Keep Up on Tight Court Schedule As We Move to Food Rights "Legal Phase"; Why the Customer Isn't Necessarily Wrong
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.)
All you have to do to appreciate what is going on is take a look at the new legal calendar on display at the new web site of Farm Food Freedom Coalition.
First on deck is Canadian dairy farmer Michael Schmidt, who goes before an Ontario appeals court tomorrow seeking to have his conviction on 13 counts of violating the province's dairy law heard on appeal. There is no automatic appeal in Ontario, so Schmidt's lawyer will be seeking to convince the judges that there is a public interest in hearing the case.
The Bovine has done a nice job of summarizing Schmidt's arguments, plus it has his legal documents available as well.
Next up, in three weeks is Alvin Schlangen's first trial, scheduled for August 15 in Minnesota. Later in the month is Michael Hartmann's trial, also in Minnesota And on it goes.
Some of these dates will change, as cases are delayed, so keep an eye on the calendar. I link to it from the "Links" page listed at the top of the home page, and you can make it a book mark as well.
Because a number of these cases will no doubt be heard by juries, local food rights groups will be organizing "jury nullification" promotion efforts--educating citizens on their right to rule in favor of defendants who may have technically violated unjust laws.
The outcome of these cases will go a long way toward setting precedent about our private right to make our own food choices. It seems like it should be a no-brainer, but in America in 2012, the outcome is definitely in some doubt.
It's also important that supporters of the defendants show up at these cases, and let both the judges and state prosecutors know that there is growing public support for private food rights.
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As long as I'm on legal matters, the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation is offering a four-part series of webinars on setting up and maintaining cow shares and herd shares. This is an excellent way for producers of raw milk to establish a legal basis for private distribution.
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The customer is always right.
It's one of the oldest sayings in business. I thought of it as I was reading the complaints from several food producers and others bemoaning the seeming obsession of American consumers with convenience and price, following the post about Tracy and Amy last week.
It is an obsession fed by our Internet culture and corporations continually trying to figure out new ways to service customers and, ideally, make money in the process. So if you go into any Whole Foods and ask a stocker where the ketchup is located, the individual won't just motion you to aisle 6, he or she will walk you there. Now, you will likely pay a higher price at Whole Foods for that ketchup than at Price Chopper, but if you value service and convenience, which more people do, you'll pay the price, and feel good about it.
In my years running a business, I came to question the adage that the customer is always right, especially after dealing with some truly unreasonable customers. However, I came to realize as well that such disagreeable people aren't necessarily wrong. Maybe my business didn't offer what they truly wanted. Maybe someone else did.
The larger lesson is that it's not wise to fight what the marketplace wants. The challenge for business owners, including farmers, is to figure out what your target market most desires, and then how you can give it to them.
For example, one big new thing on farms today is "Dinner in the Field". It's not new, of course, but all kinds of farms are doing it. I had to chuckle when I saw in a Boston Globe article today that a local farm stand with a few acres in a Boston suburb, where I've long bought fresh corn and tomatoes in the summer, launched its first such event last month, at $95 a person, and sold out in three days. I went to one in Vermont a few years back. When I wanted to go again last summer, the farm had raised the price 50 per cent, to $85 a person, and required payment in advance. The farm continued to sell out, without my patronage.
The message? I may no longer be part of the target market for that particular item, but clearly there are lots of people out there willing to pay big bucks, weeks in advance, to have a picnic served to them. Congrats to the farms that have figured out the formula and are cashing in.
For Tracy, it might be a matter of focusing mainly on customers willing to travel to her farm. Or encouraging customers to organize into carpools to ease the pain of product pickup. Or requiring that customers pay in advance via credit card when they place orders--to reduce problems with no-shows. Or raising her prices further to compensate for her higher quality over factory food. I'm not sure any of these options would work--my point is that food producers need to be thinking in terms of satisfying the marketplace, while avoiding the boot of the food police, in a profitable way, rather than whining about how the marketplace is screwed up.
The marketplace for good food is booming. The challenge for producers is to capture and serve those who understand the value of what is being provided.
