Food Clubs

It was a sight to warm the hearts of all in DATCP (the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection), not to mention the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration). 

Two years ago, on the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend, inspectors from the local and state health departments clamped cease-and-desist and quarantine orders on coolers containing raw milk intended for members of a

There were times today in a Baraboo, WI, courtroom, when I wondered if I was still living in the United States of America.

I go away for a week and what happens? All hell breaks loose in my home of Boston and environs, and it becomes the news center of the world as a horrible example of urban terrorism in action. 

For a long time, I have argued that the state and federal judges hearing food rights cases are living on a different planet than the people. The judges nearly always come down entirely on the side of the regulators.

An unlicensed organization like a food club is not only distributing “contraband,” but a “controlled substance,” in the view of a Minnesota prosecutor fighting to prevent dismissal of three misdemeanor food allegations against farmer Alvin Schlangen. In other words, if licenses aren't purchased and regulators involved, food is no longer just food, it is in the same realm as oxycontin or morphine.

 

 I've been devoting a considerable amount of time and energy to reporting on the sometimes tedious ins and outs of the upcoming trial of Vernon Hershberger.

First, the Wisconsin prosecutors pursuing raw milk farmer Vernon Hershberger went after jury nullification, and convinced a judge to instruct jurors in his upcoming trial they can't side with the accused farmer if they disagree with the laws he is accused of violating.

Six weeks in advance of  the criminal trial of Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger, pre-trial maneuvering moved into high gear Tuesday. 

Pages