Joel Salatin explaining how Polyface Farm operates, to some of the FTCLDF supporters on Saturday. Being led on a tour of Polyface Farm by owner Joel Salatin is a special experience. Not only is it entertaining (like hearing Salatin explain how his methods differ from those of “U.S.-Duh”, as in USDA), but it’s instructive (to learn that Polyface has achieved its lush pasture used by cows, pigs and chickens not only without artificial fertilizers, but without any plowing, ever).
I had the good fortune to join about 100 supporter of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund on the tour he conducted Saturday for the organization’s annual fundraising event at the farm in Swoop, VA. It was the second time I’ve taken the tour (here’s my account of the first three years ago).
The main changes I saw are in the growth of Salatin’s farm and his influence (by virtue of starring in recent movies like “Food Inc” and “Fresh”). Standing in front of a group of about 50 romping pigs, he proudly revealed that Polyface has hit the the $2 million annual sales level, while sticking to Salatin’s policy of not shipping food outside a 100-mile radius. The effect, he says, has been to strengthen local businesses–everything from a local breakfast diner serving visitors to his farm to local feed and supply companies.
Salatin is more convinced than on my previous visit that his approach can replace the feedlots and monoculture operations and “feed the world.” He credits two simple innovations with helping make the dream ever more possible: easily movable electric fencing (to herd the pigs, chickens, and cattle to new pasture digs every day or every few days) and cheap flexible piping that allows water to easily be brought to the animals.
One of the biggest obstacles to achieving that goal? The obsession with food safety regulations. As just one example, he pointed to regulations that did away some years ago with the ubiquitous smoke houses that were once part of many farms, allowing them to smoke their own meats. Now, he says, his pigs and chickens must not only be slaughtered off the farm at federally inspected slaughter houses, but then the meat for curing must go to federally licensed curing facilities that generally treat smaller farms as nuisances (and charge premium prices for curing and labeling), and then be shipped back to the farm. “That’s why my bacon is $9 a pound,” he says. “If we could do our own curing, I could sell it for much less.” And there’d be a smaller carbon footprint, to boot.
The shadow of so-called “food safety” seems likely to rear its ugly head within the next couple weeks, when legislation designed to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration vast new powers over the food supply, Senate Bill 510, comes up for debate and a vote, Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation and Pete Kennedy of the FTCLDF told the gathered crowd. (Yes, Lola Granola, we’ll take a reprieve from the heavy sex to discuss S510.) While there have been negotiations over an amendment that would exempt many of the smallest food producers from the most draconian provisions of the S510 regulations (like the requirement to complete extensive HACCP plans), the provisions designed to give the FDA control over farming regulations (known as “Good Agricultural Practices”) “won’t exempt you, Joel,” Sally Fallon stated in her remarks.
It sure is difficult to imagine Joel Salatin quietly accepting the recommendations of FDA inspectors for changing his agricultural practices. In fact, he may want to give them copies of his latest book, “The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer”, which follows on his previous book, “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal”. (I’ll have more about his latest book upcoming.) If S510 passes, and is merged with similar legislation that has already passed the U.S. House, expect Salatin in his tours to be railing against F-Duh as well as US-Duh.
***
One other outgrowth S510 could be many more food “resisters” –farmers and others in the food chain refusing to go along with government edicts supposedly designed to improve safety. They may want to read my latest article at Grist, “Six Things You Should Know Before Defying the Real Food Police”. There are some excellent comments following the article from Tim Wightman of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Foundation and from Teddi Bechard, whose family has been sued by the state of Missouri over distribution of raw milk.
***
It’s difficult not to conclude that S510 will narrow further our options for personal decisions about food safety matters. I’m not just talking about consumption of raw dairy.
I spent my week away during late August at a meditation retreat in central Massachusetts, the Insight Meditation Society. While meditation was the main focus, food issues cropped up even at this out-of-the way place, in an unexpected way.
IMS serves mostly vegetarian food, with a few (pasteurized) dairy selections, like yogurt at breakfast and cheese in some casseroles. So vegetables are as important at IMS as dairy might be at a Weston A. Price Foundation event.
