MO Farmer Plans Public Distribution of Raw Milk, in Defiance of Cease and Desist
The latest tactic in impeding raw milk distribution--harassing farmers using drop sites--seems to be spreading from Minnesota to Missouri.
And like in Minnesota, where many of the ten consumer drop site hosts warned by regulators recently are continuing the defy the warnings, resistance is developing as well.
The Missouri events have developed rapidly. Last Thursday, a public health official from Missouri's Christian County appeared at a residence where farmer Eric Vimont was dropping off milk, and waved a cease-and-desist order in front of him. Vimont, whose farm is actually in a neighboring county, refused to accept the cease-and-desist. So today, via certified mail, he received an "Order to Abate for Food Establishments." "No food operations shall occur until the food establishment is brought into compliance," it stated in part.
Vimont, who has for the last six years been making raw milk available privately to customers who order in advance, says he not only has no plans to abide by the order, but he is going to publicly drop off raw milk to a group of customers tomorrow (Thursday) evening...in front of the Christian County Public Health Department in Ozark (301 E. Brick St., which is 1 block north and east of the County Courthouse).
Vimont expects about 30 customers who normally pick up near that location to be present to get their milk, plus, "We expect a lot of people who are not customers." He emphasized, though, that the milk is only for customers who pre-ordered. "There is no milk for open distribution."
He says this is in line with Missouri law, which allows for the sale of raw milk from the farm, with delivery to individual consumers. The new rub seems to come over whether the delivery is allowed to drop points or consumers' individual residences. The county health department has been referring to a 2007 opinion from the Missouri attorney general arguing that farmers are prohibited from selling "to the general public from a distribution center" established by the dairy farmer.
Vimont views the sudden focus by Christian County, a prosperous county in the southwest part of the state, on the nuances of delivery as part of the growing clampdown on food right nationally, and he is determined to do his part to resist. "I'm a little guy on a farm that is tired of being told he can't do certain God-given things," he says. "I want to see the tide start to change in this nation...in terms of unelected officials and regulators micro-managing our lives."
Pete Kennedy of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund sees the action against Vimont as designed "just to make things more difficult for his customers."
Vimont says he moved to Missouri from the Northwest in 2006 with a goal "to provide the absolute best possible milk we can. We are antiseptic clean in the milk parlor." He says he and his wife "beg our customers to make at least one trip to our farm, preferably at the milking time. We milk in the late morning, so it's convenient for our customers to come and watch." They are currently milking nine cows.
This isn't Vimont's first encounter with county public health authorities. A year ago, they had local police go after him over his milk distribution, but after an hour of discussion with an officer, explaining the nuances of Missouri law and local regulations, "the officer decided I wasn't violating the law" and Vimont continued going about his business. County health officials backed off...but only temporarily.
**
I find very sad the reports by Natural Health News that Aajonus Vonderplanitz obtained his Ph.D. from a diploma mill. Like Gordon Watson, I have a lot of admiration for Vonderplanitz for standing up for food rights at a time when very few understood the issues at stake. And he's done important work defending farmers being harassed by local authorities and the Food and Drug Administration. What makes these accusations ironic, for me, is that I don't see where he needed the supposed status of a Ph.D. to do what he has done. His nutritional theories would never be taken seriously by any conventional academic institution. His patients care mainly about whether he helps improve their health, and I've spoken with a number who claim he's worked wonders for them. In courtrooms, a Ph.D. could never make up for the absence of a law degree.
Vonderplanitz has lobbed some heavy grenades at Sharon Palmer and James Stewart of Rawesome fame. I suspect some of those grenades are now coming back from the other side. Food rights opponents are enjoying the infighting immensely.
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.
"There is no milk for open distribution."
"He says this is in line with Missouri law, which allows for the sale of raw milk from the farm, with delivery to individual consumers." "The county health department has been referring to a 2007 opinion from the Missouri attorney general arguing that farmers are prohibited from selling "to the general public from a distribution center" established by the dairy farmer."
It appears the farmer is within the law and is being harassed. Can the farmer sue for harassment?
"Food rights opponents are enjoying the infighting immensely."
David, I doubt very much that "food rights opponents" aka food safety advocates are enjoying anything immensely. With 5 children hospitalized this year, and at least one still in critical condition, so-called food rights opponents are sad and very concerned. Apparently, food right proponents like you are not.
So, a prominent raw milk proponent printed an Internet PhD that had the caveat it should be used as a novelty item. How different is that from the supposed CYA paperwork being promulgated for herdshares by the prominent legal groups you describe?
MW
Are you kidding, MW? I do get your main point here and I appreciate it, but let me take a moment to invite any regulator-types reading this post over beer tonight to post a little shout out right here.
Worth the paper it's written on.
MW
I tend to agree with Milky Way. While Amanda and David are right, in that there is a small subset of regulators who "have it out" for raw dairy farmers, most of them are just concerned about public health.
Perhaps it would be a good policy to treat raw milk for sale to the public (as opposed to farming families) the same way that alcohol and tobbacco are treated -- for adults only. Raw milk cheese is a different story. I am all in favor of feeding raw milk cheese (that is produced with the proper food safety controls) to children. It would be especially good if we could accustom children, at an early age, to something other than a raw milk varient on the bland commodity cheese that Americans are used to.
Once again... we'd do well to learn from the French.
"most of them are just concerned about public health."
Big Lie.
What proves it's a lie? CAFO hormones, CAFO antibiotics, GMO commercialization with no testing and ideological proclamations of "safety" and "equivalence", the whole pesticide and herbicide regime, the existence of toxic waste lagoons, and on from there.
I suppose you also think someone who deplores an individual murder (in certain neighborhoods, at any rate) but supports wars of aggression is "anti-violence"? Or that someone who supports imperial war and globalization but also clamors for greater police state powers and prison privatization is really concerned about an alleged "war on terror"?
The fact is that the Food Safety scam is EXACTLY analogous to the Global War on Terror scam. Both are frauds, both are propagated by a system which seeks to make the actual problem worse (and to combine them; how could the food supply be made more vulnerable to any threat than by continuing to centralize it?), both have no goal but to increase corporate/government profit and domination.
