One after another–farmers, moms, dads, lawyers, buying club owners, a state rep, and a blind woman, some 50 in all–they testified this morning before the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, Scott Soares. More likely would have spoken out, except the hearing room filled up with about 125 people, and another 60 or more couldn’t get in.
After threatening in a late-Friday press release that people wouldn’t be able to testify on his agency’s crackdown on raw milk buying clubs, Soares relented in the bright sunshine of a new day. He allowed the testimony, and in doing so, he opened a flood gate of emotional appeals, lasting three-and-a-half hours.
Though his Friday afternoon release pointed to the “passion and concern on all sides of the raw milk debate,” the message by 48 of the 49 who testified was pretty much the same: lay off the buying clubs (with the 49th person being neutral on buying clubs). Guess all those passionate anti-raw-milk people didn’t feel passionate enough to take some time off from work and express their passion.
“Without the buying clubs, we will not survive,” said Pam Robinson, owner of a 280-acre raw dairy farm in central Massachusetts.
Harvey Schwartz, a lawyer and member of a Boston-area buying club, said buying clubs were just one expression of the principal-agent relationship. “An agent can be designated to pick up my Oxycontin, and stop off and buy a bottle of vodka, and while at it, a carton of cigarettes,” he said. “Under Massachusetts law, I can authorize the agent to buy me the cow. Yet your agency’s position is the agent can’t buy me a gallon of raw milk.”
I testified about the economic development impact of the crackdown, arguing that small enterprises like the buying clubs and raw dairy farms will shed valuable jobs, during a time of economic hardship. Mark McAfee, of Organic Pastures Dairy Co., seconded that notion. “I’ve hired five people in the last 90 days,” he testified about his dairy, which continues to expand from growing demand for raw dairy products.
Rebecca, a single mom living in Boston, credited raw milk with helping relieve her two-year-old’s digestive problems and frequent ear infections. “I would never have access to raw milk without the buying clubs.”
A blind woman, Alice Dampmen Humel, sat with her seeing-eye dog, and said she depends on a buying club. “I can’t get out to get my milk.”
In drawing the hearing to a close, Soares congratulated himself for being there. It’s not usual, he said, “that the commissioner comes to a regulatory hearing.” Lucky us.
He was even colder when I approached him immediately afterwards and asked him what he thought of the emotional testimony. “It’s what I expected.” He added that the biggest revelation to him was that “there are a lot of people out there supplying milk that aren’t licensed operators.” In other words, they don’t have a Milk Dealer license he insists is necessary to qualify to pick up milk for someone else.
So how do you get such a license? Well, there’s never been a buying club licensed as a Milk Dealer, he noted, so it’s not clear how one would even go about getting such a license. In other words, the four buying clubs that have received cease-and-desist orders can’t solve the problem by applying for Milk Dealer licenses.
Sounds something like a Catch-22 to me. Soares said his department has decided “to address the (raw milk) issue more broadly over the next thirty days,” and the Milk Dealer issue will be part of the consideration.
That should mean more hearings. But is this man listening?
I guess you could say the circus continues, yet at this particular show, there weren’t a lot of people laughing.
(For more on the pre-hearing festivities at the Boston Common, including Max Kane of Wisconsin chugging some very fresh raw milk, here’s a local television report.)
Congratulations to everyone who spoke up. This is what it will take.
David, Steve…someone out there have the PR skills to push that and make it happen?
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
Bob you’d do well to look up the first popular use of the term "libertarian." I’ll give you a hint — it started in France in the late 1800s.
As an example, your accusation that most of the founders were rich white slaveholders is totally inaccurate, and that is easily proven by perusing original documents, not the writings of pople who find it convenient to their position to rewrite history.
In straightening out your knowledge, if you wish to know truth, you might start with the real father of our country, Samuel Adams, often portrayed as that rich slaveholder you like to display…you will find the truth about him…and others…to be far different from your portrayal.
Yes…some were rich and some held slavs, but many…no, most, were of modest means, lost all establishing this country, and wer anti-slave to the point of spending their own money to buy a slave just to b able to free him/her.
You libel many who gave much, and some who gave all, so you could spout your blubberings.
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
that’s probably why mdar is taking a "broad look" over the next 30 days at their own regulatory program.
why else would they classify a buyer’s club as a milk dealer? because they don’t know how to assert jurisdiction otherwise.
