NY Ag and Markets Asks Judge: Lock Herd Share Dairy Operators Up and Throw Away the Key
Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 12:05PM 
New York state continues to tighten the screws on Barb and Steve Smith, the operators of Meadowsweet Dairy in Lodi. Over what? Over their decision to establish a herd share organized as a limited liability company, and make raw milk dairy products available exclusively to the LLC’s 120-plus shareholders.
The immediate issue concerns a search warrant issued to the NY Department of Agriculture and Markets in December. Barb and Steve twice refused to open locked areas of their farm, including their inventory of raw milk products, to the inspectors. They acted on the advice of their lawyer, Gary Cox of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, who maintained the warrants didn’t explicitly authorize the inspectors the use of “force” to gain access to locked places.
Now Ag and Markets has returned to the state judge who issued the warrant, and obtained a “show cause” order as to why the Smiths shouldn’t be held in contempt of court. A hearing is scheduled February 28, and if the Smiths are found in contempt and fined, and still refuse “to perform an act or duty, which is yet in the power of the offender to perform, he shall be imprisoned only until he has performed it, and paid the fine imposed.”
In other words, the state could lock the Smiths up and throw away the keys until they open their coolers to the state to confiscate and destroy raw milk and raw milk yogurt, buttermilk, butter, and cream—items that belong to the shareholders. Actually, come to think of it, shouldn't the state lock up all the shareholders as well? The LLC is a target of the the show-cause order.
This is VERY serious stuff, maintains the state. Barb and Steve Smith are a direct threat to the safety of all 19 million New Yorkers. According to the show-cause order, “The acts of Steven and Barbara Smith d/b/a Meadowsweet Yogurt and Meadowsweet Dairy LLC constituted a violation of duty owed by it to the Commissioner and to the People of the State of New York whose health and general welfare the Commissioner is charged by statute to protect and that the Commissioner herein has no other remedy available except by way of contempt…”
Yes, big bad Barb and Steve are preventing the poor little commissioner Patrick Hooker from protecting all the desperate people of New York, who are crying out for his protection. Don’t you hear them crying out? Yes, I think I hear them… “Protect us from this raw milk, protect us from the criminals producing it… Oh, Commissioner Patrick Hooker, forget about the murderers and rapists out there. You’ve got to get the Smiths off the street, er farm, so they don’t destroy us…Oh please, Sir, please…”
Pretty amazing what this country has come to. Think the scandal-fighter Gov. Eliot Spitzer might hear about this, and question whether this is the kind of scandal his soldiers of public safety should be fighting?
This matter has been going on since last March, when Barb and Steve decided they’d had enough of Ag and Markets’ increasingly aggressive inspections of their raw milk dairy. They turned in their raw milk permit and formed the LLC instead, with most of their shareholders coming from nearby Ithaca.
Since then, Ag and Markets has engaged in a steady campaign of escalation of tactics against the Smiths, including surprise inspections, and two sets of hearings designed to hamper their operations or even shut them down. Curiously, Ag and Markets has sought out this contempt order just at the time a decision is expected on the second hearing, which took place over three days last month.
The Smiths filed suit against Ag and Markets in December, seeking an end to the harassment, based on the fact that their LLC is a private arrangement between shareholders, and doesn’t involve public availability of the LLC’s dairy products. A judge recently refused a request by Ag and Markets to dismiss the suit, and moved it to another court.
The creative juices are definitely flowing over at Ag and Markets. I suspect there hasn’t been this much innovation over there in a long time. Nothing like locking a couple of hard-working farmers up to make a commissioner feel young again.
Reader Comments (38)
Bob
I am in Massachusetts raw milk buyers club.
We all sign a paper that we know the hazards of the raw milk - would this satisfy your
herd share?
It's interesting to note that Will Francis' affadavit that is the basis of the Order to Show Cause on Motion for Contempt t(our Valentine's Day card from Ag & Mkts) was sworn on the day that Judge Bender refused to dismiss our suit against Ag&Mkts. Probably just coincidence.