(You still haven't answered my question about who defines a "farming family" and according to what criteria, but I already know it involves aspiring government contractors like RAWMI, and increased bureaucracy.)
Sure wish there was a "like" button. Bravo Russ
Russ, my point is that rank-and-file public health workers do not have control over the policies of the agencies they work for. Many of them are also aghast at industrial agriculture, but there is nothing they can do about it because the management at those public agencies is beholden to big business. It is totally counter-productive to blame them for these problems. (Good for you, Russ, if you have the luxury of not working for "the man", but most of us need a job working for "the man" to make ends meet. There's no point in demonizing someone for their career choice.)
As for what defines a farming family, its simple: Who milks and cares for the cows? Who does the farming, harvests the hay, manages the pasture, etc...? If its a group or collective of individuals and/or families, then more power to them. I actually agree with a comment of yours downthread, where you suggest "blurring the false line between producer and consumer as much as possible, toward abolishing and transcending it completely."
And at that, you have summed up precisely the problem with cow-shares. While on the surface the cow-share model purports to change consumers from a passive role into "co-producers", in reality, it is just a thinly veiled corporate investment type of arrangement. If the consumers are actually involved in the production of the milk it would be one thing, however most cowshares have a professional dairy farmer at the helm, and a group of consumers who know little to nothing about dairy farming who are essentially investors in the corporation.
My basic rule on what people need* to do "working for the Man" is that while we mustn't harshly judge one another, no one is entitled to directly assault others, EVER. That rules out all security-force types, such as your "Food Safety" enforcers who allegedly hate what they do. They're criminals, plain and simple.
Do you indulge in the same apologetics for other kinds of secret police and riot cops?
*Of course the alleged need is questionable wherever people aren't simultaneously doing all they can to overcome the criminal system, or at least rejecting it in principle. For all too many their "need" is just a fallback position when their desire is challenged, and they're unable to meet the argument.
**
Your family farmer distinction still sounds vague for something you want to use as a formal "credential" (i.e. corporatist) criterion. I think I'll trust parents and communities where it comes to feeding their children, over your corporatist hierarchies and credentialism.
As far as cow shares, no doubt the practice often falls short of the aspiration. But as always I fail to see why democratic practice is expected to be perfect overnight, while your status quo's abysmal failure at everything it ever claimed it would do is taken for granted. If only one out of a hundred cowshare members is an active participant (the percentage is actually far better), that's one more than the proportion living up to anything the corporate system claims for itself.
Government workers, be they health, social or whatever do enormous evil, regardless of their intentions. They are cogs in a machine, unable to think for themselves and programmed to follow specific rules to the letter, even when those rules defy common sense or humanitarian feelings. Passing the buck is their modus operandi whenever their failures are exposed ."These are the rules, I don't make them" is their mantra. I'll bet many a Nazi or Communist underling made the same excuse for their actions.
"I was only following orders" is one of the many excuses explicitly rejected at Nuremburg, but generally accepted in today's corporatism, as we see at this blog.
Aren't the French also known for being more relaxed about children consuming alcohol than we are, or is that an old myth?
Also, it appears that the policies on alcohol and tobacco consumption aren't succeeding terribly well. Kids are still smoking and drinking; they just find ways to circumvent these restrictions. Oh, by the way comparing a damaging addiction like tobacco to a healthy food like milk is a little odd, I think.
A number of European countries are more restrictive on raw milk compared with the US (Scotland, Ireland). A recent comment from Italiy:
Italy's Experience Liberalizing Raw Milk Sales: Can't Put the Genie Back in the Bottle
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/04/italys-experience-with-liberalizin...
MW
I grew up in Portugal, a backwards culture society where I could and did work in my grandfather's cafe before I was 9, pouring drafts and serving beer to customers for the pennies they might tip so I could go buy a comic book or a new fancy toy. You could call it work, or play depending on your perspective but in retrospect, it was what we send our children off to college to learn so they can be indebted for life yet they are still not well prepared for the real world.
I'd say that we in the US did not learn the prohibition lesson: make it hard to get and it becomes attractive until you know better, some of us never reach that stage. Why is chrome and neon, loud noise and special effects, still appealing to anyone? beats me...
Teach them how to grow food, to respect elders and that God is YOU.
Posperity is somewhat different than progress, and subtlety cannot be taught, only learned. Just as raw milk can never be duplicated in a lab or factory. Hatch a chick, it's a lesson you will never forget.
I'm going to make an exception to the new rule re "no-religiousity" ... to advise you, Ora ... there is a God, but you're not Him. A famous rabbi was arguing with God that, in a contest, he could make a better man than God had made in Adam. God said "alright. Get your own dirt"
So you would give children a condensed and bacterialized form of what you say is dangerous. If you believe the milk itself is dangerous, wouldn't the cheese be even more so?
I've heard it said that the reason children are having such a high incidence of diabetes may be because homogenization is forcing milk fat to be digested (or not) as an amalgamation with the rest of the milk instead of the digestive system being able to deal with it separately, as in it's natural state, overpowering glucose metabolism and natural insulin.
Yesterday, Fraser Health Authority bailed-out of the contempt of Court charges against me and Michael Schmidt, which had been looming for almost a year, arising from operation of the Our Cows cowshare in Vancouver BC. Main reason being : they'd been provided with a legal opinion by Department of Justice lawyers, stating that production of raw milk for use by its owners as "cosmetics", fell under federal jurisdiction, not provincial. The provincial Health Authority was about to be supremely embarrassed by showing up in Court, lacking jurisdiction in the first instance.
our herdshare agreement is not something you'd find at the joke-shop, labelled "for novelty purposes only". Health Canada put it in front of lawyers for the Attorney General of Canada. After pondering it for most of a year, they came back with the official legal opinion that, since there is no money changing hands quid pro quo between a member of the cowshare, and the Agister, then there is no "sale" as defined in the Food and Drugs Act Revised Statutes of Canada. Point being : the "Our Cows" model is a tad more weighty in law than just "CYA paperwork". The REAL MILK is flowing in BC today : you cannot argue with success
Sorry for even posting that comment, folks. I know its totally irrellevant to the point of this thread, but now that Watson is on the attack, I want to point out that the Chinese students and workers who occupied Tiananmen square in 1989 sang the Internationale during their occupation.