BH
Even if different than a cow share, what is the difference in someone picking up meds at the pharmacy, milk at the store, etc for another person and someone picking up milk at the farm for you?
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/638974.html
http://www.webmd.com/heartburn-gerd/news/20100510/c-diff-infections-fractures-linked-to-acid-reflux-drugs
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Gastroenterology/GERD/20030
Anti-ulcer meds are passed out like candy, as are psych meds. It’s been a long while since I’ve read the med package inserts, but believe they said something to the effect that the medication was not intended for long term use.
As said, why is it "ok" to give a kid chemically laden processed phoods, to include lunch meats that have a much higher risk of contamination?
BH
http://www.latebloomersfarm.com/index.php/2010/05/news-from-the-raw-milk-revolution/
Don’t kid yourself Bob. The Bill of Rights was merely a concession to the more radical (i.e. Paine, Henry) and liberal (i.e. Jefferson) elements of the revolution.
And it totally fails to take ino account the genocide committed against the natives… people who had a real understanding of living in harmony with nature, whose culture was destroyed by the largest genocide in human history… the conqust of the Americas by European civilization.
I do not like Glen Beck or the tea party. Their idea of "freedom" == oppression.
I asked the same thing a couple posts ago. What is the definition of a buyer’s club? Is it like a CSA? I participated in a CSA, and it involved pre-ordered produce, which would arrive in a designated cooler on the porch. The type of produce was a bit unpredictable and varied by season, which wasn’t always convenient, but a great way to be connected with local agriculture. I don’t think that CSA was highly regulated, but they were legal and took care in their distributions practices.
You mention that the CSA was legal. How could the CSA be illegal?
A buying club is like an organized errand service. Harvey Schwartz, the lawyer quoted in my post, describes it well, as a principal-agent relationship. Buying clubs vary widely in organization and size, from a dozen or more consumers who are car-pooling to pick up food, to hundreds of people organized by one or two individuals with a refrigerated truck to do the same thing once a week. Buying clubs are used by consumers to fetch raw milk in states where it’s only available from the farm, and in the process the clubs may also pick up eggs, meat, and other produce. One important element of the buying clubs is that consumers pay for the delivery service separately from the food. Thus, in Massachusetts, consumers buy their milk at whatever price the farm is charging, and then pay a separate fee for the pickup service. There is no re-selling, and all the food ordering/payment is done in advance. To try to classify such a basic errand/delivery service as a "milk dealer" is far-fetched at best, and as Gary Cox points out, a misguided effort to somehow fit such services into the conventional/pasteurized milk chain.
David
Looking for some feedback. Does anyone else want an article about Codex and how it ties to the raw milk fight in so many states?
Translation: "Thank you for your confession. Please return to your home and wait quietly. An agent will be along to process you shortly. Have a nice day."
PS: Glen Beck is a populist neocon and apologist for the omnipotent state. Andrew Napolitano seems like he might actually qualify for the libertarian label.
I am not a political person, but i will fight this one as far as it goes
Today it is the 21st century, and the U.S. constitution is an 18th century document which sorely needs updating. We’re the only nation in the world still using a constitution that old.
Basic things that need fixing in our political system —
Get rid of the two party system. Some kind of proportional representation or Instant Run-off voting to allow real competition from 3rd parties. The electoral college? Out. I would not be against breaking up the country into more smaller states.
Get rid of corporate personhood. Corporate charters should only be granted if they are serving the public interest, and should be reviewed regularily.
Return the public resources to the commons. Stop the trend of privitization and neo-liberalism.
The military-industrial complex must be dismantled. For all the debate about the cost of providing healthcare, it pales in comparison to the amount we spend directly and indirectly on war and war machines.
Standing Armies are an inherint danger to the freedom of the people. The powers and size of the police also need to be drastically downscaled.
America currently imprisons a larger % of its population than any other nation on the planet. The prison-industrial complex needs to be dismantled. Take the profit out of imprisoning people. Focus instead on social justice as the means to do away with the root causes of crime. Punishment only makes for more criminals.
End WTO, NAFTA, IMF, and the World Bank. Stop criminalizing undocumented immigrants from Mexico (whose ancestors were originally forced out of the Southwest to begin with), and get rid of the reason they are being forced to move north looking for jobs — because they are being forced off the land by imperialist neo-liberal economic programs.