And while I have your attention I'd like to ask a question about the recently filed suit against Organic Pastures (and also referring to the demise of Whittier Farms): Since Organic Pastures was and still is under inspection by CDFA, isn't the CDFA an Organic Pastures' partner in the distribution and safety of their products or is the protection of the regulatory process not all it's cracked up to be? Shouldn't the suit be expanded to include the CDFA?
The real problem here is that regulators are dealing with laws that were written with big factory-farm pasteurizers in mind, and the scale of small farms simply does not compute. The regulators, in turn, with an agenda to protect ("we're just enforcing the law," is their cry, as the big operators soberly nod their heads in agreement) that is obvious in this case, enforce those laws with a vengence in circumstances where judgment and thinking outside the box would be more appropriate. Not a likely chance of that happening. So, we change the laws or we litigate.
"shoot the brave ones and the rest will run away."
t.j. jackson
I support the right to sell and consume raw milk products, but am personally troubled by people who want to drop out of the system at the probable expense of innocent, unsuspecting idealistic buyers.
It seems Ag & Markets' requirement that raw milk product purchasers pick up their share at the farm is an indispensible safety net that leaves consumers with a true choice -- their gut feeling about the farm producing the food they will eat and share with innocent family members and friends.
Of course, I don't expect anyone to actually answer these queries, but I remain confounded by the blind willingness of so many, who are no doubt hard-working, honest farmers,to accept this long distance support campaign with no caveat.
Can the owners sue the state for preventing the owners from obtaining what belongs to them?
Does the state of NY not recognize LLC? If so, then they have a hellofa lot of companies to shut down.
As for picking up a product at the farm, does that mean that if my friend is going there she cannot pick up something at my request? If it is my property, don't I have a right to what I wish done with it?
How often should someone be required to "visually" see a farm? I personnally feel that everyone who consumes pasturized milk should visually observe the factory dairies so that the consumers can make an inform choice about the milk they consume. Do you think the state of NY would make that a law too? They should.
I've driven past OP and didn't see anything that would turn my stomach, no, I did not stop in, I was in the area on business. I did stop on the side of the road and watch/observe. I buy OP milk and feel safe consuming it. I know the risks, just as I know the risks of comsuming raw fish, the chemical ladened processed foods shoved down consumers throats, etc.
BTW, as for the suit against OP by the 2 children's families, doesn't OP milk jugs have a "warning" label? (Like the labels on tobacco or booze)
I know a man whose business took him into a modern hog farm. He toured the place with the manager, who showed it off with obvious pride. But the tour had an unintended effect. My friend said he was so disgusted by what went on there that he would never eat pork again.
So seeing where one's food comes from can be important. But I would hardly call the owners of the Meadowsweet cows "innocent, unsuspecting, idealistic buyers." They are undoubtedly quite a bit better informed than the average grocery store shopper with his cart full of industrial-quality, manufactured food.
Steve, you left out an option...an option that I think carries the most power.
Civil disobedience.
It worked for MLK. It worked for Rosa Parks. If you get right down to it, it worked for the formation of this country. After all, the American Revolution was nothing more than a HUGE case of civil disobedience.
We can beg the same legeslators who currently don't allow us the right to make our ouw nutritional choices to magically change their minds (changing the law).
We can beg the courts to allow us the freedoms we rightly deserve regarding nutritional choices (litigate).
We can simply do what is right, in defiance of laws that protect big agri, and take our lumps.If one farmer says, "I'll produce raw dairy, and damned the consequences.", he'll lose. If two do ot, they'll lose together. If 10, or 20, or 100 stand up...well, there are only so many jail cells, and it would really REALLY irritate a lot of consumers.
Imagine for a moment a whole slew of farmers jailed. Big operators like Mark McCaffee, out front farmers like the Smiths, little bitty guys like me...all telling the regulators that we refuse to comply, and behind us the consumers that we serve raising holy hell.
We CAN win...IF we have the guts to take up the fight in the first place. Do we?
Bob
The "standard" herdshare boarding contract used here in Ohio states that the "Boarder or Boarder's designee shall be responsible for transporting their milk from the Herd Manager's Dairy facilities to Boarder's destination." What this means in reality is that we shareholders are divided into geographical driving groups and each group member takes a turn driving out to the farm to get everyone's food order for that week. This strikes a very nice compromise between convenience and legality since most of the time the food comes to a close-by pickup location and a few times a year we make a trip out to the farm to see on the operations, keep in touch with our farmer, etc.