It is one of the greatest songs of all time, IMO, up there with Beethoven's 9th. The lyrics were originally written in French, to commemorate the bloody bourgeois repression of the Paris Commune of 1871, but the song has since been translated into virtually every language on the planet.
"...so-called food rights opponents are sad and very concerned. Apparently, food right proponents like you are not."
MW, not sure when I communicated the sense that I'm not "sad and very concerned" about those who have been made ill. Does defending a farmer who is being harassed, who hasn't made anyone sick, or even been found to have pathogens in his milk, make me an opponent of food safety?
@ David: Wait until some food regulator (supported by the "food rights opponents") comes to Milky Way's house and tells him he can't plant a garden on his own property. THEN you'll see how *concerned* he can really be. Apparently Milky Way thinks if food isn't sanitized by our government officials blessings, it isn't fit for consumption. He needs to wake up and smell the CAFO anti-biotic laden bull puckey. Thing is, people like him rarely wake up until it's way too late. Let him rant about food rights - until he doesn't have any.
D. Smith,
I am quite awake, but don't live in your all or nothing world where stereotypes trump reality. What if you are wrong in your assumptions about food safety advocates?
MW
@ Milky Way: You're so somnolent, MW, you don't even realize what I was saying. Never mind.
1. We're self-evidently not wrong, as the simple legal existence of CAFOs, among other things, proves.
2. So what if we were "wrong" about your government's "good intentions"? That wouldn't touch the fact that the goal is for communities to take responsibility for ourselves, including taking back our Food Sovereignty.
Meanwhile, humanity doesn't need or want your mythical good-intentioned corporate "food safety" types, let alone the cadres of tyranny we actually have in reality.
@ Russ: I wondered if you had read that link (in an above post from Milky Way) about the Italian raw milk/vending machine information? If not, I encourage you to open and read it, not because the article itself is all that wonderful, but scroll on down to the reader comments section. The arguments put forth by those advocates/supporters of the Food Safety Network are nothing short of downright hilarious. Those doods over at that site actually believe (apparently deep down in their hearts) that the FDA and the USDA and the CDC et al are truly looking out for our (read: the public) welfare, in regard to food safety (different from food rights in their eyes). I mean, these guys are seriously thinking that those governmental departments and agencies are THERE for us!! Holy socks.
I wish there was some way to tell who sponsors that site for the Bill Marler kool-aid drinkers. No doubt some agency with an alphabet logo.
Yes, those comments are idiotic. The existence of CAFOs, and the ongoing commercialization of GMOs with zero safety testing, are just two examples proving the "Food Safety" regime cares nothing about food safety.
Since the Marler site is overtly mercenary, maintained by a for-profit entity, it can also be secretive. (With NGO sites they have to do more disclosure, so it's usually easy to see how they're really corporate front groups.) So we don't know how much money they're getting from Monsanto, Cargill, Dean Foods, etc.
Meanwhile the history of the FDA and USDA (typical of regulatory bureaucracies) as seeing themselves as serving the corporate interest over the public interest is well documented since at least the 1960s. Those who continue to carry water for the "public interest" focus of these cadres, e.g. at the Marler site or here, are either willfully ignorant of this clear history, or lying about it.
btw... this is a great analysis of the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall aftermath:
http://lbo-news.com/2012/06/06/walkers-victory-un-sugar-coated/
I particularily agreed with this part:
"A major reason for the perception that unions mostly help insiders is that it’s true. Though unions sometimes help out in living wage campaigns, they’re too interested in their own wages and benefits and not the needs of the broader working class."
In related news... images from the uprising in Syria, transmitted by their communist party, and put to the tune of the international (the most translated song in history... this one sung in Arabic):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzOY43KTxJU&feature=topics
I could write for days about the International and its history... it originates in France. Enough said.
yeah, they were singing the Internationale in Russia, lustily, while liquidateing 10 million of their own citizens deemed "class enemies". And in Red China, too, as the body count got up around 70 million - both, their own figures, mind you. Ironically, every time the commies take over a country, among the first to get bullet in the back of the head, are the comsymps and effete intellectuals
I sure hope we can count on your ending "Enough said"
We see how it all depends on milk drinkers to actively support the farmers who put their necks out this way. So the main strategy here for a political movement should be to educate and organize as many such milk drinkers as possible, toward the most active support possible. That will have to mean blurring the false line between producer and consumer as much as possible, toward abolishing and transcending it completely.
I know in Europe that raw milk consumption is legal in some places, including raw milk in vending machines. Do people get sick over there? I will have a glass of raw milk while I wait for the answer.
Joelie, There have been some illnesses in Europe from raw and pasteurized dairy. It is vilified there as it is here. Keep in mind who wrote the following study. The raw dairy illnesses don't appear to be very prevalent.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:sAPJ_8bz7yIJ:www.adsa.org/sym...
Meant it is "NOT" vilified..
Raw milk is not vilified in Europe as it is here.
hmm... might this have to do with their more socialistic politics in Europe?
"might this have to do with their more socialistic politics in Europe?"
Nope, just plain common sense.
Sylvia-
Most European countries require that raw milk sold directly to the public meet minimum public health standards. This includes coming from a herd that tests free of Tuberculosis and Brucellosis, maximum SPC (Standard Plate Count) & Coliforms, and regular pathogen testing of the milk.
We have witnessed immense opposition to such public health standards for raw milk in the US, on the basis of supposedly common sense "libertarian" ideology. Meanwhile, as US cow shares cause major outbreaks (like the recent E. Coli outbreak in Oregon), raw milk destined for pasteurization here has stricter bacterial standards than raw milk for sale to the general public.
Please tell me who is the one with common sense? Don't you agree that raw milk being sold to the public for direct fluid consumption should test cleaner than raw milk for pasteurization? Or is that too socialistic for you? Should we continue with the "laissez-faire" attitude about raw milk quality and safety?
"Or is that too socialistic for you? "
What kind of question is this? What is the purpose in asking such a question? Are you deliberately trying to be inflammatory? If so for what purpose?
