To Write or Not to Write About Raw Milk…That Is the Question

I slept badly last night. I know the reason, and it has to do with the raw milk problem in Michigan.

Since mid-day yesterday (Thursday), I’ve been in possession of information about the details of the distribution of raw milk scheduled for today (Friday) to Ann Arbor-area members of the Family Farms Cooperative. Normally, this would be no big deal, since the distribution has been happening regularly on Fridays for several years. But since the sting operation Friday Oct. 13, when the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the Michigan State Police seized the co-op’s raw milk and other products from manager Richard Hebron while he was driving to Ann Arbor, there has been no distribution there.

Yet the state has been so intent on preventing it from resuming that it served Ann Arbor retailer Morgan & York with a Cease-and-Desist order to prohibit it from allowing the co-op to use its warehouse, as it had been doing for a couple years.

So I figured I’d post something first thing today to the effect that the distribution was scheduled to occur today, with an explanation that I was constrained from providing details about the wheres and whens of the delivery and pickup by members–much as I’d like to celebrate the event–for the same reason co-op members were reluctant to discuss it yesterday: everyone feels intimidated. I even wrote the item.

But as I tossed and turned last night, I realized I was nervous even about posting something first thing this morning. What if the police and MDA read my posting and decided to track Richard Hebron’s truck…and confiscate his goods again. That would be a disaster, and I’d be at fault.

So I decided to put off posting anything until mid-day today, when the distribution was already well under way or even completed.

Unfortunately, the kind of anxiety I experienced is exactly what the MDA wants everyone to experience. It wants farmers to be so scared they back off from leasing cows to distribute raw milk and it wants co-op members to avoid using it. Richard Hebron is to be applauded for his bravery in resuming deliveries.

But what we have is a situation not unlike what happens in repressive countries when the government tries to prohibit people from having access to normal products like, say, certain movies or alcohol. People gather surreptitiously to do their business, out of the glare of government authorities. The U.S….repressive? It doesn’t look that way, but it sure feels that way.