Jenny Samuelson was all set to do the deal dictated by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development: Dispose of nearly $5,000 worth of raw milk, cream, butter, eggs, and cheese. Under MDARD supervision, she was to bring the 250 gallons of milk to a neighboring farm, where the farmer would use it for fertilizer. The 10 gallons of cream and 20 pounds of butter would go in a dumpster. And the 100 dozen beautiful unwashed and unrefrigerated pastured eggs (raised without soy feed) would be smashed and turned into compost.
She would also discontinue all deliveries of cream and butter to herdshare members, despite their serious unhappiness about losing access to these foods.
But then the MDARD agents canceled out on the Saturday morning arrangements whereby they would observe the disposal of the food. They then said they would show up Monday morning. So she waits, and ponders her options.
Samuelson is pretty upset, as you might expect. She was trying to be an obedient citizen so she could have unfettered access to her refrigerated delivery truck and resume deliveries of raw milk. She had made the hard decision to go against what she feels is right and just, because she didnt want to risk any further interruption in deliveries for the more than 600 families around Michigan that depend on her food.
She is still smarting from last Tuesdays raid on her delivery truck in Washington Township, which saw agents from MDARD swarm aboard the delivery truck while it was stopped in a private parking lot, with her brother as driver. She thinks they had been following her and the truck for a number of day beforehand, and picked last Tuesday morning to do the raid instead of when she was driving, because they knew her brother likely wouldnt know to demand a search warrant, and the presence of the local sheriff or police before being allowed (or possibly not being allowed) to take people’s food.
They told her brother it would take an hour to look through the Co-Ops inventoryinstead it took six-and-a-half hours.
Later, the MDARD told her she was prohibited from giving the food to a farmer as feed for his pigs, since she didnt have a feed license.
Perhaps most significant, she doesnt feel they had the right to prevent the food from being delivered in the first place. They didnt seize my products, she says. They seized the consumers products.
Samuelson has been doing this drill for more than six years–during which time her co-op has grown from 20 members to more than 600– and knows the rules well. She says the cream and butter the MDARD was supposedly targeting were produced separately by the farmer from milk the members obtained as herdshare members, under contract to them individually. She also faults the special policy group that agreed with the MDARD last year in its policy statement that sanctioned herdshares for raw milk, but disallowed other raw dairy products. “I wasn’t allowed to have a voice in that,” despite her requests.
She wanted to feed the condemned food to Mark Baker’s pigs, or some other pigs, but state ag reps had told her she couldn’t feed the food to farm animals because she didn’t have a feed permit, and insisted the food be destroyed with MDARD agents watching.
Baker is the Michigan farmer who continued raising pigs the state considered wild, and he got the state to agree that he could continue raising the pigs after he sued the the Department of Natural Resources. He had a planned “Constitution Hall” program on slate for Sunday, at which Richard Mack, the former Arizona sheriff, will be discussing how the U.S. has veered from upholding its Constitution. Baker will be talking about his plans to run for Missaukee County sheriff. And there will be a pig roast for the many attendees expected.
Samuelson is going to have some very unhappy members based on her decision to refrain from delivering the raw cream and butter. They are very pissed, she says.
She is encouraging them to sue the state much like Mark Baker did. In the meantime, she is encouraging them to flood the MDARD with calls. Here are people she urges her members and sympathizers to contact:
Kevin Besey, director of the Food and Dairy Division, Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (phone 517-582-1156 or e-mail beseyk@michigan.gov)
Tim Slawinski, Compliance Manager, Food and Dairy Division (phone 517-420-5364 or e-mail slawinskit@michigan.gov)
In a letter to her members Saturday, she said: The only way we can get cream and butter back is to WIN this war! You the people can do it!
(This post was revised on Sunday, July 20, to update the situation.)
Ken
John, there are some extenuating circumstances here. A big one is that members are scattered widely around the state. Most are 1 1/2-2 1/2 hours from the farm.They are accustomed to their food being dropped off at certain spots at certain times. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t come to the farm and pick up their food in this crisis situation, but that hasn’t been the model.
As such I would ask those who might know or can find out… does Mr. Besey or Slawinski smoke or use alcohol or other drugs prescription or not? Eat GMO foods at mainstream chain restaurants? What’s his driving record? Infidelity? Cruelty to animals and or humans? If people were to go after him as he is doing to others it might affect his perception, or his diet. Expose.