A little reminder to "you know who you are," when you know you are right you do not need to attack or demean others to prove it. A little humility goes a long way towards credibility.
Btw, that comment was not directed specifically at Bil A, but to the many incessant dissonant attempts at racionalizing that since others disagree, they must be wrong or ignorant. Please say it with respect or say it in private, it is not pretty. Thank you, now back to my cave.
I'm sorry Sylvia. My words were perhaps too inflammatory towards you, because I have a habit of getting very defensive about this issue. My point is simply that "common sense" should suggest that raw milk for raw consumption should have cleaner bacterial standards than raw milk for pasteurization, but this seemingly common sense proposal has been the source of considerable controversy within the movement due to excessive "libertarian" ideology.
@BillAnderson: "My point is simply that "common sense" should suggest that raw milk for raw consumption should have cleaner bacterial standards than raw milk for pasteurization . . ."
No.
I mean, why should the stuff meant for pasteurization have a different standard? Shouldn't it ALL be treated equally, in the cleanliness department? See, herein lies the problem.
And it has nothing to do with your constant harping on the "libertarian" ideology. I don't see common sense in that statement, at all.
D. Smith,
When talking about the stuff meant for pastuerization, are you talking about pre- or post- pastuerization? Grade A standards (outside of California) require pre-pastuerized milk have an SPC under 100,000 CFU/ml, and post-pastuerized under 20,000 CFU/ml for the duration of its shelf-life.
Raw milk for raw consumption needs to meet the standard for post-pasteurized milk, and exceed the standard for pre-pasteurized. There are also subjects to consider like anti-biotics, the Johnes/Crohnes mycobacterium, etc...
It is a very complex subject, I hope you understand... It might help this discussion if you had an education in dairy food science.
@ BillAnderson: Hey, dude, I was responding to YOUR statement (see the quotation marks?) and this would, according to your statement be pre-pasteurized (at least I think that was your intent in the quoted material). Forget all the CFU/ml stuff - the fact of the matter is that you like to confuse things and I'm keeping it very simple here. Raw milk intended for pasteurization needs to have the same cleanliness strategies as raw milk intended for consumption in its raw form (non-pasteurized). And yes, I understand the complexity issues I just don't use them after the fact like you do. One doesn't need a degree in dairy food science to see what's stuck to the shovel here.
“Raw milk is not vilified in Europe as it is here.
hmm... might this have to do with their more socialistic politics in Europe?”
Perhaps, however Europeans know what it means to have to go without food and are very protective of their gastronomic history. It would be political suicide for politicians despite their political ideology to attempt to manipulate food choice in Europe to the extent, which has occurred here in North America.
Ken
Europeans are denied the choice of GMOs, Ken, yet no European politician I am aware of is at risk of losing his/her office over it.
Protection of gastronomic history is accomplished through the (semi-socialistic) AOC system in France, DOP in Italy and Spain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d'origine_contr%C3%B4l%C3%A9e
It is worth noting that while extensive AOC protections exist for raw milk cheese, there are no such market protections for fluid raw milk. It seems the French understand that cheese is the best way to deliver the nutrients in raw milk, for a number of reasons (food safety, flavor, shelf-life, easier storage & transport due to less weight in water per unit of fat/protein) a point which is worth repeating.
Bill, just curious... what do you use for rennet in your cheeses, more specifically is it organic? Fyi I use http://www.cheesemaking.com/OrganicVegetableRennet.html
And btw, I would much rather have my government protect me from having a choice of GMOs, rather than forcing them on me without proper labeling. YMMV
Sometimes no choice is better, but we're on the wrong side of that coin.
Ora, I use only veal rennet, because it produces the best cheeses. In France, any cheese which bears the label "fermier" (meaning farmstead) must be made with animal rennet. Its another one of their socialistic market protections for artisinal dairy producers.
Unfortunately, in the US there is only one company that produces veal rennet, and it was recently bought out by Cargill. However, I just learned of a source of veal rennet from New Zealand that does not co
(Sorry prematurely posted)
...however, I just learned of a source of veal rennet from New Zealand that does not contain any of the chemical preservatives used in the US veal rennet made by Cargill. I may switch to this rennet when my current supply runs out.
If you know of any sources of organic and/or Kosher veal rennet available commercially in the US, I'd be very interested. There are none to my knowledge.
@Bill Anderson: What about those who do not like cheese?
No, this is not about cheese vs raw milk, as much as you'd like it to be, just because of some "AOC protections". Wasn't it some type of cheese which made a bunch of people sick some time back?? I don't know details as I wasn't following the whole internet raw milk thing at the time, but I do recall reading something about cheese being at fault. Probably some sort of cheese which didn't fall under the AOC protection thingy?
Thank you. It seems none of this is nearly as scary as reading the school lunch menu every week.
@ Joelie Hicks: I agree. The folks here at this blog who comment continuously about food safety regulations don't seem at all concerned about this issue, do they? I just read something recently which said the lowest grade foodstuffs (including scrap meats, etc) are packaged and sent off to school lunch programs across the nation. That is simply disgusting. I'm surely glad my kids are grown and not subjected to such thuggery.
"That will have to mean blurring the false line between producer and consumer as much as possible, toward abolishing and transcending it completely." = which is the essence of "cow-sharing" ... Assertion of the right to use and enjoy one's own private property in association with others- freely, rather than at the point of a gun. The way we organize the owners, is, by getting them to capitalize the enterprise, and pay the agistment fee in advance, thus, taking responsibility for their own food and medicine. Self-reliance and self-government at the very most basic level ... a couple of the core values of white Christian America.
"Food rights opponents are enjoying the infighting immensely."
While I can't speak to the legality Of the herd share arrangements that MW touches on above, I do not appreciate your analysis, David.
It is not black or white, us vs them. Your "war" is a sham.
I think the major mistake being made by litigators is, along with the institution typically named in the suit, separate suits need to be launched against individuals who are administering these actions, especially when they are of questionable legality. this should be done in every circumstance. If found to be part of a pattern of organized criminal misbehavior, the R.I.C.O. act might even come into play.
