rights movement finally got to the point where the unthinkable happened when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Think of it, having laws which actually let freedom - and the rights (and responsibilities) attendant to freedom - fly uncaged.
Finally, when going down this path we also must realize the maxim - be careful what you wish for, since you might live to get it. With freedom comes responsibility, and some risk. I think most reading this blog are willing to trade the perceived small risks attendant to raw foods from which they as consumers are not "protected" by burdensome regulation. The reasons, of course, are the very real benefits, both real and perceived, in eating more wholesome foods of our own choice. This is a shared risk, both for the consumer and the producer. The elephant in the room, of course, is litigation. The pro's and con's of how risk is to be shared for the inevitable Bad Thing when it Happens will also need a full and frank discussion.
The WSJ article states "rarely is the finger pointed at the Federal Reserve" [a privately owned banking system] and yet they have controlled US monetary policy since 1913. Some have reported that the purchasing power of the dollar has fallen 98% since 1913!
Also rarely is a finger pointed at the I word INSOLVENCY. The US reported national debt is $10.7 billion dollars inorder to even service this debt more debt must be created. If one must borrow money over and over to pay off existing debt are they not insolvent?
When will the US credit card be maxed out the day that it is no longer possible to place any more liens on future generations and all our national treasures are fiinally sold off?
We do not seem to have much hope to escape this monetary MADNESS1
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Probe results in arrest for sales of raw dairy goods
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/dec/21/probe-results-in-arrest-for-sales-of-raw-dairy/
cp
This, to me, presents an interesting idea, not an easy one mind you, but possible. What about creating a network of farmers and consumers via cell/email or whatever it takes? For example when these regulators come in, most times all communication/recording paraphernalia is confiscated and they are not permitted to contact anyone. How are they supposed to create a video or other means of documentation? What if we create our own networks where we can send out an SOS when something is about to occur? On a cell phone this could be done in a few clicks and would alert those nearby to get the cameras rolling as well as additional support…just a thought here.
Industry is on their knees and doing all they can using fear to stop raw milk.
It is the feature article this month. It begs farmers to not allow people to buy raw milk from their dairies and even prompts the dairyman on what to say to the media if they call.
What is very interesting are the facts used to try and convince the dairyman to keep their raw milk away from the public. The arguments surround TB outbreaks 100 years ago.
I think we are making a difference and the dairy industry is feeling it. At a recent meeting of the Western United Dairymen in Modesto CA....the senior dairymen attending said....
"We have lost touch with our consumers and our products no longer match what they can eat or consume".
He is so very right.....So it looks like the "progressive dairymen" magazine is not so progressive. and the article is just a fear tactic to keep the sheep inline..the article was written by a lawyer. Maybe a friend of John Sheehan.
I made a short speech at this meeting and afterwards several dairymen came up to me and wanted to know how to do testing on raw milk because neighbors ask for raw milk all the time and they drink it themselves.
The big lie about bad bacteria and millions dying is starting to become more into focus. The bad bacteria are not so bad and are 99.99% good for you and they build immunity to those that are exposed to them and they rarely kill are cause illness. All they do is build immunity. The medical community tries to do this all the time....with weakened pathogens calling this a vaccination shot. They make fortunes on it. When raw milk does it orally and it works ....its very bad.
If I was not so happy from all the hugs and thanks from selling raw milk at yesterdays farmers market in Fresno...I would be pissed off. Instead I am so damn happy to be on the right side of history and health and wellness. Ignore industry and their corrupt handlers at the FDA...we have the people!!!
This is getting interesting.
Mark McAfee
I cut and pasted your comment into a folder. It is a keeper.
Happy holidays everyone!
Here’s my question, in a state where it is legal to sell raw milk and raw milk products, why wouldn’t the person involved obtain the necessary license to sell it legally? Is this a crackdown on raw milk or a crackdown on someone just not wanting to follow the rules?
CP, in Colorado, there are about 35-45 "legal" dairies that can sell herdshares. (And hundreds that are illegal.) Here's what they have to do to be legal according to state statute (passed in 2005):
1. register with the health department, sending a written document stating "Raw milk is produced at this address"
2. Label their milk as "unpasteurized"
3. Inform their shareholders what their herd health & milk handling process is
4. Have on file a copy of the Bill of Sale and Boarding Contract for each shareholder.
5. Inform their shareholders of any tests performed and explain what they mean.
These aren't very tough rules.
