Last March, there was a three-day preliminary hearing in Ventura County about the allegations of fraud against James Stewart and two other principles in the Rawesome affair--Sharon Palmer and Larry Otting. The allegations mostly concern a mortgage transaction and loans in connection with the acquisition of Healthy Family Farms, where Palmer does her farming, in 2008.
July 2012
(Additional information and links have been added to this article since it was first posted.)
The food rights movement is entering a new phase. We might best think of it as the "legal phase."
All those raids on food clubs and farms (mostly over raw milk distribution) over the last few years--the "crackdown phase", if you will--are now showing up in court cases that need to be resolved. (Not that the crackdown phase is necessarily over.)
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This post has been revised and updated since it was first posted.
MN's Scorched Earth Food Rights Policy Leaves Desperate Mom, Frustrated Farmer, and Too Much Sadness
If you want a sense of how the atmosphere around obtaining raw milk and other nutrient-dense foods has changed over the last couple years in a state like Minnesota, which has featured no-holds-barred enforcement and intimidation against farmers and consumers alike, you should read the exchange that follows. It took place on a Minnesota listserve, between a young mom and a goat dairy farmer. Some thoughts follow.
Once upon a time, I naively expected that if there were new credible scientific evidence that raw milk showed health benefits over pasteurized milk, the health and regulatory communities might relax their negative attitudes.
But a couple years ago, when I gave a talk at Rutgers University in New Jersey and expressed my hopes for a meeting of the minds between opponents and proponents of raw dairy, a psychiatrist warned me about holding such expectations. The psychiatrist, Richard Schwartzman, explained the regulatory opposition this way:
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Prosecutors seeking to jail Vernon Hershberger for distributing his farm's food privately to members of a food club betrayed their nervousness yesterday when they filed motions intended to limit the evidence the Wisconsin farmer can present to a jury.
The lawyers for the Wisconsin Attorney General filed a series of "Motions in Limine", which are designed to shield a jury from hearing information that could be prejudicial to one side or the other. Most commonly, such motions are used by defendants in serious criminal trials who want to prevent the prosecution from presenting incriminating medical or financial information.
Sally Fallon has long been the whipping girl of raw milk opponents, portrayed as uncaring of victims of illness from raw dairy and an advocate of crazy safety ideas, like the one that the good bacteria in raw milk from grass-fed cows kills off pathogens.
Sometimes it's possible to infer important clues about a legal case from a judge's seemingly negative opinion. The articles about Wisconsin Judge Guy Reynolds rejecting a motion by farmer Vernon Hershberger to dismiss the case against him suggested Hershberger's motion was a total loss.
I want to be the first to wish the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund a happy fifth anniversary.
The FTCLDF launched, quite appropriately, on July 4, 2007. It sprang up in response to the coordinated crackdown launched the previous year by state and federal authorities against raw dairy farmers, to ensure they had legal representation to defend themselves against the new aggression. The government's campaign has since expanded to include makers of raw milk cheese and other foods, along with consumers, especially members of food clubs.
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.