Eric Vimont is a hero! Thank you for bravely pushing back against regulations (and misplaced interpretation of regulations) that do not provide food safety but merely interfere in farmer to consumer transactions.
"In this, the richest land in the world, in all history, there's no excuse for not being able to purchase good food."
Wow, who defines "good food"? You? The govt? Income levels vary widely and dictates what people buy. Not everyone buys sodas, chips, etc, or eats fast foods on a daily or weekly bases. Nor does everyone go to the movies often, at $8 to $18 per person, not including drinks or snacks is expensive, and if you have to pay a sitter, it's even more.
When my husband was in the military, many of his co-workers qualified for food stamps. Had he made @ $50 less we too would have qualified.
With so many out of work and/or with hours cut, I would expect people to hold onto their money. With a US median household income of less than $50000 people aren't going to spend $15 for one gal of milk.
You can search for past posts I did on dividing the income down to what was left after taxes, utilities, insurance, car payments, etc. and what was left weekly for food and emergent issues, it wasn't much. People will buy according to income and what they know about food/preparation.
Jesus said "the poor you will always have with you" ... you can keep on singing that sad song, if it consoles you in your poverty frame of mind = looking down at the problem, or you can change your circumstances ... raising your eyes to locate solutions. I don't entertain excuses for failure on something as basic as providing for our children . Informed consumers who appreciate value, happily spend $18.50 per gallon, here. On my website, see a photo of me holding a jar of precious X factor butter oil @ $100 per pint ... tangible results culminating 5 years' effort, after being inspired by reading about Weston A Price's discovery < www.freewebs.com/bovinity > What is it those customers know, that you have yet to find out?
You continue to refuse to answer a simple question, why is there such a price disparity in different parts of the country. I was open to the idea that there might be a legitimate reason, but the fact that you answer with nothing but belligerence and obfuscation has caused me to think it's really just jacking up the price for those same effete foodies you otherwise despise.
As for your sneers at humanity, that's beneath contempt. But since we're on the subject, here's from the prior thread:
"guys like me, who hold that a farm family ought to be able to live at a middle-class level"
Why just a middle class level? Is that any way for a self-respecting Galtian "wealth creator" to talk? Surely a superhero of "wealth creation" ought to be able to do better than that. Otherwise why believe in such immoral, idiotic drivel? It sounds to me like you're a loser by your own Hobbesian measure. But I'm sure that totally-legit $100 snake oil will save you!
(And if it could, it would just be pirated from you by the same big corporations you worship.)
We see how much you care about others, and as you give, so shall you receive (and deserve).
at law there's a test : "but for" ... indication of how much I care about others is, that 1000+ people are getting REAL MILK today, within 100 miles of Chilliwack BC, because I had the initiative 10 years ago, to make REAL MILK available in BC for whoever wants it and did something about it. I put about $15,000 of my own cash into the project, as well. Pray tell, what were you doing in the summer of 2007, when I started delivering the goods to the Big City, in the face of high-priced lawyers, who told me it couldn't be done?
The photo on my website = me holding a pint of 2012 - first fruits / fabulous, golden Xfactor butter oil - is precious to me as an icon of my payoff. such medicine is nothing less than miraculous ... But you - never having read what a genius Weston A Price was - wouldn't know that. So your children won't have perfect teeth. Incidentally : Do you have any children, Russ? or are you another one of the dunces prattling-on about how to govern "the next generation", yet you've effectively castrated yourself "in the interests of humanity", ending the line of 3700 years of men who cared enough, and sacrificed, so you could see the light of day. Whosoever despiseth his heritage, shall lose it
Information about "price" is feedback producers MUST get, in order to navigate. I'm happy to give away my knowledge and experience about that topic, to people whom I feel deserve it = producers ... which lets you out, Mister Russ. But I'll give you this much for free : read "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith ( his pen name) in which he tells you everything one needs to know, about it. Set that against ...what, 3 centuries ? ... of proof that his analysis was correct
The REAL MILK is flowing here today in BC, meanwhile the Adversaries slunk away with their tail between their legs
Much of Adam Smith's work in the Wealth of Nations was plagiarized from Medieval Islamic authors, Watson. What are you trying to tell me here?
Oh that's right... your worship of the particular European varient of the Abrahamic religious traditions. Never mind that Europeans before the often violent imposition of Christianity were pagans.
what I was trying to tell you - with my limited command of the English language - is how Robbie Burns put it ... " would that God the giftie gi'e us to see ourselves as others see us" = fanatically assailing everything to do with white Christian culture and accomplishment, you're a cartoon character of what the public fool system has produced in Ham-merica ... self-hating feminazis, drinking each other's intellectual bathwater, stalled-out in adolescence, committing racial suicide. But not to worry = life is so much easier since I became a Calvinist : your stupidity and its consequences, are my problem. "Some vessels are made for service ; some vessels are made for honor ; some vessels are made for destruction"
correction = your stupidity and its consequences are NOT my problem
Exactly, Watson. I'm a stalled-out adolescent feminazi, the product of the "public fool" system (never mind that I was taught grammer by nuns, and left a public university by choice to avoid excessive student debt), and I'm committing racial suicide.
Get a grip, Watson.
Ack! A Calvinist! I was close when I mentioned Harold Camping :)
Okay, enough about religion (probably).
We have confirmation. You have no answer.
(Needless to say, no one asked to see your books. We asked for something along the lines of, "our eggs are priced higher because we maintain a low ratio of chickens to pasture, let our older chickens live out their lives, and supplement their pasture with certified organic feed", to give an example from a local farm with rather expensive eggs. You clearly have nothing to say which is even that general.)
**
Adam Smith is based on a fundamental fraud (that humans naturally "truck and barter"; the historical fact is that natural, human economies have overwhelmingly been cooperative), and his "analysis" was nothing of the sort. On the contrary, like his predecessor Hobbes, he was presenting an ideological blueprint from which policy was supposed to follow. It's cute that you have such abysmal understanding of arithmetic, if you think 3 centuries is a long time, compared to the anthropological record of tens of thousands of years!
