Imagine leaving the military after a long career, enthusiastically launching a new business, and then, after much business trauma, concluding that the system you spent years defending with your life is corrupt.
Raids
A year ago I summarized the key themes for 2011 as "rising shock events" and "rising stress levels," thanks to highly public raids on food clubs and farms.
Six weeks in advance of the criminal trial of Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger, pre-trial maneuvering moved into high gear Tuesday.
You wonder what sitting in jail for four months--all for running a private food club--does to a guy. You wonder what it does to the people around him who were supposedly watching his back.
On Monday afternoon, I took a 40-minute drive to Terri Lawton's Oake Knoll Ayrshires farm in nearby Foxboro, MA, to pick up a Thanksgiving turkey.
What is the essential ingredient enabling farmers and food club operators to successfully resist the seemingly endless government assaults and incursions on private food arrangements?
When I spoke with Alvin Schlangen a few days ago, I asked him how he felt about having been in the shadows of the food rights movement the last couple of years, prior to his trial.
On Tuesday, James Stewart, the jailed founder and principal of Rawesome Food Co., was offered a deal by the Ventura County prosecutor: Plead guilty to 14 of 37 counts of fraud and securities violations, and you'll receive a six-month jail sentence.




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.