On the bulletin board outside the large dining room was this notice: “INFORMATION ABOUT EATING RAW BEAN SPROUTS AT IMS…Although IMS has never had a health problem related to the consumption of eating raw bean sprouts, please be aware that the FDA has a warning out on raw bean sprouts due to cases of food-borne illness resulting from their consumption…While IMS takes ever precaution it can to make and serve healthful sprouts to you, including buying seeds from a distributor that frequently tests its seed (called seed sampling), we cannot guarantee their safety.” It concludes that any attendees who are elderly, very young, pregnant women, and “those with compromised immune systems” should be “particularly mindful of this warning and exercise caution with regard to consuming sprouts.”
I piled the sprouts on my salad plate. I am fine with such warnings, whether for raw milk or bean sprouts. But I worry that if S510 passes, that sprout distributor supplying IMS will be harassed out of business, and there won’t be any choice about whether to consume sprouts.
Now is the time to contact your U.S. senator, before the election, and let him or her know how you feel about the food safety legislation.
***
If you’re on a raw food diet, food safety fears are a here-and-now proposition. I was out to dinner with Max Kane on Friday evening in Staunton, VA, preceding the gathering at Joel Salatin’s, and watched Kane try to order his meat uncooked. We were at a very nice restaurant, mind you (specializing in local produce–it even carries chicken from Salatin’s farm) and Kane tried to order the chicken uncoooked. Nothing doing, said the waiter. So Kane tried to order some steak, also uncooked. At that point, the chef appeared to explain he wouldn’t feel comfortable serving raw chicken or beef to anyone. Kane’s offer to sign any waiver of liability was refused as well. It was all very friendly, just that the chef seemed to not to have total confidence in his raw meats, and had visions of being sued if he didn’t serve it cooked.
Eventually, there was a compromise–the chef agreed to serve Kane raw beef “cooked” in lime juice. Kane said it was excellent.
One very effective way to push eccentrics around is to simply "inspect" them, to assure they meet standards of right behavior that everybody (or at least the designated expert in charge of Central Supply) agrees with .
http://www.vee2.net/world-news/47-world-news/6635-small-farms.html
Excellent post and I am so glad that Joel is thriving….I share a speaking engagement early next year with him in CA and I can not wait.
I have sent many letters to my CA congressmen and senators. The response has been a form letter thanking me for all of wonderful support of sterilized safe food…and HACCP biotech and high technology that will save us all.
I have stopped sending letters to my senators because I can not bear reading the form letters anymore. Instead I call them and speak with the staffers and let them know about CA raw milk laws and how SB 510 would breach and violate CA state law. The staffers are left speechless and know not what to say.
I have resigned myself that if SB 510 passes that I will defend OPDC and CA raw milk with our consumers and create a massive scene…one that the FDA would rather bypass than persist in. What raw milk standards would they use to regulate raw milk in CA??…..they have none. That will not work…they must have a standard and can not just come out and forbid it. They have no authority for raw milk and Sb 510 does not create that authority for them. If they tried…a federal injunction could stop them cold. The media loves a scene. We know how to make one….we have healthy babies and wildly passionate moms and dads, the safety history and we have the science ( although that does not apparently matter to the FDA ). What does matter is a massive protest with federal marshals on horseback riding in my pastures. FDA SWAT teams standing against babies and moms….holding raw milk bottles on green pastures….that is a scene. If think that is a scene that the SWAT team guys would fail to participate in…
This is our trap….the movie producers will be laying low awaiting the ambush. The FDA will then star in their greatest Waterloo.
This screwed up "Food Inc… Government" needs some serious shakeup and CA consumers will deliver that for sure.
CA is an activist state…passivist does not roll here. It is time for the people and the farmers to push back hard ….we would have the local support of our Sherrif…."she" would not put up with federalist BS arround here. They can only take what we allow them to take.
Remember, the FDA likes to do seemingly popular things….they have gone on record officially in front of a federal judge in Fresno ( Oliver Wanger ) and said that they have no problem with legal raw milk in CA….they just do not want it in Nevada. To change their story would piss off one judge Wanger that is for sure.
It may soon become time to stand and time to fight….for sure it is time to make sure that you have your email lists ready so you can "push send and have 1000 people show up" in three hours and make a real scene…one that CNN will cover from coast to coast. It may soon be time for all of the grass roots efforts of the last ten years to stand-up!!
Dead food is a dead end…..