By the way, if you actually read Smith, you know he wanted massive government interference in markets, and not just to create "capitalism" in the first place (which government did; to repeat, "markets" are naturally cooperative and local/regional), but also to regulate it.
My, my Mr. Watson! Temper, temper...
Attacking someone for being childless is a rash thing to do, sir. Unless you know Russ very well, you have no knowledge as to why he is childless. Many people now are having trouble finding compatible spouses, or have fertility problems. You might want to be be careful before you attack some poor person who has suffered miscarriages or stillbirths.
Or, don't you care about hurting people? Your religion is looking about as appealing as Harold Camping's.
20% of the women who walked in to an abortuary and terminated their pregnancy, walked out infertile. A few years on the front-lines of that controversy fine-tuned my sensitivity to what comes out of the mouths, and pens, of guys like Misters Russ and Anderson. Scratch them and you'll find out they're feminst zealots, with an insane rationalization for artificial abortion, ie 'there are too many humans.' Tragically, they're brainwashed to remove their ilk from the genepool. Perhaps the theory of evolution does have merit, after all ... leaving it to me and my kinsmen to prevail with our religion formulated by bronze-age sheepherders
'there are too many humans.'
Isn't it Adam Smith sycophants like you who always say that, with your lies about natural "scarcity"?
Meanwhile in reality natural resources are abundant, and it's only capitalism which seeks to make them artificially scarce, and to bring about conditions where there are "too many humans".
Great point, Russ :)
I urge you to step back, Russ, and read what I actually post, rather than interpreting it all through your incredibly-twisted prejudice. How you can be so literate, yet pervert the meaning of what I post, 180 degrees, is explain-able only through bad faith on your part. I'm about as much a 'Statist', as Davy Crockett
I sat at the feet of Buckminster Fuller, as he taught us 'there's more than enough'. In 1967, Fuller's opening line to audiences of university students, was "you have to UNlearn what you think you know, that is wrong, before you can begin to learn that which is correct". In those days, Paul Ehrlich was big news with his scare-mongering bestseller "the Population Bomb". Fuller posed the question " if all the people in the world were put in average night-club proximity, how much area would they take up?" Most people guessed 'the size of the US', or "Texas' or some huge landmass. In fact, in those days when the population was 3 billion, they could all fit on the island of Bermuda. His point being : indeed, humans do 'sweep out' the entire planet. But it's incorrect to think there are 'too many people'.
Fuller taught us what real capital is, versus the imaginary 'money' emitted by "FinCap" = his term for the Banksters. His definition of true wealth, was : "future support capability" He was not just a commentator. He was a contemporary of Howard Hughes - characters larger than life, participating in industry, dealing face to face with the operators of the financial racket.
He used "pre-cession" to illustrate how true capitalism, at its best, is human ingenuity engaging the natural world to bring forth unexpected benefits for everyone. Then the cost per unit goes down as a new technology penetrates to the extremities of society. For instance : there are more cell phones in India, than indoor toilets : Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?
"20% of the women who walked in to an abortuary and terminated their pregnancy, walked out infertile. "
Please do post where you got this information.
I spent about a decade out on the sidewalk, handing out literature on this issue, with provenance for our assertions from the very best medical science, proving the point beyond dispute. That chapter is over for me. I raise it on this forum, only for examples from my own experience, which help people understand the political movement to have raw milk normalized. "infertility" does not mean "sterility". It includes the cohort of women who do conceive, yet cannot carry that pregnancy to full term. I could go into great detail about the medical consequences of the elective procedure, but I won't. Suffice to say ; one of the common ones, is the muscle tone of the cervix is ruined. Your local ( so-called ) Pro-Life society will have all the hard evidence you want = if you can handle it
I'm not surprised that you have not posted any links to research your statement. FYI, the cervix is composed of dense connective tissue, with very little smooth muscle. Those horrid prolifers verbally assaulted my daughter as she was walking into a building for physical therapy. They threatened her with bodily harm. There are extremist in most every group. That is one group I want nothing to do with.
well, be assured that doesn't happen anymore - your precious little girl hearing a discouraging word in a public place ... the horror of being importuned by someone expressing their opinion on the public sidewalk!! I simply do not believe you when you say "they threatened her with bodily harm" ... ProLifers did not do that. And they sure don't do it since the FACE law came in. My forte was running to earth, such false accusations. For which I became one of the most dangerous men in BC = so dangerous, that is, to the govt. peddling its lies that they sent me to gaol to prevent me reaching the public conscience.
The converse is : what really went on out there = us being threatened daily with violence : I laid 3 charges of assault, against men who erupted when I confronting them for having killed their own child. Let's not go on about that. The conclusion of the whole matter is : if someone wants to kill her own child, that's her and/ or his perogative. But don't ask me to pay for your God damned elective surgery
Since you weren't there, you assume much. They were verbally abusive, and verbally threatening her physical life. I could care less what you believe. I was there. We didn't even know the 9 story building had an abortion clinic in it, until then.
David, I am requesting an 'ignore' button.....for now will just skip the select few.
There are many reasons people are unable to reproduce. I think I've already tipped my hand on the abortion topic (don't worry-I'm not going there again, folks) but I would never assume all infertility is the result of abortion. I also think it's wrong to hammer on those who have made that mistake and are suffering from it.
I never said I was childless. I would never dignify this person by answering his personal questions. I'm focused on the fact that he refuses to answer questions about the milk and health supplement business.
Hi Russ,
I think you misunderstood my point. Mr. Watson has spoken twice in a manner that assumes you are childless. My comment was intended to remind him that IF indeed you are so, he doesn't know why and is being offensive in general to people who want to have children and are unable to.
Somehow, I do not think Mr Watson cares one iota about what anyone thinks. That may be a good thing in maintaining moral strength in the face of adversity, when used as attacking tool while at the same time refusing to answer simple questions in a public forum... maybe not.
So mr Watson, I ask again: How do you set your prices? Is there a constant logical ratio to your costs, or is it arbitrary based on your perception of wealth building?
People who are childless, but aren't getting pregnant would do well to read about women who were in that same situation, as reported in the Bible. Then do what they did for the remedy. God Almighty is the Life Giver. He's the One who shuts and opens the womb.