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.
How 'bout this: "The consumer always has rights."
The state says there is no prohibition against drinking raw milk, but prohibition of sales is a de facto prevention of purchase, which is a de facto prohibition against drinking it, unless, in the mind of the state, anybody and everybody can (and should) own a cow or goat.
Great post David,
I would say that the "consumer is brainwashed and ignorant and when they get educated they are always right". Just my take on dollar-voting and the statements that most consumers make to me when making an inquiry. If the consumer is always right....why are we all so fat, diabetic and asthmatic etc....
When consumers at Wholefoods ask " on which isle is the Soymilk ( GMO, thyroid disruptive and gut killing ) is located"....that is not an educated consumer, that consumer is not right, that is an ignorant consumer and that is a sold-out retailer, that will do anything to sell a product and take the money. That is a retailer that has stopped educating and begun an economic tryst with the devil. That is a retailer that has no moral north star....consumer choice is one thing...lack of education is another. Retailers have an obligation to be educators and help consumers make good choices. Good choices will bring better health and better health will sell more good foods.
Speaking of education, RAWMI held its first ever RAWMI Training Day in Newburg Oregon on Monday this week. It was attended by 50 Oregon Micro Dairy raw milk producers. the event was sponsored by ORMPA ( the newly formed Oregon Raw Milk Producers Assoc ). Its leadership is speerheaded by Charlotte Smith of Champoeg Creamery. She is herself a very type A, high achiever, well spoken, motivated, educated, ethical, super clean grass fed raw milk producer ( super delicious raw milk with great bacteria counts I might add ! ). She is probably going to be the First RAWMI LISTED producer in America. She has already been inspected, she has completed her 100 question application, her initial bacteria counts are in ( wow!! ) and we are currently completing her RAMP food safety program checklist of risks.
The training day was truly an historic event. A video of the training day will be posted at RAWMI very soon and I will bring a link back to TCP.
All of the producers were on the same page....they were all dedicated to a bright and safe future for raw milk and they all rose above any individual jealously for the benefit of their consumers and their own production risks. It was awesome!! Nothing like a little crisis at Foundation Farms to bring together those that had never met before in a "Common Cause for Common Standards"
Those that attended were given a certificate worth 6 hours of RAWMI Food Safety training credit. ORMPA now has a core of producers that really care and know more than ever...and are deeply committed to going home to their own production systems and making thoughtful improvements. It is hoped that many of these producers will join Charlotte and become RAWMI LISTED.
There are anti-raw milk hearings being held this fall by the Pasteurized Dairy community in Oregon. ORMPA is now well prepared to deal with these pressures and will be able to show the standards they embrace and the tests showing the results of these standards in Operation.
Mary Martin and Bill Marler, both of you played a part in the days training. Ecoli...STEC and HUS was discussed and explained in depth. The risks of illness were stage front and center. We skipped nothing. The benefits of raw milk and the studies about raw milk were also explained and discussed. Charlotte took everyone on a farm tour from GRASS TO GLASS and everyone was thoroughly emersed into a new world of raw milk risk reduction systems.
We are off to a very good start. The key to RAWMI success in Oregon is the SUPPORT the LOCAL leadership for raw milk. RAWMI is not the local leader...it is the resource that comes in to help and mentor the local voice and leadership. That is the RAWMI Secret Sauce.
We got this down...
A short Power Point showing Dr. Rubiks microscopic photophic work was also shown. This was also a first. These pictures show the comparisons between, Blood and raw milk....pasteurized milk and raw milk and UHT and Raw Milk at various magnifications. They are breath taking and startling.
I rest my case. Pictures do not lie.
Bill...send in that $25k donation to RAWMI, our work has definitely improved food safety in Oregon. Raw milk is not going away....it is just getting better and better. I even used a nice picture of you in my slide show....I chose a handsome dashing shot....you would have been proud. You heat definitely is an incentive to move forward. Not always seen as constructive....but definitly a force to be recognized. Now RAWMI is the constructive progressive force that will address the needs of the raw milk producers.