And finally, we need to transition our economic system for the collapse of the fossil fuel economy. Agriculture needs to transition from the resource intensive annual monocultures, towards a management intensive perenial polyculture. Empower communities of color with urban permaculture initiatives like Will Allen’s Growing Power in Milwaukee.
Of course, none of these kind of changes are going to happen top-down. They happen from the grassroots up, and (as we see in the case of raw milk) are often met with resistance and repression from the authorities.
It is critical we understand what the real forces are at work. Its not some spooky Socialist Federal Gov’t or New World Order, its the basic premise of human civilization that is divided into social classes — that those with power, wealth, and privilege don’t want to give up their control. That is David’s "teaching point" here. Rights are not given from on high, they are taken by excersising them. Democracy comes from below, not from above.
It is also critical that we understand the imperative of social justice in any sort of freedom program. This individualistic, Ayn Rand esque attitude of America’s modern "libertarian" movement is sociopathic (Rand’s heroes were modeled after serial killer William Hickman) and is simply a justification for a position of white middle class privilege in the existing social order. We cannot have liberty while large segments of the population are still oppressed by a fundamentally unjust and undemocratic social system. We can only have privilege.
You see now, why I’m not into this whole "tea-party" thing. It fundamentally fails to challenge the real problems with our society, and is only a ploy by the elites to keep popular anger redirected into a harmless channel of anger against politicians in Washington, when the real sources of their power (the elites) and our power (the people) rest elsewhere.
The testimonies really showed the peoples experiences that trump FDA fake science and the passionate truth of moms. A dentist spoke of how her three children drink a gallon of raw milk per day and do not have cavities. Everyone had a medical story to share and place into the record.
Again….the FDA and or the regulators completely fail to show any cause or data to support their ongoing attacks on liberty and a whole food. The FDA fail to show entirley…..Again!! They are the "no show" experts.
I really do think that Scott Soures ( even though be was the ultimate commissioner and played the sterile adjudicator)….gets it. He gets it that this is a grenade with a pin out and he needs to quietly find the pin and put it back in before it goes off in his departments face. He has stirred the Mother Lions….he has learned today that you do not ever do that. It is not smart and it will get you in tons of trouble. Moms and their kids health is sacred. The crowd was hugely supportive and vocal. The reason that the crowd was not five times bigger was because NOFA declared victory and told everyone to stay home. Whooops!!
This may have beenn partially true but a real political misscalculation. Partial surrendering ( by withdrawl of the Buyer Clubs item for discussion and then allowing three hours of public comment on the official record is a huge success ) and an open door to testimony from the people must never ever be ignorred. It is a slight ebb in the fight and an opportunity to take the high ground, educate the media and make a fantastic official public record. It is a time to bite down hard so they never sit down quite right again.
Political power is about application of pain. It is pushing an agenda through the use of the people "the Mother Lions" and education and the media. Scott feels one thing….the pain of proportion …how much pain does this hearing cause verses how much pain does the next meeting with his Big AG and FDA cronnies cause. Being in Scotts position is not pleasant and is filled with pain and stress. If you want him to move…that requires lots of pain and also allowing him a place to move to avoid the next round of pain.
Abby Rochefeller, Max Kane, David Gumpert and the rest of the wonderful people that came out yesterday should be congratulated….it was a wonderful day and a great next step in Americas fight for uniform access to a healing medical superfood and a food that will sustain pastures and farmers. Thank you Doug for bringing Suzzane the Jersey cow to the commons…she seemed right at home. You are hero for that effort!!!
Raw Milk Rocks!
Mark
For the first time I am sorry…sorry that apparantly I’m on a Homeland Security no-fly list. I had looked forward to being in Boston, and to find out too late that I couldn’t fly was a real disappointment.
Congrats to those who made it…keep up the pressure…our side will win, just keep pushing.
BH
http:www.JuicyMaters.com
David and I really missed you yesterday….sorry you could not make it.
Please tell us more about your black listing at TSA….are you joking or seriuos…
What did they catch you doing…trying to blow up a CAFO by lighting the Methane Gas on fire??? what did you do???? was it posts at TCP???
Tell us more?
I do find it interesting that " breast milk and milk" is listed as an exempt fluid for carry on….Even with the TSA, milk is a sacred product. I am sure that came from some pissed off moms. I tell you what…pissed off moms could run the world. They are the truest form of power for us all. They could deny sex and dollar vote with who gets the food dollar when shopping.