Gordon, answer the question already it's been asked a dozen times: How do you set your pricing? Is that too difficult or complex to answer? Please... you are so single/narrow minded as to be considered as many here do, delusional and offensive.
Me, I would still rather hear your rants than shut them out alltogether, because it helps me figure out where I stand. Do you understand that the winners write the history books? And what does that say about your bible? I was raised a strict Christian Catholic but eventually rejected it much to the chagrin of my parents and former teachers. Do you grant your descendents that choice? God is just a word, or concept. Mother nature, you can't fool.
pricing is a most important aspect of the Campaign for REAL MILK. I want to do it justice by giving a good answer. In a nutshell : my answer is that people will always get what they want, whether it's called "the free market", or "the black market". Mark McAfee says that 'his customers will tell a farmer everything he needs to know" ... especially, what the market will bear.
For starters : this part of British Columbia has some of the highest prices on the continent, for property. Gasoline is $6.50 per US gallon. The farm we're on was for sale at $1.25 million for 23 acres of average pasture, right next to the Freeway, with a tiny house and nothing special in the way of outbuildings. You could buy something equivalent in Washington State - literally within sight across the border - for about 1/4 of that.
PRicing has to take into account all the factors in the different ways REAL MILK is presented. We deliver ours in glass jars, with high-quality food-grade plastic lids. See the photos on my website*. The package costs $3 each, new. The dishwashing cycle recycles them sterile, for the next use. We're sure it tastes better that way. Most of the raw milk dairies which SELL raw milk, do not do use glass. For instance ; someone selling milk in the $5 range, is probably demanding the customer to show up at the farm, with their own container.
Of the $18.50 per gallon we pay in the agistment fee, $2.50 of that right off the top goes to the govt. as tax upon the service business ... Canada being the socialist utopia, it is, it falls upon the farmer to actually pay the freight for the delusions of the parasites infesting the govt.
Our cows are out on pasture year-round, but we do feed the best quality hay for about 6 months, plus a very small amount of grain at milking time. But that grain bill adds up to over $3000 per month for 30 cows, 20 of which are in milk today.
Producing the milk, is one thing. Getting it to those who want it, in the Big City, up to 80 miles away, is a major component of the total price. When I see a price go by on the forum, I presume it doesn't include delivery, unless they say so.
My answer in the larger frame of reference is ; in order to continue, an enterprise MUST make an increase and consolidate it in one form or another. Gold / silver being the format of last resort. If a farmer isn't coming out ahead, it's only a matter of time til he's out of biz. Where you gonna get your milk then? So the maxim is ; you MUST maximize your advantage, while you have it. Because you won't always have it. An entrepreneur should ask whatever the traffick will stand, then pay close attention to the feedback. The free market will determine what's 'fair'. The proper role of govt. in all this, is, to guarantee the quality of the coinage; it's the standard everyone needs for an orderly market which benefits the common weal. Which is why our God and those who founded the Republic, made tampering with it, a death penalty offence
Great stuff Gordon, thanks. While we do not always agree with you, it is always enlightening to have the perspective when you open up and explain these things. I know you understand that not all of us can have the first hand experience other than sooner or later getting food sickness (or having a child go through it,) which is a natural part of the food chain regardless of milk or no milk/cheese/meat/fruit/anything that comes after mom's milk. Chickens and cows do not eat coins or dollar bills.
But please, can you leave the God/religion part out of it? Pretty please? That does not resonate with many of us, and is a major conandrum and mostly a personal decision having nothing to do with milk or GMO choices. I have a day old newborn chick in my pocket to keep it warm because it couldn't keep up with his momma and the other newborns, now there's a life and death experience we should all have.
"My answer in the larger frame of reference is ; in order to continue, an enterprise MUST make an increase and consolidate it in one form or another. Gold / silver being the format of last resort. If a farmer isn't coming out ahead, it's only a matter of time til he's out of biz. Where you gonna get your milk then? So the maxim is ; you MUST maximize your advantage, while you have it. Because you won't always have it. An entrepreneur should ask whatever the traffick will stand, then pay close attention to the feedback. The free market will determine what's 'fair'. The proper role of govt. in all this, is, to guarantee the quality of the coinage..."
This is exactly the death march mentality which is destroying humanity.
You must think a farmer like Joel Salatin who professes the exact contrary principles is insane.
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/principles/
In fact Salatin is right, in the long run nothing can work contrary to nature. This rules out fossil-fueled industrial agriculture as such, and the psychopathic "growth" mentality.
Meanwhile your quotes are all over the place. You want a "free market" artificially propped up and regulated by government. Big Government and its taxation burden are bad but also good. Government should get off our backs but should also fabricate coinage (which Jesus, by the way, taught us to reject), force us to use it, hand over control of it to private banks, and literally kill those who scoff at the fraudulent "legitimacy" of such coinage. Government should string barbed wire across the land and call it "property" and parcel it out with no reference to productive use of it, but we should also whine about how much this property then costs (according to the price in government-imposed money). Government should build highways, and we should love these highways, but we should also whine about their effect on "property" costs. (A reminder, these are all priced according to this wondrous government-driven "free market".) The corporate/government system imposes all these onerous financial burdens and yet we should act in accord with it and seek to perpetuate and intensify it. We should have values (and be "Christians", no less), but also have a purely mercenary view of everyone else. In all things - money, relationships, violence, etc. - we should "charge what the market will bear". Might Makes Right forever.
Meanwhile, Food Sovereignty is the philosophy and set of practices which would truly reject all artificial interference in human economies and restore these economies to natural, purely demand-based scales, in part by abolishing the artificial separation of food producers and consumers.
Why can't the customers take the milk in glass jars and then bring back the empty jars, the way we do it where my milk comes from? Oh, I forgot, we're a bunch of commies or something, and our far less expensive way can't work. Except that it does.
"Producing the milk, is one thing. Getting it to those who want it, in the Big City, up to 80 miles away, is a major component of the total price. When I see a price go by on the forum, I presume it doesn't include delivery, unless they say so."
Yes, Salatin does refuse to engage in most forms of delivery, precisely because that leads to the totalitarian "growth" mentality you laud here.