This is progress.
Mark
Congratulations, Mark, on RAWMI Training Day and on your first RAWMI listed farm. Great news. You ought to do a little video segment of the training day to present at the upcoming anti-raw-milk hearings. But you will almost certainly have to fight to have it shown--the opponents DON'T want legislators or others to hear about such things, just as they don't want anyone to hear about the positive research. They are all about negativity.
I second David on this Mark. Hopefully, Oregon can be a model for a successful RawMI partnership. I'd love to see RawMI success here. We need RawMI to come to the Midwest, next.
In my estimation, people who charge $85 to go to what's basically a picnic, AND the people who will pay that price, are the problem. They don't want this food movement to be called a niche market and yet they operate it like a niche market. Food has become way too complicated because producers are not trying to make a profit, they're trying to make a fortune. That's wrong. I'm not against making a profit, not at all. But when you price people out who would love to participate for the health and well-being of their families it's no longer a service, it's a business plain and simple. Then you're on the same par with drug companies. Do we really wanna go there? Can't we stay within the realm of civility? (I know I'll catch all kinds of hell for that whole comment, but truth is truth and that's how I truly feel). We've taken the plainest, simplest foods and turned them into something *gourmet* for Pete's sake. It's just making a bigger problem.
Also, on a different subject of your blog post, won't FTCLDF inspire the wrath of Marler and Co by offering advice on that subject? (!!)
Au Contraire, D. Smith, farming is rarely a profitable business venture. That is why we have lost so many farms in the last 50 years.
If having high-priced dinners is the way that small farmers have figured out to make ends meet, then its merely a symptom of the deeper economic injustices. It would be better if we could figure out how to get them a fair price for their produce to begin with.
I appreciate your concern about pricing out low-income people from these events. The solution, then, is not to lower the price paid to the farmer, but to fight for economic democracy and more income equality so that even the lowest income earners can afford good quality food. America currently has one of the greatest income disaprities in the world. The average CEO makes over 400 times what the lowest paid worker in his/her company makes. Therein is the root of the problem, not farmers charging $85 for an on-farm dinner.
@ Bill Anderson: Fine, Bill. You're right again, as usual.
Farmers where I live get a very fair price for their produce without $85 dollar meals. How do you suppose they do that?
D Smith, I couldn't agree with you more. While I was in Little Rock, I thought it'd be nice to visit P Allen Smith's farm... I didn't have a problem paying some money for the tour...$90 for @ 2-3 hours, lunch included was way too steep. So we went to the arboretum at Pinnacle Mountain State Park, for free. And even took the dogs.
@ Sylvia: Yeah, and the sickening part is that P. Allen Smith uses ALLLLLL kinds of chemicals and crap because those types of companies are who sponsor his enterprise. I used to get his email stuff, but I unsubscribed some time back because it's just sickening the way he pushes certain advertising for the sponsors in his "write-ups" and fails to mention that most of what he uses is poisonous to the land and the stuff he's trying to grow. His *farmhouse* (can't recall the name right now) is paid for by Home Depot or one of those big shot companies because of the perks Allen gives and gets . . . (couldn't think of a nice way to put my thoughts into acceptable words but I think you get my drift). Yeah, $90 is a tad steep when there is so much other stuff to see and so many other uses for $90 these days. Let him make money off his networking friends. ;->
I just wanted to see the flowers and gardens. I wouldn't have eaten the lunch had I gone, as I would ask about chemicals used.
@ Sylvia: Ha! They probably would have thrown you off the place if you'd asked about chemical use. But for $90 a person deserves answers so it might have been worth your while just to get the information. If I lived closer to Little Rock I might have done that myself!
"my point is that food producers need to be thinking in terms of satisfying the marketplace, while avoiding the boot of the food police, in a profitable way, rather than whining about how the marketplace is screwed up."
Just thought that statement needed repeating....
"The challenge for producers is to capture and serve those who understand the value of what is being provided."