Mark
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-14613.pdf
This is the kind of thing that's happening while you're busy making fun of Vonderplanitz. Who's laughing now?
http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2010/09/control-of-food-supply-to-be-handed.html
(a) provide coordination and leadership at the Federal level;
(b) develop a national prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care strategy;
(c) provide recommendations to the President and the Congress concerning the most pressing health issues and changes in Federal policy to achieve national wellness, health promotion, and public health goals, including the reduction of tobacco use, sedentary behavior, and poor nutrition;
(d) consider and propose evidence-based models, policies, and innovative approaches for the promotion of transformative models of prevention, integrative health, and public health on individual and community levels across the United States;
(e) establish processes for continual public input, including input from State, regional, and local leadership communities and other relevant stakeholders, including Indian tribes and tribal organizations;
(f) submit the reports required by section 6 of this order; and
(g) carry out such other activities as are determined appropriate by the President.
While I don't believe that anything particularly useful will come out of this council, I'm not sure how this connects in any way to the Codex Alimentarius and was hoping you could enlighten us?
I disagree that your reference has anything to do with CODEX. It says nothing about CODEX and in fact it refers to prevention, excercise and nutrition programs repeatedly. The Presidential Cancer Committee made some excellent recommendations this year and it had nothing to do with CODEX. That committee recommended organic food and all sorts of politically impropper things.
The problem with this presidential directive ( although it appears to be in the right heart )…is that it is made up of the same old corrupt FOOD INC, FDA Monsanto Monsters.
We must all remember that even if SB 510 passes there is an entire adminstrative policy implimentation process that must take place. During that process there are hearings and proceedings and things change substantially. We also must remember that the courts can be brought in and can stop implimentation ( all or in part ) if any part is shown to be baseless, unjust or illegal etc. There is also the entire issue of states rights that would be very hard for SB 510 to dismantle.
Lastly, my discussions with Dr. Acheson ( ex FDA Food Safety Admin ) has revealed some very important things. He told me that "science is not something that the Raw Milk croud will win on". He said this is a political issue and in politics the science becomes a "back and forth" . He said that we must show that we are not going away and that we are getting bigger and bigger and that the best resolution would be the creation of good standards. Good national standards would be much better than black-market untested raw milk in his opinion. He had much to say about industry and the NCIMS and its poltiics. I will not go into that here…but suffice it to say that our movement will not move forward except for the strength of the grass roots and establishing a good safety record. Industry ( although it should not matter at all ) will always stand directly in the way of any national raw milk standards, policies or progress. So this will be a grass roots movement at least for a while longer until we get bigger and tougher and stronger.
Dr. Acheson should know…..he was up at the top with Sheehan for many years.
We need good science and lots of studies…..but they will have little value in this fight unless they are used to educate people directly….in politics they are pissing match fuel. The huge industrial machines like NCIMS, Deans Foods stand to lose much with the re-emergence of unprocessed foods being sold diretcly from farmer to consumer.
Mark
Now this is in your face progress….
Guns drawn police actions backfire and work against those that wish to use these tactics to intimidate. People are pissed off and that is not the FDA objective of raiding a Coop or food shed. That is the counter-objective result that the FDA is learning more and more does not work and actually stimulates raw milk sales growth.
Rahm Emanuel said…."never let a good crisis go to waste!!!"
Applies here very well.
Mark
Mark,
Have you read about Italian doctor Tullio Simoncini? He studied oncology for many years and has determined that what we think of as 'cancer' is actually a severe case of candida albicans overgrowth. He treats patients with pure baking soda and has a 90% cure rate. The medical establishment has shunned him in many countries. Many naturopaths agree that cancer can only live in an acidic environment, and if you eat acid-producing foods you are much more prone to develop 'cancer' (and candida loves an acid environment). As baking soda is highly alkaline, Simoncini may be on to something…
Was this by any chance included in the Presidental Cancer Committee? Come on, aren't the guys and gals on that committee the same big pharma/ag/corporate shills that poison us, only they're throwing us a bone by recommending organics so we keep believing that they're telling us the truth? If we believe they are working in our favor, or becoming 'enlightened' to our side, we are much more likely to stand down and not make a ruckus. Controlled opposition…
LOL!
OK, that was sarcasm. But this is serious — I'm glad to have the opportunity to be exposed some of Aajonus's ideas about nutrition. I'm not sure that I agree with everything he says, but reading some of his material inspired me to go home and make raw steak tar tar with some of Scott Trautman's hamburger I brought with me from Wisconsin.
Aajonus is an interesting guy, to say the least. I think the whole sex thing was about making fun of FDA and their defenders on this blog (CP…), not Aajonus.
