The first-ever, and hopefully first annual, Food Freedom Fest brought together about 200 food rights advocates from around the country on Saturday to farmer Joel Salatins scenic home town in the Shenandoah Valley. The focus was on overcoming the sense of an expanding, and ever-more-controlling, food regulatory structure.
Here are key observations and predictions I took from the cast of speakers who presented:
Gary Cox of conference sponsor Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund: In his review of the organizations seven-year history, its chief trial lawyer said that regulatory enforcement has shifted from raw milk to zoning. We hardly ever see a raw dairy case any more It is interesting how local zoning cases are most important to government right now.
Looking ahead, the big issues he sees are beef and poultry regulation, food sovereignty, and the Food Safety Modernization Act. He sees more clashes over locally produced meat, and food sovereignty sweeping the nation. The FSMA could provide the most fireworks in a battle over U.S. Food and Drug Administration efforts to control intrastate commerce. The FDA is putting its finger into everything, Cox said, and a court challenge to its likely efforts to use the FSMA to restrict intrastate food sales could be in the offing.
Tennessee Sen. Frank Niceley, chief architect of herdsharing legislation five years ago, said that after a four-year effort, the law has opened up the raw milk market in the state far beyond expectations. The states attorney general favorably interpreted the legislation to allow additional raw dairy products like yogurt, kefir, and butter. Niceley said that reports hes received indicate there are now slightly more raw dairies in the statesomewhere on the order of 450 to 500than commercial dairies. And the the gap is likely to grow, as ten commercial dairies a month go under.
U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie, who made headlines earlier this year when he assembled a couple dozen co-sponsors for legislation to dilute the effects of the federal prohibition on interstate raw milk sales and shipments, was pessimistic about the chances of actually passing anything in the House of Representatives. Indeed, it isnt even likely the legislation will get a hearing. The dairy industry went apoplectic when we introduced the legislation, he said. My wife said she didnt know the lactose industry was so intolerant.
Cong. Massie told me after his talk that the best chance to get raw milk legislation through Congress and into law would be as part of some other appropriations bill guaranteed passage. Even that route is a long shot, he said, since not many appropriations bills are likely to get through in the coming year or so.
Elizabeth Rich, FTCLDF lawyer: She expressed concerns about the expanding power accorded bureaucrats everywhere, comparing the trend to the British Kings Minions who ruled in the American colonies in the years prior to the Revolutionary War of the late 1700s. The inclination of judges to rubber-stamp nearly all regulators enforcement actions has brought us to a very dangerous place,” she said.
Joel Salatin: The celebrity farmer encouraged food rights advocates to re-position themselves so as to get their ideas taken more seriously by mainstream media. He advocated a focus on such things as personalized stewardship ethics, democratized empowerment, and safety. He suggested a different view of safety than that of regulators and corporate food companies to counter the idea that coke is safer than raw milk. His advice to sustainable food producers: Be the lunatic fringe of innovation.
I predicted in a talk that the food oligarchs, as powerful as they seem not to be with their control of multibillion-dollar industries like dairy, chicken pork, cereal, and beverages, are doomed, because rapidly growing numbers of people are learning about the dangers of factory food. I pointed to downward sales trends showing up in a number of well known foods. They won’t go easily. But if there is one thing people like even less than eating bad food, it is serving dangerous food to their families, I said.
The event was attended by about 200 people, including such food rights luminaries as Canadian sheep farmer Montana Jones, Maine food sovereignty organizers Heather Retberg and Bonnie Preston, Maryland food rights activists and organizers Liz Reitzig and Carolyn Moffa, California food club organizer Melissa Henig, Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund president Pete Kennedy, Keep Food Legal Foundation founder Baylen Linnekin, and Kentucky food club organizer John Moody.
On the sidelines, there were some interesting discussions involving Canadian rights lawyer Karen Selick over which country has become most repressive on food and other rights abuses– the U.S. or Canada. She had an argument for Canada at the conference–Montana Jones only received her passport back from Canadian authorities a couple days before the event; her passport is being held in connection with criminal charges she and dairy farmer Michael Schmidt face related to allegations last year they tried to protect Shropshire sheep the government contended were diseased. That case could come to trial next year.
There was this advice from Martha Boneta of Liberty Farm, based on her intensive efforts helping push through pioneering food freedom legislation in Virginia: Never ever give up. And from Baylen Linnekin of the Keep Food Legal Foundation, this apt observation: The food rights movement came of age at this conference.
Jojo, it’s truly astounding how anti-traditional-farming our regulatory structure has become, from the highest levels on down to city zoning and public health…in fact, down to the proverbial dog catcher. I’m not sure if that’s reflecting the sentiment that farming is now a “factory” function, or that people are so far removed from food production that it is seen as so yucky it shouldn’t be in our neighborhood, or that the corporate influence has permeated further than we ever could have imagined….or a combination of all these factors.