People who want certain things will move mountains to find them, it may take a while, yet, they will eventually find them. People need educating on a lot of things. As you said; the value of what is being provided (costs to the farmer,etc) People need educating on storing, preparing/cooking the products. The list is long. Food was higher priced in Little Rock than it was is Sacramento- that goes for both the stores and the farmers market. The quality in Little Rock was lacking.
@ Sylvia: It would appear that even when food producers try to satisfy everyone, they come up short. By destroying and/or outlawing edible, well-kept landscapes on some minor infraction, well, it's all over but the crying.
I'll post this link here and hope folks will take a peek at what's coming (this is in Canada, but we're right in there with them). Interesting and infuriating. The gubment (no matter where you live) doesn't WANT us to be self-sufficient.
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/07/authorities-seek-to-destroy-couples....
My family members buy ALL kinds of food (not just veggies) from a CSA (some things from our dweeby farmers market) - we help out each time we got to pick up our baskets. Every time we go, there are other families helping out. THAT'S the model we need to use everywhere, not just here in my part of the country where people have been doing this for generations.
I'd give anything if we could edit our own comments, but since that's not an option on these blogs, I'll have to make another post.
Part of the problem with food rights is that we essentially have no property rights. I know, it involves a link but if you want to know and learn it's the only way I have to communicate the messages of others. Copyright does not allow for cutting and pasting entire articles. Sorry.
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/06/all-over-america-government-agents-o...
The idea of owning land:
http://www.context.org/iclib/ic08/gilman1/
From a legal standpoint, this is interesting/entertaining - except these questions are always based in the UK or somewhere. The usa must not allow us to even ask these questions. Thank heavens censorship is not yet worldwide.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/precisely_who_owns_my_land_and_p
That second link you posted is a great read, D Smith, and I agree with much of what it says. Land trusts are indeed the most democratic solution to the problem of land ownership, and subvert the false dichotomy of state vs. private land ownership.
But the first and third links just seems like a bunch of shill paranoid ramblings by right-wing wackos.
I don't think our issue is lack of private property. If anything, it is the excesses of private property which have led us to the current situation, where even genetic material is considered the intellectual property of Monsanto, and debtor farmers are essentially owned by banks and corporations. Oh, how easily we forget that private property is not natural at all, but is an artificial creation of civilization and the state.
There's a Native American saying which I agree very much with: We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Indeed “the problem with food rights is that we essentially have no property rights”, or what rights we have are incessantly being eroded by sanctimonious government regulation.
I hope people take time to sign the petition.
Ken
More neo-liberal capitalist nonsense, cloaked in religious ideology.
I think Aldo Leopold (a famous farmer, naturalist, and deep ecologist from Wisconsin) had it right when he denounced "Abrahamic property" in his famous "Sand County Alamanc"
http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html
Yes, there are reasons why Wisconsin has more small dairy farms than any other state in the nation...
As Creator, God has absolute rights of ownership over all things, and failing to realize this is like misaligning the top button on our shirt, nothing else will ever line up. In essence, good stewardship expresses our total obedience to God. We must therefore ask ourselves this question, am I the lord of my life, or is God the Lord of my life?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-lawrence-troster/biblical-voices-on-...
“Psalm 148 and Leopold's Land Ethic emphasis the interconnectedness of all life in one moral community. From the recognition of belonging to that community arises an ethical imperative. In Leopold, this interconnectedness is derived from the common evolutionary origins of all living creatures and their ecological interaction with the environment. In Psalm 148 the interconnectedness is derived from the common origins of all Creation from God. From this model, humanity must find a way to create a sustainable relationship with the whole choir of Creation.”
Ken
It's impossible to satisfy everyone, trying is futile and foolish. The link, reminds me of the recent story of the elderly woman whose front yard garden was destroyed and her food source along with it. Don't recall which town.
I'm a firm believer in teaching the man to fish so he can feed himself for life.....
