The discussion about farmer profits, or lack thereof, illustrates how amazingly conflicted we are about food, both as growers and consumers.
I hear several issues being raised simultaneously, and that has a way of clouding matters:
November 2007
I’d like to discuss food prices from a different perspective than they tend to get talked about. I find it interesting that a number of farmers commenting on yesterday’s post seem to feel uncomfortable about their pricing, and feel the need to justify the prices they charge customers in terms of the cost of feed, labor, insurance, taxes, etc., etc.
It was a seemingly ordinary posting on a raw milk listserve I subscribe to in Massachusetts (sponsored by a raw milk dairy, Oake_Knoll_Ayrshires, at Yahoo Groups). On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a farmer offered “Certified organic fresh duckling available first come first serve basis.”
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.
It’s easy to become outraged, as I did Monday, about a global food system in which individual farmers are anonymous cogs in a system controlled by huge international corporations. I can talk about not buying any more ginger, but what does that really accomplish?
Growing numbers of American consumers want to buy their food directly from farms, because the food is tastier, more nutritious, and safer than the alternative.
The speech in Congress and introduction of legislation permitting interstate shipments of raw milk by Rep. Ron Paul didn't just happen in a vacuum.
According to an email account from Aajonus Vonderplanitz, the California raw food expert, the move by the dark-horse presidential candidate grew out of a concerted two-month campaign last summer by Aajonus and two other raw-milk advocates, Jeff Slay of St. Louis, MO, and Leslie Jacob of Appleton, WI. Here is how he describes the effort:
On two acres in Rosanky, Texas, just outside of Austin, Debbie and Red Ferrell milk 30 goats to produce their fresh Maid in the Shade cheese. They’ve been at it for two-and-a-half years, and the $300 to $500 they bring in each week is an essential supplement to Red’s $1,600 monthly disability, to support themselves and their two young children.
I found myself wondering, as I was writing about Georgia dairy farmer Bob Hayles yesterday: Where is this all going?
Are the farmers like Greg Niewendorp, Mark Nolt, and now Bob Hayles tilting at windmills? Is Mark McAfee doomed to be run out of business? Or are they the vanguard of a movement that will cause legislators and regulators to re-examine their often-arbitrary imposition of restrictions on small farms and their products?
When Georgia’s Department of Agriculture held its hearing a couple weeks ago on a proposal to require that all raw milk be dyed charcoal, raw-goat-milk producer Bob Hayles was the first to stand up and speak out against the regulation.
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This site's mission is to provide news and analysis about food rights and raw milk. Increasingly, our access to privately available food is under attack by government and industry forces that seek to impose their choices on us. The Complete Patient seeks to provide up-to-date information and encourage the development of community to maintain traditional food acquisition options.