The idea that smaller farmers can not do the same thing seems just unAmerican. To move legislation requires a consortium of business interests that share common needs. There needs to be a collation of smaller farmers that includes the roof toppers, 1/4 acre gardners, school gardners that farm converted football fields. Then that group needs to stand with big farmers as they move something they need to pass. Favors will be returned later. Politics is politics. Mutualistic Back Scratching has been the way for a long time.
Many of the bigger cattle farmers and dairies here think the same way our zoning does. They’re not always an ally.
There are unhappily, as there have been at all times, but too many instances of flagrant dishonesty and fraud, exhibited by the unscrupulous, the over-speculative and the intensely sellfish in their haste to be rich. There are tradesman who trade and adulterate contractors who scamp manufacturers who give us shoddy instead of wool, dressing instead of cotton, cast iron instead of steel, needles without eyes, razors made only to sell, and swindled fabrics in many shapes. But these we must hold to be the exceptional cases of low minded and grasping men who though they may gain wealth which they probably cannot enjoy, will never gain an honest character, nor secure that which is nothing a heart at peace. Money earned by screwing cheating and overreaching may for a time dazzle the eyes of the unthinking, but the bubbles blown by unscrupulous rogues when full blown, usually glitter only to burst. The gains of their roguery remain with them, it will be a curse and not a blessing. Better lose all and save character.
There is a failure to connect the dots. There is a failure to create a broader coalition and Massy, bless the goodness of his heart… He completely dropped the ball on getting a hearing to bring this issue to light. His staff promised all sorts of work and a call back… No call back.
We are being provided superficial word service! Very sad indeed. Meanwhile 9 kids per day die from asthma that could have been prevented if raw milk access was broadly available, plentiful and connected to health and medicine.
As always this is a political problem…. Not a food risk problem
It’s interesting to hear what our experienced food rights representatives think will be the major coming issues. Lots of food for thought.
This from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-08/milk-costs-most-ever-to-signal-higher-prices-for-pizza.html
This is the big picture, the big health degrading picture.
Asthma treatment must be a growth business.
Thats a lot of cheese and milk. Too bad.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Mark, it’s difficult to know where the political obstacles lie. I have to confess Rep. Massie got on my good side when he sought me out at a reception after the Friday event to tell me how much he enjoyed my talk about America’s food oligarchs. I quizzed him about what it might take to get the raw milk legislation he introduced before a committee, and he indicated it needs the approval of both the committee chair and the Speaker of the House (John Boehner). There’s no chance of getting the Speaker’s blessing because he is a Big Ag guy. Another option is to get some large majority in the House to overrule the Speaker–not something that too many representatives try if they want to continue working with Boehner on other things. So, that leaves as the only other viable option getting this legislation attached to some other large appropriations bill (together with various assorted other special legislation that lots of reps want passed).
As we all know, truth is a very difficult matter to pin down when dealing with politicians.
Ingvar, much of the milk consumption is for export purposes, and the cheese for rising pizza demand. Pasteurized milk demand in the U.S. is on the decline. So the dairy processors are looking to export markets, trying to unload their stuff on unsuspecting Asians.
Given my druthers, I’d rather see people eat it as cheese than drink that pasteurized white watery crap in a glass, wouldn’t you? Since the majority of people are never going to know or understand the truth about the safety of raw milk and raw milk cheeses vs sterilized junky cheese and milk with absolutely no redeeming health qualities, we must put the blame squarely where it belongs whenever there are more “pasteurized illnesses and deaths” and not let the corporate creeps get away with fibbing to the masses. Only the PEOPLE can do that because we can’t count on our agencies to honestly and truthfully do one simple thing.
My post (9/8/2014 14:26) was altered after it went up (and not at my request).
It WAS what I had written when it first went up.
But not now. I have no capacity to change it, nor did I request a change.
As it reads now, these words are not my words:
This is the big picture, the big health degrading picture.
Asthma treatment must be a growth business.
And this phrase is not my phrase: Too bad.
When it first went up and it was exactly what I had written.
But not now.
It has since been changed, neither by me nor at my request.
What gives?
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Ingvar, I don’t know what might have happened. Nothing in what you wrote was tampered with, to my knowledge. The only thing I can imagine is that I fooled with one of my own comments, and inadvertently opened yours while going back and forth on my own. Not sure how verbiage could have been changed the way you describe, however. Weird.
This community will surly miss her dearly. We will be forever grateful for the lessons she taught; and I pray there will be other professionals that will follow through on Mary Enig’s knowledge. RIP Mary, you are, no doubt, in God’s Country now and in the Creator’s spiritual nutritional eternity!
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?n=mary-d-enig&pid=172400634&fhid=6125
I am saddened by this news.
This from Weston A. Price Foundation earlier today:
http://www.sheknows.com/food-and-recipes/articles/1050037/general-mills-buys-annies-homegrown-stay-organic
Gee, General Mills won’t play around with the “organic” part of this, will they? *_*