@ Sylvia: Yes, it's very much the same story. It's also the same story we're hearing from different spots all over the country. So that means the trend to shut people down is growing. When people depend on their own gardens (whether it's for health or sustenance) and authorities can just come in and do away with it, we've got problems at a higher level than just the city enforcement officials, and therein lies the bigger issue. Who has control over the property you bought and are paying for, and paying taxes on? Does the city own it? He who pays the taxes and the mortgage should be the owner, and as long as they aren't bothering neighbors with their plantings it shouldn't matter. Officials have fixated on the idea of citizens planting illegal crops, so now they're COMPLETELY paranoid. And they call the public paranoid?? The gubment doesn't want people to be able to take care of themselves, they want us dependent on them as a nanny state/country. They're gonna get their way, too.
Sylvia, that is a good way of describing a target market--"those who understand the value of what is being provided." In other words, an educated segment of the market. Educating consumers is admirable, but can be very costly, and take a long time. Some farmers don't have the time to do that, while others, as you found, have taken to charging people for education (tours). The main point of my post is that farmers need to be trying to think more like business people--that there is nothing wrong with earning a profit at farming and providing people with good food. Mark McAfee, Joel Salatin, and any number of other farmers many of us know and admire will testify to that.
David, I do agree that there is nothing wrong with earning a profit.
I believe there is a line where you can price yourself out of customers or limit the ability of customer being able to pay. I could easily have afforded the $90 to see P Allen Smith's farm- it would have been an expensive lunch that I wouldn't have eaten, as posted, the use of chemicals appears to be prevalent there. That is my educated decision. Most think the chemicals are harmless, I do not.
As an RN, I don't know many other nurses with kids that could afford $15/gal of milk consistently and most don't take vacations other than day trips with their kids. (I am not referring to those who live off credit cards, I am referring to those who live within their means)
I'm not sure that I'd agree that farmers need to think more like business people. Of those I've met and have seen (small farmers), they are happy with their life now and don't appear to want to expand and they do appear to be doing fine financially. Several do take vacations, which means they hire someone to fill in for them, One sends their kids to private school.... McAfee has @400 acres and Stalatin 550 acres; not small at all. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with their farms, or the running of them. Not every farmer has their goals. So why should they change?
@ Sylvia: Well said, Sylvia. That is my point, too, and I will add the point that a lot of what goes on with small farmers depends on the part of the country in which they live. As you pointed out, quite a few people are living off credit cards and some are not living above their means at all, just surviving. Others can afford to do some of the vacationing and paying the big bucks with little or no credit card activity.
Also, I've found over the years that a lot of people don't seem to understand the difference between a farmer and a rancher. Of course, when you say dairy farmer it's pretty obvious. My family ancestory involves ranching (mostly pastured Herefords) and very little farming. Most of the neighboring folks were the same. Then some seed company came along and offered bonuses and benefits and whatnot for folks to plant test seed plots and things went downhill from there, as far as pastured animals went. Pretty soon we had plowed fields and everything was dusty and dirty all the time. Even at my age then, around 8 or 9, I could see the downside to digging up topsoil and planting acres and acres of seed. Then it had to be trucked and weighed and stored and hauled by train or truck to some other destination, which made no sense to me then and makes no sense to me now. What did animals do before grain?
Exactly.
I have always emphasized the need for farmers to think more like business people rather then accept it, or laugh it off as a chosen lifestyle.
How much input goes into maintaining a farm is a balancing act limited to individual discretion, namely, the extent to which he or she is willing to go in terms of their use of off farm income in order to subsidize operating costs and ultimately what the consumer pays for food.
Most farmers including myself at least in this part of the world have scaled back their framing operations in order to limit their loses and devote more time to their families and/or off farm incomes.
Ken
Off farm income didn't happen much when I was growing up - that's a more modern idea since a buck doesn't go anywhere anymore. My Mom was too busy raising kids and canning garden bounty, etc., to work off-farm and my Dad's only off-farm income (which wasn't much back then) was his couple of terms in the State Legislature. My two older brothers worked on the ranch, my two older sister's got part-time summer jobs in town because they thought it was a neat idea to get away and not have to help Mom! But they kept their own income. We didn't have "farm tours" back then because everyone other than a few city slicker relatives WAS a farmer or rancher. So today we have people who actually pay to see a working farm or ranch. I guess if I was raised in a congested city I'd want to see it too, especially now. If they would do a little history check, however, they would see the vast difference which have occurred in farming (not so much ranching) over the past 35-40 years. There's almost no comparison. That part of it saddens me, as does the people who live in the country and have to work in the city.