Meanwhile, if someone picks up the milk at your farm is it much cheaper?
Is that why the containers aren't a closed loop within your transactions, because the customers are all unnaturally far away?
So is that the basis of these price discrepancies, that we're talking about the difference between trying to integrate raw milk into the corporate growth economy (along with its pernicious ideology), vs. a raw milk economy which is part of the contrary movement to relocalize food economies, thereby restoring their natural character? Which is the issue which first led me to start commenting here.
Russ : I do my best to make myself intelligible. Scrambling my message so badly and confusing my words to suit your boggled view of the world, all you do is prove bad faith. You have a serious case of "oppositional authority syndrome" (* saracasm alert here, folks! ) but I'm not your real target, am I? Better you figure out who you're really mad at. The battle is in the mind, and you're losing ....
We had a good day at the farm yesterday, with Michael Schmidt here to greet members, on his way down to Oregon. The REAL MILK continues to flow in BC : Our Cows is prospering after fending-off the latest attack by the so-called Health Authorities ... thus, your convoluted kvetching is irrelevant to what we are doing. "Do-ing" : got that ? I recommend you find another political issue, in which you can make a positive contribution, because your all your addled verbiage - lacking practical engagment with the reality of dairying- is a stone drag on the Campaign for REAL MILK. Or, as the Jamaicans would say to you = 'you're chatting shit, man'
@ Russ: That's why I started commenting here too, Russ. Raw milk producers should stay small and local, in my personal opinion. It is when they try to go big that we run into problems, for the most part. Not that small farmers can't have issues, but it's a lot less likely. Having grown up drinking raw milk from our own cows, we never "tested" for anything - my Dad brought it to the house in a bucket and we drank it. No one was ever sick nor did we ever even consider that someone might get sick. It just wasn't a factor because we only drank our own milk, and only occasionally gave some to neighbors or friends. If my Dad were still alive today, things would still be the same. He would refuse to go big with something like raw milk simply because he felt, and taught us, the integrity of such a fragile product should never be compromised for a buck. On the part of today's society, localized food buying would bring the focus back into line, I believe. But that's just me. Homesteading needs to make a reappearance, and the way things are going, I think it will out of necessity.
D. Smith,
Kudos, but do not underestimate the responsibility, even if small.
http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com/PDFs/raw-dairy-outbreak-table.pdf
MW
It's not just you. For obvious reasons, perishability and seasonality most of all, food economies and markets are naturally local/regional. (Mass refrigeration including in distribution and warehousing is a temporary, ahistorical feature of the fossil fuel age.)
So it's no accident that every pathology of food itself, and of the political/economic structures that are developed around it, is generated or greatly aggravated by unnatural artifices like food commodification, globalization, corporatization.
Food relocalization is therefore not only a moral, political, cultural, spiritual imperative, but also a practical one.
Mr. Watson,
I think a major reason our farm is more reasonably priced is the active participation by the customers. They come to the farm to pick up their milk; some are members of a small local group of families and take turns picking up for each other.
We pay a deposit on the glass jars in advance, then return them to the farm each time we buy more milk.
The cows are pastured most of the time (as far as I can tell), fed hay in the winter and some grain as well.
They employ 2 people who sterilize the jars, assist with milking, etc.
If a customer cannot afford the $5, the farmers will give them the milk at a reduced price.
Some of their practices I'm not big on and these may help them keep the price down. For example, using artificial insemination to breed the cows and separating calves from mothers. Possibly other things I'm not even aware of. Still, it's far better than industrial milk and they're continuing the vital practice of small, local farming.
They don't seem to have the contemptuous attitude towards their customers that you have, likely because they see them in person all the time and because the customers are actively involved in the transaction.
I have a couple of questions: What is the income of your average customer (approximately)? If a person can't pay the full price, do you reduce it for them?
Also, do any of your customers come to your farm?
show me where I've ever said a word expressing "contempt" for our shareholders?! Rather, I congratulate them - in person, at the depots - for continuing to support the enterprise along the learning curve, especially, through all the legal non-sense ... the best way they can = performing on their end of the bar-gain.
In 2009, when govt. ( so-called ) Health Authorities defamed our dairy, dumped our property down the sewer pretending it was 'not fit for human consumption', with the outright lie that 'a child was lying ill in hospital after drinking raw milk from Home on the Range', shareholders didn't even flinch. They had such confidence in the quality of the milk, and the integrity of the Agister.
I'd say about a few dozen out of around 450 households, do show up at the farm, to get their property. That's because they live close-by. It's open to others to do so, but most of them live up to 80 miles away, in the Big City of Vancouver. I'd guess that the mean annual household income for shareholders, would be $80,000 Cdn. With a few at both ends of the spectrum of income. This is not a charity ... it's a service business, and like all small businesses in growth mode, it is voracious for capital. We cannot aford to give it away. One of the lessons the commies never learn is ; with capital derived from true profit - instead of imaginary funds emitted by a Bankster waving his magic wand - an enterprise can do more of what it does, and do it better, thus reducing the unit cost. Thus, genuine capital-ism, using honest money, benefits society as a whole. We saw this in America, from the Coinage Act of 1792, until the vipers succeeded in de-linking the silver dollar, in 1873.
There is only one exception to paying the full price ( of which I'm aware) : that being, a man who absolutely has to have it for medicine yet is broke. His story is one of the miraculous anecdotes of healing, which began when he started consuming by REAL MILK
reflecting on the last 5 years, it becomes clear that, by demanding they underwrite the capital cost of the cows / equipment, then pay the Agister in advance, I made shareholders UNlearn the Babylonian model wherein the end-user pays the usury charges compounded all along the line of supply. The REAL MILK battle is between the masters of the usury system working their ages-long plan for one world govt, versus practitioners of the free market. At the very bottom, it's the Battle of the Ages. Which is why I keep pointing out the factors of race, and religion. The antichrists know that ( over the long haul ) dairying is one of the most profitable things to do, enabling a small-holder to make a living from the natural world, and so be independent of their iniquitous system. Honest money versus 'the image of money', is what it's all about.
I was wondering-how does one explain the infertility problem in men? That definitely can't be explained by abortion.
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