Pennsylvania Amish farmer Dan Allgyer has decided to shutter his farm, ending his ordeal with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Justice Department.

He made his decision after Judge Lawrence Stengler went along with the agencies, and imposed a permanent injunction on Allgyer last week for supplying the private Grassfed on the Hill food club with raw milk. I wasn’t able to reach Allgyer, but he told those who run the food club that the decision was a personal one, based in significant measure on the family stress created by the two years of federal government harassment, beginning in February 2010, when FDA agents sought to inspect his farm without a warrant.

Karine Bouis-Towe, who launched the club in 2006, said in a statement to members: “Dan and Rachel Allgyer have determined that they will discontinue service to our group and close down the farm. Dan has served many of us for more than six years and he is very saddened to have to make this decision but the stress and strain that his family has been under for the past few years due to the case and now the decision has given them no other choice.”

Club members reacted with understandable anguish in comments on the club’s listserve. It’s never easy being deprived of good healthy food, especially when you’ve become used to having it regularly, and the deprivation isn’t the result of war or pestilence, but rather the result of the devious intimidation tactics of your own supposedly representative government.

Exclaimed one: “NO! NO! NO! I am deeply anguished. I truly wish that those wicked people whose combined efforts led to this horrible outcome could have a share in our suffering.”

Said a second member: “This made me cry as I do drink the milk for medical reasons. If anyone finds another source please call me at the number below. Thank you.”

And a third: “I understand and am very sorry that this is happening. I have had such a great improvement in my delicate health from the nutritious products that Dan and his family have provided.”

Some members objected, wondered if Allgyer could be helped with a court appeal, or other approaches. No, said one, who understands the nature of the wickedness, of the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose logic of the law and judicial interpretations at work in this case. “Dan has to shut down the farm to stop the unrelenting war on his family, the very serious danger to his wife and children, from federal officers supported by your taxes…It is easy and safe to attack the Amish, since they are well known to be pacifists. The federal officials supported by your taxes are not brave.”

Smashing Allgyer’s life to smitherines is a huge victory to the demented minds at the FDA and Justice Department, because not only did they get rid of someone who wouldn’t just roll over, but they did it without significant courtroom opposition.

In the twisted minds of these enforcers, their court victory has just been doubled or tripled by Allgyer’s shutdown. It’s difficult to fathom, but to them, depriving people of healthy food is a sweet victory, much like an extra bonus on a Las Vegas slot machine.

The bigger victory is still to come, though. That will be if they can scare more farmers off the land, and out of the business of producing healthy food. One at a time, slow and steady, she goes. They have all the time in the world…

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So now they can focus fully on to the next case. Vernon Hershberger.

The demise of Dan Allgyer’s farm now makes Vernon Hershberger’s resistance an even bigger deal. Michael Schmidt is correct in his comment following my previous post: the faceless bureaucrats will be watching closely what happens at the rallies for Hershberger.  

I know, many want to avert their eyes from Schmidt’s assessment of what the image of Jackie Owens really represents. “We are not facing marching leather boots stomping down the pavement, we are facing friendly individuals with an army of bureaucrats behind computers creating the reality of Kafka’s nightmarish vision.”

As Schmidt suggests, many of us would just as soon find reasons to stay above the fray…I’m just so turned off by the Raw Milk Institute (RAWMI)…If those people at Rawesome hadn’t screwed up…Why doesn’t Hershberger just get a retail permit?…I don’t like the way Hershberger runs his dairy…If there were just more unity in Wisconsin…Allgyer was engaged in interstate commerce, after all…on and on it can easily go.

No, the rubber hits the road at 11 a.m. March 2 at the Sauk County Courthouse. Michael Schmidt will be speaking, along with members of Hershberger’s food club. The night before, there will be a workshop on promoting food rights, with lots of great farm food.

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And there’s a debate on raw milk coming up this Thursday evening at 7:15 (Eastern) at Harvard Law School, I understand. Should be fun. Sally Fallon and I versus lawyer Fred Pritzker and MN regulator Heidi Kassenborg. Apparently it’s going to be live streamed.

Iif you are unable to catch the debate live, a video recording of the event will be posted in its entirety on the Harvard Food Law Society YouTube page:

For those who can make it in person, it’s at Harvard Law School, Langdell South Classroom. Street address is 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.