It is time for the Moody Brand of leadership and take this opportunity by the horns. It is this kind of incident that galvanizes a movement. To miss this opportunity is really tragic. The emotions, the waste, the subject matter!!! This movement must become better at the strategies and tactics of using this government atrocity to educate the general public and expose the true story about foods and our cause
Mark Baker assured me earlier today that the video cameras would be recording. He also said a couple media were already planning to be there for Richard Mack. The media will now have an unexpected bonus for coverage.
If our State needed to see more people in order to convince them of what we desired, they don’t know much about this State in regard to its geography and population and how spread out we are here in the western half. It’s almost all pasture or set-aside National Grassland, few people. Incidently, that’s why I love it here . . . :))))
So a show of support and just plain doing whatever they need to do to get the job done is probably necessary at this point for My Family Co-op. I hope all the raw milk supporters poke a finger into the chest of the regulators – with gusto.
Mr. Kevin Besey,
You might want to consider changing the practices of your agency workers as it relates to violating the rights of citizens and performing overreaching sting operations on milk and milk-product deliveries. The recent bully tactics of your department far exceeded what was necessary in the case of Ms. Jenny Samuelson and the members of My Family Co-op this past week. Even if your departments concerns are valid, do you honestly think the actions taken are reasonable given the circumstances? Of course they arent! First of all, any issue your department has with Ms. Samuelson is unclear, as youve been quoted giving one reason for the seizure, while your agents gave another. Ms. Samuelson is not a wanted criminal, or a threat to society. A personal phone call, or a letter requesting a meeting to clear up any concerns your department has would have sufficed.
Do you think these raids conducted by your department are good use of tax payers dollars? Isnt it called stealing when you take legally purchased food from families? These ridiculous raids simply make your departments true agenda more obvious. Id suggest you stop over-extending your power and start working with citizens of Michigan in an effort to make this a great state of freedom and choice within the guidelines of real health and safety, not political and/or economic interests. I realize you have a job to perform and people to answer to, but I hope that your personal feelings about these matters are more just, and that you have done some critical thinking as opposed to just doing what youre told.
Before closing, Id like to review with you what a cow share program includes. Cow-share programs work such that members purchase a share in a milk-cow or dairy herd. The members pay the farmer for the service of keeping the cow and his labor for milking, and processing the milk into value added products such as butter, cream, cheese, etc. That being said, I encourage you to reconsider your departments restriction of butter and cream deliveries to My Family Co-op members. We are aware of our rights, and will stand in support of them.
Going forward, it is my hope that we can work together in a reasonable manner. Farmers and delivery service owners are not getting rich off of their hard work. They simply understand that people have the right to decide whats best for them in their pursuit of good health.
Cordially,
Julie Peraino
LATE SUNDAY UPDATE: It can occasionally be dicey to keep a blog updated on events that are in flux, and happening remotely. Today was one of those days. Without going into lots of details that will only serve to confuse, let me say that this situation with My Family Co-Op is where it was when I originally put up the latest post late Saturday–Jenny Samuelson is awaiting tomorrow morning’s arrival of MDARD agents to observe the disposal of the condemned food.
Julie Peraino,
Thanks for posting this excellent letter. I think it could well serve as a model for other co-op members and supporters as they express their views of what has been going on with My Family Co-Op.
It was a flash back to my EMS days with cyanotic non- breathing kids and hystical parents with dramatic intubations, epinephrine shots and other heroics !! Now moms thanking me for their children’s lives. If the FDA needs any confirmation about why moms demand raw milk….this is it!! With 9 kids dying every day from asthma and thousands being seen in ERs, low risk raw milk is a food to the rescue! No side effects, no loose or dissolving teeth from conticosteroids, no drugs with side effects, no antibiotics and their immune destruction. Just healthy happy kids that sleep well and wake up in the morning alive and well.
If anyone at the FDA has a heart….please take this message….what I have written right here today and take it to heart. Nothing could be more selfish than to deny parents and Anerican children access to low risk raw milk and provide a humanitarian and nutritionsl alternative to tge standard 9 deaths per day.
After the hugs and the heart felt thanks from the moms and after hearing the stories of immune healing…I just stood their looking at Blaine and said this is why we do raw milk and why RAWMI was founded. It is the kids!!! I am so happy and fulfilled. This is why the state agencies that stand against raw milk….stand against something far greater than they can contemplate or understand. They stand against a humanitarian exodus from pasteurized dead milk. This is a plight that can not be suppressed!!