A great case study on how laws are made nowadays:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXUPDAMc_6o
I would like to remind everyone that the RAWMI ORMPA Training day was free....we just asked for donations to cover costs. About $600 was donated by the 50 attendees. Not bad...a great start.
One of the things I encouraged the group to do was make darn well sure that they charged a sustainable price for their wonderful healing and under valued raw milk. Many were concerned about the cost of safety, testing and improvements. It takes money.
What does that math mean....the price is too cheap.
One thing that RAWMI may get blasted for is this....everywhere that RAWMI reaches and teaches....raw milk prices may rise.
It is about damn time that farmers are paid properly and can afford to feed their families, not be treated like slaves and invest in new equipment and preventative maintenance. When farmers get to know the medical value of their raw milk....raw milk will become rightfully a little more valuable.
I can see it now...everywhere that RAWMI goes....raw milk doubles in price and farmers no longer get introuble with regulators for outbreaks. Sounds like a great deal.
When Charlotte Smith increased her price this week from $7 to $8 per half gallon, her customers praised the action and gave her email and text hugs. They love her and they love her milk and what it does for their families.
Everyone that drinks raw milk will consider high quality raw milk a great deal at any price...if they can sleep-in on Christmas morning and not milk the cows twice a day for 365 days each year.
One of RAWMI's greatest gifts to farmers is this:....the education to understand how undervalued high quality low risk raw milk is! and how grateful you should be to just buy your raw milk and not have to milk and feed and breed and take care of that cow everyday....24-7-365.
Cheap raw milk is farmer slavery.
@ Mark: "cheap raw milk is farmer slavery". WHAT?? Well, I don't agree with that statement but that involves frame of mind and I'm not here to change anyone's mind. I also can tell you for a fact that customers here do not "praise" their farmers for raising the prices. You imply that because local dairy farmers in my area aren't charging people $16/gallon for raw milk that they are stupid. I hope none of them read your post or you'll be getting something in your email that doesn't even remotely resemble a hug.
For context, Mark is getting a lot of flack in the CA marketplace for raising his wholesale prices. It is retailing at about $20/gallon now. On his FB page, Mark is suggesting it's the fault of the retailers.
Lol. Because retailers set their own suggested retail price. Lol.
Great pictures and blog recap of the ORMPA RAWMI training day in Oregon this week.
http://www.champoegcreamery.com/
Mark
Great work, and I 100% agree Mark. If cheap raw milk is farmer slavery, then bland cheese is cheese maker slavery. It goes hand in hand.
I am reminded of the Populist movement:
http://familyfarmers.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Summer-2011pg67.pdf
Solidarity between farmers and workers is an old and sacred alliance of producers that dates back to the Populist Movement and beyond when farmers and workers got together to fight for things such as a progressive income tax, a financial system that served the people, and the formation of unions and the eight hour day. It was over 120 years ago the famous Georgia populist Tom Watson stated words that could not be truer and have brought us together today:“The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up the fortunes for a few unprecedented in human history.”
The great Minnesota Populist Ignatius Donnelly proclaimed:“The interests of rural and urban labor are the same. Their enemies are identical.”
For more than 100 years we’ve been fighting together. We’ve been on the picket line, sitting in, dumping milk, on strike, blocking traffic, fighting against corporate power and dying together! We fought our way
out of one guilded age and we’ll do it again!
@ Bill Anderson: Once again you've misunderstood the context of a post. Just because raw milk is cheaper in certain areas of the country, doesn't mean the quality is less. If your cheese tastes bland it's because you failed in your job of assuring the quality/flavor of the milk you bought before putting it into production of cheese. That's your fault when you buy and if you buy from a farmer who ISN'T producing quality milks. It happens but quality has nothing to do with price, for a fact. Our milk here is excellent taste and milkfat quality, but we don't pay even close to $16 - $20 per gallon.