Illegal producers tell me they don't want to be legal because they don't want to register with the health department; they feel this would set them up for harassment. (As far as I know, there has been minor harassment, (confrontations about distribution, and storing raw milk with retail products, but no court action so far), but then again, there have been no outbreaks of illness attributed to raw milk in the past 2 years.) But there is a perception that the government is not here to help.
Illegal producers tell me they know their animals via intimate, daily washings, milkings and observation, ongoing education about herd health, alternative and early intervention of health issues, daily documentation of behavior, milk production, nutrition,offspring and soil management, and careful feed management, so they don't need no stinkin milk tests or other outside monitoring. They know their teats; they check them twice a day. ( I should tell you that milk test results from legal dairies that test regularly tell me that sometimes, there are spikes in coliform counts and standard plate counts, but never has a pathogen been found. Not yet....)
Producers tell me it's hard enough to break even without paying for monthly milk tests, and herd health tests, especially lately, with the high cost of alfalfa and grain.
Producers tell me they have customers who come to them because their children were sick and now are healthy, and isn't that proof enough?
I hope this gives you some insight about why farmers don't want to swallow government rules. When you have one hand on technology, and the other on science, it's easy to lose your grip on vitality.
I'm not saying producers should rely solely on their self-perceived quality. I think the reason to test milk is to prove it doesn't contain pathogens. If you can afford it, by all means test. We have to accommodate science and technology. But ultimately, science and technology are woefully behind sunshine and synergy.
The real trick is to find a farmer that gets that, and either has the income to test and prove it, or the customers that recognize shiny coats and bright eyes, healthy poop, devoted farmers, and fertile soil.. And if you do, pay them as if your health depended on it.
Regulation will never improve on sunshine and synergy. Freedom lets it happen. Government should always be more progressive than the population it serves. When it is fear-based, freedom suffocates.
-Blair
Your post reminded me of security cameras, hidden perhaps would work best, with a button or cell signal to turn on if needed. I would imagine the cost could be quite high, but would be proof of what occured when invaded. Then posting on the internet would show the masses what does occur.
When people read or hear about being invaded and held at gun point, behavior like that makes it hard to "work with" regulators. They loose any trust left.
People try to change laws all the time. It can take years and still not be successful. And in the meantime, those who want raw dairy (or whatever food) are prohibited or found underground. The underground worries me as that is where more unscrupulous people will prey on what the people want and not adhere to basic sanitation. And just like prohibition, those who want raw dairy will do without.
In answer to your question - why don't they just get a license? Because when you get a license, you are conceding authority to them to regulate you. A license is permission from the government to do something you are not normally allowed to do. I reject the idea that I need the government's 'permission' to engage in private, contractual commerce. If you really, honestly live in a free society, you don't need anyone's permission to do anything.
But we don't live in a free society. Google "United States Corporation". The US is actually a corporate entity and holds title to you, your children, your car and your property. That's why you need licenses and pay taxes. You need their permission to use what you believe is already yours.
A person can only have one master. Government, or God? If you're a slave, it's government, if you're free, it's God.
We are all responsible for the choices we make in life. If people choose to sell raw milk without the proper license, then negative consequences will occur when it is discovered they are not following the rules. Just my opinion—if the raw milk movement wants to gain legitimacy, following the rules would be prudent.
As for the cost of producing raw milk, it appears that people are willing to pay for it. High cost does not seem to be a discouraging factor. If a farmer needs to make a profit, then charge more money.
Blair, there were three E.coli 0157:H7 raw milk outbreaks last year (Vermont, Connecticut and Missouri). Children became ill. I guess these farmers were not “intimate” with their cows. It appears that some of the tests being used to detect E.coli 0157:H7 in raw milk were designed for juice. Are these tests even valid when used for raw milk? Hopefully, Sally Fallon and Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund are looking into these small details when encouraging people to sell raw milk. Dead children will hurt business. If you would like to read stories about children who have died from E.coli 0157:H7, please view the victims’ stories on http://www.safetables.org/ .
Wild elk also can also host E.coli 0157:H7; so much for the theory that a natural diet can prevent these bacteria from growing in the intestines of animals. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/nov/11/evergreen-e-coli-outbreak-traced-elk-droppings/
“Safety First” needs to be the motto and the highest priority when children are consuming raw milk. If someone opposes regulation, then don’t sell raw milk. Some in the raw milk movement want it both ways—they want the freedom to sell raw milk, but don’t want to be regulated.