Change would be done….end of story.
Mark
http://www.feedstuffs.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=F4D1A9DFCD974EAD8CD5205E15C1CB42&nm=Breaking+News&type=news&mod=News&mid=A3D60400B4204079A76C4B1B129CB433&tier=3&nid=2770285569504E518E7BAFE539BA8E60
————–
NMPF and IDFA criticize Wisconsin raw milk bill
(5/12/2010)
With Wisconsin’s governor poised to sign legislation allowing raw milk sales direct to consumers in that state, the National Milk Producers Federation and the International Dairy Foods Association criticized elected officials for downplaying the food safety risks inherent in raw dairy products, and urged federal lawmakers to take measures restricting such sales.
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has indicated he will sign a bill, approved earlier this spring by the state legislature, which would allow dairy farms to sell milk directly to consumers over the next two years. With Doyle’s signature, Wisconsin will join approximately 28 other states that allow some form of raw milk sales or distribution, either commercially or directly from farms.
Federal law prohibits the interstate sale of raw milk, but allows states individual discretion to regulate raw milk sales within their borders. Several states in recent years have joined Wisconsin in allowing the sale of raw milk, even as the product has been repeatedly linked to serious illnesses from coast to coast.
"It is terribly ironic that, at a time when lawmakers in Washington are trying to pass a major food safety bill to protect consumers from foodborne illnesses, states like Wisconsin are going the opposite direction," said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. "Raw milk is a known source of life-threatening pathogens such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, Listeria and E. coli. It’s an abdication of a public servant’s role to take actions that will result in more people, including children, becoming sickened by these bacteria."
NMPF and IDFA have been urging lawmakers in Washington to add provisions to a major, pending food safety bill that would require sales of raw milk to come under the restrictions in the new law or, at a minimum, not exempt any farms from requirements that their products be regulated and tested for harmful bacteria.
Indeed, the struggle is not over when the WI Raw Milk bill is signed. After all, it has a "sunset" clause for the end of 2011.
Mark is certainly right that p*ssed off moms are very powerful, and for that matter p**sed off raw milk consumers. It is imperative to keep people organized, mobilized, and educated at the grassroots level.
One of our first battles in WI, after the bill passes, is to push back against DATCP’s dirty tactics like denying Grade A licenses to farms that want to sell raw milk (such as what happened to Scott Trautman). We are probably also going to see cases of large milk processors dropping raw milk sellers as patrons, so the farmer loses their Grade A license (once a farm hasn’t been picked up by a milk truck for 30 days, s/he loses the Grade A license)
As consumers and food rights activists, we have the ability to fight back to protect our farmers, and we have to stay organized.
He has never ever heard of clean raw milk that is tested from real organic cows on real pastures ( not fake pastures on GOT MILK? bill board advertizements ) and inspected and delicious and does not cause lactose intolerance. He has only one reality….his paycheck and the happiness of his board of directors and their stock values and market share and his best friend at the FDA…John Sheehan.
This is the behavior of a rat on a sinking ship….
"It is terribly ironic that, at a time when lawmakers in Washington are trying to pass a major food safety bill to protect consumers from foodborne illnesses, states like Wisconsin are going the opposite direction," said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. "Raw milk is a known source of life-threatening pathogens such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, Listeria and E. coli. It’s an abdication of a public servant’s role to take actions that will result in more people, including children, becoming sickened by these bacteria."
When rats leave a sinking ship first they search for high ground and then the waves swallow them.
Welcome to a whole new world Jerry…a world were lies are never told to a consumer. Where milk is actually milk and not dead filthy lactose intolerance creating white stuff that causes farmers to commit suicide from your below dirt pricing schemes that increase your profit and do not care about anyone else.
The devil has a place for those that lie and cheat the consumer and the farmer both.
There are "two raw milks in America" Jerry….one for people and one for the pasteurizer.
In case you did not know see this to visit the milk for people. It is consumed by 50,000 per week and available in 400 stores out here in CA.
Denial will only go so far….change of your paradign and a "Come to Jesus" reality check is way over due. Your market share continues to drop regarless of the millions spent on Got Milk? or Moootopia or Real Milk campaigns.