And Bill, here's my favorite Native American quote, since you placed one in a post farther up the line:
"Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find money cannot be eaten." -Cree Indian Prophecy
A great quote, D Smith, and I agree completely with the Cree's perspective on American capitalism.
But the fact is that we've already opened pandora's box, and there's no going back. Commerce is not going away. We need to learn to live with commercial economies, and work to make them as humane, enviromentally sustainable, and democratic as possible. Adopting a "laissez-faire" attitude, in reaction against commerce (and the subsequent "race to the bottom" that neo-liberalism entails) is not going to solve our problems, it will only make them worse.
As for cheese -- There are all sorts of reasons that cheese can taste bland or bad. The biggest reason is because American commodity cheese makers don't have the skills or the time to ripen it properly and deliver it to market at the correct maturity level. "Affinage" as the French call it, or the art of aging cheese, is a highly refined art. I'm told that the best cheese mongers in France can select a camembert for you based on when you plan to eat it -- today or tomorrow? this morning or this evening?
Even mediocre quality milk can be turned into a decent cheese with the hand of a skilled artisan cheese maker. It takes years to acquire those skills, as well as the correct aging conditions (temperature, humidity, air flow, etc...). And on the converse, great quality milk can be turned into rather mediocre cheese at the hand of a novice. Of course, the best cheese is made from high quality milk, and crafted by an experienced artisan with the correct aging conditions, which is why it costs more.
Producing quality food is a lot of work, and those who do it need to be paid fairly for their labor, farmers and cheese makers alike. And on the flip side, providing quality food to all people is a social responsibility which we, as a society, need to take more seriously. The gross income inequality that grips our economic nowadays only contributes to the health crises.
@ Bill Anderson: I don't think capitalism was around when the Cree Nation came up with their idea, Bill. And yes, Pandora's box is opened, and isn't it a shame?
You brought up the subject of cheese, and I assumed you weren't talking about commodity cheese, but artisan cheese, since you said that is what you produce, right?
Of course producing quality food is a lot of work, most women who've ever BEEN in a garden or a kitchen can tell you that much about life! That doesn't mean that pricing yourself out of the market is worth doing. In the long run, things are better all over when prices are fair and equal for all. There will always be income inequality and that must be taken into consideration. And yes, not eating quality foods contributes to the health crises, but overcharging for those foods isn't going to stem the tide. Who, then, would we be "helping"? Minds which conjure up economics in the way you are talking, are as dark as the inside of an inkwell, IMPHO. Like I've mentioned here before, there's a difference between a profit and a killing.
D. Smith.
Do you want to see my financial projections? Production costs for this kind of cheese are in the $7 range, and that doesn't even include my labor or the incredible time and energy I have put into obtaining a Wisconsin cheese maker's license and developping the recipes for these artisan cheeses. I need to charge at least $15-20 per pound, when taking into account marketing and sales costs, and paying myself, in order to make the business cashflow.
I certainly agree with you that things are better when prices are fair and equal. I guess the issue is that too many people are priced out of paying a "fair and equal" price to food producers, because of the gross income inequality. I agree with you that incomes can never be perfectly equal, but I'd like to see something closer to Scandinavia where the income or net worth difference between the richest and poorest is something like 5 or 7 times, instead of thousands of times like it is in the US.
@ Bill Anderson: I wasn't talking about just cheese here, I'm talking about all real foods. The main point is if people can afford it they will buy it if they want it. That's the bottom line.
And I agree with you about the income inequality you talked about. But, you wanna know where there's real gross income inequality? I provide specialized day care - for infants. Mainly, infants who were at one point "at risk" meaning they usually come to me right after they leave the NICU. Not all of them are at risk, but most of them are/were. You wanna know how much I make? I mean these are real little live human beings who are on oxygen and monitors that beep if they aren't connected exactly right. It's a lot of responsibility. Not to mention stress. When it averages out per week what I put in hour-wise, I make about $2.50 / hour (although I don't charge by the hour, I have a flat fee). I'm serious as a heart attack. And people don't really want to pay that. But I have Mom's who will call and ask if they can leave their baby here for an extra hour so they can go to the tanning salon (which costs about $50 a pop). I really think that THEY think I should be doing this for nothing since their babies were at risk, so I should just donate my time!! Seriously. But ya know, I was born at night, just not last night.