Mark, you and others producing raw milk are seeing the flip side of the pasteurized milk debacle. The My Family Co-Op has gone from 20 members to more than 600 over the last six years, and growth has accelerated of late. I suspect the regulators are being pressed to “do something” about raw milk’s surge in the face of pasteurized milk’s precipitous decline, and thus the heavy-handed seizure of Michigan milk, without even a hint of safety issue. This article about the falling stock valuation of Dean Foods, and its desperate efforts to prop things up (like flavored milk):
“Getting drinkers back in the barn wont be easy. It is going to be tough to buck the trend of declining consumption of [cow] milk in the U.S., says Ryan Oksenhendler, an analyst with Arlon Group LLC, a New Yorkbased fund manager that owns WhiteWave shares. He says shoppers quitting cow milk and embracing soy, almond and coconut milks are feeding WhiteWaves gains.
“Dean executives aim to reverse its profit decline by cutting costs and expanding sales of flavored milks and higher-protein drinks, two niche products that are outperforming conventional, white milk. Dean shut eight of its roughly 80 plants last year and plans to close three more this year in an effort to navigate what its executives call the toughest industry conditions in memory.
“Last year, U.S. retail sales volumes for skim and low-fat cow’s milk, the biggest conventional-milk drinks, declined 4%, while dollar sales slumped 2.4%, says IRI, a Chicago-based market-research firm. The 2013 volume decline was worse than in each of the previous three years.”
I am trying to get some thoughts here on a legal move. Tell me where anybody thinks my logic is flawed. As I see it the cow is my property, at least as a co owner. The State seems to agree that it is my cow and that I have the legal right to direct product from that cow which in there eyes is raw milk. My first question is why is cream not a direct product of the cow. Nothing is added to the cream, there is only a separation from the rest of the milk. Am I not allowed to take only part of the milk from the cow. And if I not allowed, under what theory of law could this be.
My next philosophical question is once I own a product, in this case raw milk, can I not hire a cook to come and make a dinner for me which includes lets say a gravy using the milk. Can I not hire someone to make kefir or butter with my product. Or can I not have someone make Ice Cream for me with my own milk. And again if not allowed, under what theory of law is this based on.
So in summary, don’t I own actually own cream from the cow and don’t I have “use” rights for milk that the state acknowledges I own.
I would really appreciate some comments as I ponder going forward here.
BUT .. and this not clear from the website – is “My Family Co-op” an actual cooperative, i.e. legally incorporated as a cooperative association or whatever the equivalent is in your state? I don’t know your rules in Michigan, but here in Canada for example, in Ontario we have the “Cooperative Corporations Act” and in BC the “Cooperative Association Act.” People purchase shares in the cooperative, and the cooperative as a separate legal entity owns the assets (cows, goats, sheep, chickens, farm, tractors, whatever).
MONDAY UPDATE: I had a brief note from Jenny Samuelson that agents with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development arrived this morning and accompanied her brother, who drove the truck to a nearby farm where the milk was disposed of as fertilizer; presumably the remainder of the food, like the eggs and butter, were disposed of in a landfill or other disposal site. She was permitted to keep the meat for herself. She said she didn’t have to sign anything. I am hoping to receive photos or videos of events, but nothing yet.
Milklob,
Your questions make perfect sense, both philosophically and legally. It would seem that contractually you can do anything you want with food from an animal you have an ownership interest in.
The only fly in the ointment, as it were, is the policy statement from MDARD issued in March 2013, which says that raw dairy products like yogurt and butter can’t be distributed by herdshares. That policy statement is clearly a negotiated statement between MDARD and the Fresh Unprocessed Whole Milk Workgroup, which took nearly six years to develop a pretty remarkable report on raw milk. I would expect that the limitation on raw dairy products was forced on the group as a negotiating lever by MDARD so as to get some kind of official backing for herdshares approved.
From a legal point of view, I’m not sure if a simple agency policy statement can supersede basic and longstanding contract law, which would govern something like a herdshare. Seems to me that the only way to find out for sure would be for shareholders to file some kind of legal action seeking compensation for the violation of their contractual rights.
Shelly, as I said to Milklob, I think a legal challenge is in order, and charges of theft are certainly one possibility here. I suspect an imaginative lawyer engaged by the co-op members could come up with other potential crimes and contract violations by the state in this case.
I agree, a tragic waste of perfectly good food, a terrible offense–a singularly American type of response that most of the rest of the world would find incomprehensible.
If our conscience tells us that what they are doing is wrong, then its in our best interest to refuse to cooperate with the shysters and let them take us to court.
If we value our liberty we aught to think long and hard before complying with what we know in our heart is an illegal activity or wrongdoing.
Ken
http://cumberlink.com/news/local/communities/carlisle/department-of-agriculture-cracks-down-on-seed-libraries/article_8b0323f4-18f6-11e4-b4c1-0019bb2963f4.html