Is that something that makes sense to you….snake oil is hard to sell a second time especially when it causes gas cramps and diarrhea in an ever increasing number of ex- milk drinkers.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Organic-Pastures-Dairy-RAW-DAIRY-PRODUCTS/171911861180
The dairy industry needs your leadership away from this disaster….try being honest with your board of directors at the next meeting. Perhaps you can follow the science of Dr. Bruce German at the UC Davis Milk Genome project,….he told you guys to stop processing the milk so much that it was destroying the best parts of it. His work was funded by Got Milk Money….failure to listen to your own scientists is going to result in the obvious.
Mark
Mark
The TSA folks said the no luggage and cash for a ticket would have caused issues if we had gotten to that point, but we never got there since my name was on the list.
I’m digging into it now…
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
Keep us all informed. I am very interested to find out more about the TSA no fly list and you be included on it.
If it was me listed on the TSA list…..I would be upset to say the least and then I would be hot in pursuit of why the hell I was black listed.
Al Queda is in Afganastan the last time I checked.
When the best Americans can not freely fly to Milk A Cow on the Boston Commons…. that is the limit!!! If you were closer I would come and fly you myself on the Get Raw Milk Airline.
Look forward to hearing what the fuss was all about. "Hayles" does not sound terribly threatening.
Mark
It reminds me of the old adage that "War is the health of the state", or that is to say that wars tend to greatly expand state powers. Obviously, in this case it is the so-called "war on terror" is resulting in more infringements of our civil liberties. Iraq or Afghanistan? Bush or Obama? Its all the same.
I really liked Sally Fallon’s presentation at the Raw Milk Symposium when it was here in WI. But this was one thing which I think she failed to mention — that it was really WWII which led to the consolidation of the milk processing industry, and the subsequent state bans on raw milk shortly therafter. She mentioned how the "trail ran cold" on scientific inquiry into the benefits of raw milk after about 1942, and then skipped to a fictitious story in a popular magazine from the late-40’s about a raw milk outbreak of Undulant Fever in a made up town called "Crossroads USA."
What happened in those years? That’s right. War.
It’s David and Bill.
cp
http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-state.php?Id=558&yr=2010
—————–
Doyle: I’m Not Ready to Sign Raw Milk Bill… Yet
Wisconsin Ag Connection – 05/13/2010
Just one day after two national milk marketing groups blasted the Wisconsin Legislature for putting together the so-called raw milk bill, Governor Jim Doyle says he’s not ready to make a decision yet on whether he will sign the measure into law. Speaking to reporters during a bill signing ceremony on a Marathon County dairy farm on Wednesday, Doyle said he has received a lot of information from both sides of the issue over the past several days, and said a final decision will be made next week.
….
What happens if the raw milk bill is vetoed? Is it going to stop people from obtaining raw milk in America’s Dairyland? Don’t count on it.
If you want raw milk in Wisconsin now is the time.
Our governor in CA vetoed our raw milk food safety bill in 2008 when it had passed both houses of our legislature with just three decenting votes. Expect a veto….big money is meeting with him right now…it is time to "send in the pissed off moms!!!!!"
Tell the governor that Wisconsin as a dairy state should have the same rights as California the premier dairy state. Yes CA is #1 for raw milk availability….!!
Tell the governor that more pasteurized milk products will sell if raw milk is sold because raw milk prevents and heals lactose intolerance in most people. The sale of raw milk will curtail the exodus from pasteurized milk markets.
Tell the governor that conventional milk marketers have zero say in the sale of raw milk….it is not any of their business. It is the business of the farmer and their consumer. Farmers refuse to be bankrupted by processors…it is time to reconnect farmers and their consumers just like the USDA has said to do…
Tom Vilsack has said "Get to know your farmer and your food".
That is exactly what this law will do. If you do not act agressively today…you will lose this fight…the otehr side is meeting every day with the governor and cutting deals…trust me.
Mark
He is a member of "Al Cow’da" : )
http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-state.php?Id=565&yr=2010
And we aren’t a terrorist organization…we just wanna drink milk…REAL milk…LOL
I have been to Organic Pastures Dairy in Fresno, CA what an awesome dairy
and I have my Raw Products shipped to me in Riverside, CA…
I am very pleased..
It’s the BEST!!!!!!
Thanks OP for the yummy RAW Milk and RAW Colostrum…my favorite!!!!
Ellie
http://www.phat2fit.com
http://sanantonio.stickermac.com http://saskatoon.stickermac.com http://regina.stickermac.com