Or maybe some have been just fine with the underground raw milk market and are not interested with all the fanfare to make it legal. But in states where it is legal, the rules need to be followed.
cp
Have you ever heard of the Appleseed Project? Check them out at www.appleseedinfo.org. They work in the tradition of the American patriot, and considering your comments on the last article, you may appreciate what they're doing.
Cheryl
Organic Dairy Farmer and Farmshare Operator, Wisconsin
If anyone finds this offensive, I apologize in advance. The issue is liberty, people! If you all want to go back to discussing whether or not raw milk is safe, I will leave you all alone, again.
Working with the regulators is difficult, and will continue to be difficult... what am I saying, sometimes it looks like it's downright impossible. It's looking like a game of chicken to me. We have the regulators driving the truck of law and government and the raw dairies and faceless consumers in another oncoming truck. They push, we push back.
The danger I see comes when either party precieves themselves backed into a corner. If you've got nothing to lose you are very dangerous indeed.
I wrote in one of my first comments here that I didn't think Raw Milk was the kind of thing that would bestir people out of their beds in the middle of the night, clutching tight to plastic bricks of civil disobedience, but the outcry over what has happened to the Stowers has perhaps given the lie to my first assumption.
This scares me. I'll be honest, I do not like violence and the thought of needing to actually fight for what should be a right for all Americans has me appalled. I know freedoms must be fought for, but I never thought the freedom to choose what to eat would be one of them.
Here's an example, a spring delicacy for myself and my husband are dandelions. I pick them wild and either fry them up in fritters or ferment them for use in the fall and winter. I've done my research, I know to pick dandelions from only my yard, my in-law's yard, or my neighbor's (they've generously donated me their dandelions). When driving down the road though I see, in the ditches, a carpet of cheerful yellow, but I don't dare eat those buds. Runoff from the road and the surrounding monocrop agriculture has most likely rendered these little rounds of sunshine unhealthy.
My point is, I know where to get my dandelions, but if I wanted to pick from the sides of the road and eat them I could. There's no law saying I can't forage for wild foodstuffs. It's not a widely socially accepted thing to do, but I'm not going to be tossed behind bars if I want to do that.
Why then, if I wanted to get to know a dairy farmer, should I be forbidden to buy milk from him (or her) in its raw, unadulterated state? I see regulations as a way to protect the consumer when they are so divorced from the food supply that they don't know any better.
I would much rather buy from the farmer who described to me how, before he slaughters his chickens he tells them they are going to go to heaven, than from a faceless organics company based on the other side of the US. Both products are organic, they both have licenses and I know from research they're processed in the same way, both chickens flash-frozen. I feel SAFER, however, buying from the farmer. Even if he wasn't registered as organic, he stood there right in front of me and told me how he cared for his chickens, he even invited me to come visit! If I get sick from eating his food I've got his phone number, I can give him a call and let him know.
I know this kind of relationship with a farmer isn't always possible, especially with the way distribution works right now. There's pockets and communities inside cities, even suburbs full of people that live their whole lives without seeing anything beyond their own microcosm (I've met people like this). It's just not possible for the individual farmer to network with all of his (or her) consumers right now. For most products federal regulation is necessary because citizen regulation is impossible.
What if there were more farmers though?
More small farms, selling locally. Instead of heading to the grocery store full of processed and questionably organic food spread out beneath the buzzing of halogen lamps, what about visiting a farmer's market. Each farmer has a stall set up. Each farmer is offering a little of this, a little of that. Feeling the warm afternoon sun against your back your hands hover over a bin of onions as the farmer describes that the long, cool, wet spring resulted in a much sweeter crop than normal. She tells you that her onions are amazingly sweet and juicy this year, but if you're looking for something a lot sharper you might want to try a few stalls down, he didn't plant his onions until much later in the season and they have a much stronger bite.
I know people keep advocating farmer's markets, but saying "Search out local food" doesn't do it justice! It's a market, not a store. Each onion, chicken, and bag of flour has a face and, by proxy, personal liability. I went back week after week and began to recognize faces.
That same onion grower asked me what I thought of the onions I'd bought. I had the joy of relating to her how succulent and delicious they were, of describing my surprise as I sliced into one and milk flowed out. She glowed as I talked, like my enjoyment of the fruits of her labor was the most precious of gifts.
That is what it means to buy local, and that is why I believe that local dairies and farm to consumer transactions do not need such a heavy hand. There has to be a happy medium somewhere, doesn't there?