So I will be quiet, and do as I see fit, off the radar.
Bill
That is exactly why revolutions are often student movements. But the question is, which do we care more about: our children's ability to have access to health giving food, or our money? Now, I don't say that to argue for civil disobedience; but rather to highlight that our choice of principle or fortune is a fundamental decision that will affect many areas of our life.
I think Bill answered your question for you.
I suspect that most Americans are so wrapped up in their cushy, materialistic lifestyles that they don't dare say or do anything to jeopardize it. They'd rather just ask politely, please, can we have our rights back?, and hope for the best, only to shrug their shoulders in defeat when the answer is NO!
We can keep asking the crooked legislatures and courts 'for our rights back', but why on earth would they want to do this, when THEY took them away in the first place?
Bob, I'm with you. It's time to start getting really angry. Gandhi said something like - we don't have to FIGHT them, but we don't have to HELP them either.
What are your rights worth?
Because money or no money, property or no property, they're taking them away EVERY DAY - North American Union, REAL ID, NAIS, open borders, the PATRIOT ACT, legal wiretapping, monitoring the internet, etc., etc.
So we can bury our heads in the sand and hope it'll go away, or we can - ALL - stand up and do something.
Because they ARE taking our rights away - are we going to go down without a fight? Or are we going to stand up and take what's rightfully ours? It's now or never, folks.
(And don't forget - those 'laws' that protect big-agri are ILLEGAL laws - they're not 'laws' at all, but most oftentimes 'administrative rules'. Our founding fathers never, ever intended for people to make laws who were not directly accountable, i.e. elected, to the people. Depts. of Ag. and other such bureaucracies MAKE laws, ENFORCE laws, and INTERPRET laws - the very definition of tyranny!!!)
Requiring milk pickup at the farm is a safety net? I don't think so, It is just another regulatory burden placed on the small producer and their customers.
Does she visit the farms that produce the food she eats (and the innocents:read children)? I doubt it. Such hypocrisy.
And so what if there is out of state support for the farmers involved. What is wrong with that? If it takes the support of committed people all over this country to effect change in another location, so be it. Often someone not local can show the way because they have a different way of looking at things.
Steve and I have learned a lot from our friends here in Ithaca in the local Catholic Worker Community. Because of the strength of their support for each other they can afford to stand up against the war and not worry about doing jail time, being fined etc: because it will be covered by the community as a whole! The strength of that position is powerful! Speaking truth to power is stressful if you are alone or have to worry about losing your assets and security, but if the community is your security then they CANNOT touch you - which is why they are so mad and resorting to such lame tactics.
The big boys, being such materialists themselves, must be incapable of conceiving of the determination and bravery of the raw milk community and the willingness of the raw milk farmers to stand up. It's rather amusing to see them squirm - we must have a screw loose to find all this amusing but it keeps us entertained.
Thanks for being there everyone. Barb and Steve
Have to admit that I probably would give up meat if I had to kill and dress it or see it enslaved in a large processing facility. I've seen the unhealthy people with ready access to cheap factory food lugging their weight across a certain super store. You've all made me think.
We may like to tout ourselves as pillars of self-sufficiency, back-to-the-land purists, etc., but let's not forget that we're communicating on the modern miracle network of the computer, where anyone can pretend to be anything or not anything.
I am anything but against farmers. I just don't think that civilization is all bad. Wouldn't it be nice if there could be a test case in this milk issue that was so appealingly convincing that worthwhile litigation could result in successful mediation between the goverment that most of us support and the libertarian interest?
Yes, I do make every effort to buy locally-produced foods from farms I know and trust. I'm not a total hypocrite.
Remember:
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
- Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
If our government has its way. our prisons will be brimming with farmers like the Smiths, who are trying to provide healthy, nutritious foods to people.
If this is civilization, I say, NO THANKS!
As for civilization, aren't you grateful for the complex education of dental professionals and their working environment of extreme hygiene when you need them? I sure am.
Weston Price found that the less "civilized" people had much better health and general well being, much less cavities (and the need for dentists) than "civilized" people.
Perhaps less civilization is in order.