So you tell me what's fair and equal. It certainly isn't the day care profession which I've been doing now for 23 years come October of 2012. My husband doesn't get why I continue to do this and practically give away my time, but it's me - it's what I do best. I'm contributing to the betterment of the lives of these children (hopefully) and when they leave here, they're fully ready to go and face the world.
D Smith, I had a friend that wanted me to take care of her grandmother for 2 weeks while they all went on vacation. She offered to pay me $200. I declined. Her grandmother was unstable both physically and mentally, morbidly obese. Had something happened, my license would be on the line. She was quite offended. She also, just as others have, stated that nurses don't do anything to 'deserve' more pay.....
I can make more than double in California than in Tx or IL or FL, or Va or Az or Mo for doing basically the same job. Even within the federal govt there is a vast difference in pay doing the same job.
@ Sylvia: I have several friends who are retired nurses who perform in-home care for elderly people who do not yet qualify for nursing homes (or simply refuse to be put into one of those money-sucking, ridiculous, drug-fed institutions) and the mere fact that they're retired leaves them free to do it for whatever amount of money they wish, or whatever they come to an agreement with the family to provide. Some of them actually do it free, because that's the way they are and they just need/want something to do to feel useful.
That's what I'm gonna do when I retire from the day care business. I estimate doing this for another two years and then I'm calling it quits after 25 years. I've raised more than half the kids in this town, I think! I provided toddler daycare for MANY years before deciding to work with infants only. The very first toddler I ever watched graduated from college last year and he came to visit me for an afternoon just recently. I still receive Christmas cards from a LOT of my former clients. So, there are rewards at some point.
Still, the money is lousy. That is strictly a regional thing, I know, because my best friend moved to CT about 10 years ago and she said her daughters pay horrendous prices for day care for their kids. As I said, whether it's food, or private health care or whatever - I think it's all relevant to the area of the country in which you reside.
"It's also important that supporters of the defendants show up at these cases, and let both the judges and state prosecutors know that there is growing public support for private food rights."
First on deck, Gumpert, was the Rawesome deposition hearing in Ventura yesterday. It's also important that the defendents show up themselves (ahem, James Stewart) if they don't want to have a warrant issued for their arrest.
All of those long-running soap operas got chopped some time back and Rawesome just stepped right in to fill the void.
So glad to see that Michael Schmidt had a big win in court today!! About time!!
This one is for the Christians in the house... An excellent moral and ethical case against Capitalism and Private Property:
http://newleftreview.org/I/126/g-a-cohen-freedom-justice-and-capitalism
(New Left review is by subscription. You can read the complete essay at the below google archive link)
http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache%3AyH1wNLplLMUJ%3Asc...
Legal food rights is an oxymoron!
If one does not have food Rights then the courts are the last place to be pursuing them!
In regards to individuals, courts along with other "legal" entities deal with privileges. They are not in the business of Rights. They are into regulating (i.e. taxing) privileges.
If you convert a Right to a privilege you are literally selling out your birthrights. It is a form of voluntary servitude.
However, If one has food Rights (as well as property Rights) then every adverse action, beginning with the initial trespass, must be immediately responded to in ways that hold each individual trespasser fully accountable for their trespass. Every time those individual trespasses are allowed without an immediate response that effectively (and fully Lawfully) repels the trespasser, then those trespassers appear to have some kind of justification for their actions.
Waiting to respond until the agencies present their trespass as a legal issue is a snare that best be avoided. Why more consideration isn't put on repelling the trespassers and then holding them fully accountable under the common law before any legal actions begin is symptomatic of the legal realm's conditioning upon the Amercian psyche.