Bill you are such a young child . . . .
Kind regards,
Violet
Small minds tend to make fun of that which they don't understand.
I read the article you linked to, and appreciate your post. Seemed like a cat-and-mouse harassment with that grower – and just with veg!
Insane.
http://hartkeisonline.com/2010/09/14/fundraiser-for-farm-to-consumer-legal-defense-fund-held-at-polyface-farm/#more-7252
If it walks like a duck……
canola oil kills ants on contact. Some day I'd like to see Polyface farm.
How about the very strong evidence that Crohns is caused by MAP or Johnes disease in cattle. And….MAP is not killed by pasteurization and many EU processed milks have cultured positive for MAP.
Then the next step…Crohns is effectively treated by Raw Milk.
Who in the media is going to take this ball and run with it???
No one has the balls to break this story!!
Mark
Have you been reading about the coverup of bovine TB being spread through CAFOs in the midwest? Pete Hardin of the Milkweed has been writing about it for the last two months. I also recall a DATCP director trying to downplay the issue at the final meeting I attended when I was still in WI. Apparently some dairy cows from an infected herd made their way into a few WI herds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/us/15farm.html?emc=eta1
Mark, I am getting similar responses from our senators here in VA — I asked them to vote against this bill but if they HAD to support it, to please include the Tester amendments to exempt small farms. Nowhere does his letter to me say ANYTHING about the comments from my letter — typical politician/staffer dancing around the edges of the issue and not answering my questions or concerns. It must be time to make those phone calls. I'm glad we have Joel on our side here in VA and I'm a proud and lucky member of his buying club!
"Dear Ms. Riccabona:
Thank you for contacting my office regarding proposals to overhaul our nation's food safety structure. I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts with me.
As you may know, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring that all domestic and imported food we eat (except for meat, poultry and processed egg products – which are monitored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture) is safe, healthy and accurately labeled. The FDA has established a comprehensive Food Protection Plan to address any concerns with food sources, production, and consumption. You may view this plan at http://www.fda.gov/oc/initiatives/advance/food.html. Additionally, the National Food Safety Programs website provides a multi-agency portal to view important safety notices and other pertinent information.
In light of several recent recalls and bans on various foods, the safety of our nation's food supply and inspections have been the subject of several recent hearings within the U.S. Congress. Additionally, there are several legislative proposals currently under consideration by Congress relating to food safety regulations and organizations. The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749), passed by the House of Representatives on July 30, 2009, is currently pending consideration before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) is also awaiting consideration by the full Senate.
Please be assured that my staff and I will continue to monitor the progress of this legislation to ensure that all Virginians have access to safe, quality food. As the Senate continues to address food safety and other important issues facing the United States, your views will be very helpful to me and my staff. I hope that you will continue to share your views with us in the years ahead.
I would also invite you to visit my website at http://www.webb.senate.gov for regular updates about my activities and positions on matters that are important to Virginia and our nation.
Thank you once again for contacting my office.
Sincerely,
Jim Webb"
It is a well documented fact that, in the past, the Rothschild family sought (conspired) to gain financially by interfering in the affairs of nations. The most notable example is the funding of Arthur Wellesley's peninsular campaign as well as other continental forces. After Napoleon's defeat, they profited handsomely from a surge in British bonds.
This is not considered to be a conspiracy theory because it is viewed as a "conspiracy fact."
Of course, the degree to which the Rothschild familiy influences U.S. politics, as well as their association with other groups such as the Knights Templar, is certainly debatable. (Why is it always the Knights Templar?) However, it would be unreasonable, downright nutty, to suggest that they hadn't at least considered ways (conspired) to profit from our nation in its youth. Today, knowing that George Soros has a significant relationship with them, and the obvious ways he influences U.S. politics, I'd say there's at least something there.
Bovine TB Trace Backs Blanket 75 Dairies in 20+ States (p. 2):
Under the radar screen, the U.S. dairy industry is building an unfortunate track record of Bovine Tuberculosis trace backs. A "trace back" occurs when animals from a TB-infected source are shipped to other premises. Problem herds in Texas and Ohio are the major sources of these trace backs.
MAP is not "Bovine TB"…it is different. In humans this bug has been connected to Crohns and in cows it is called Johnes disease. It survives pasteurization temps and has been cultured extensively in pasteurized retail milks in EU and I think in America as well. I will have to check on that.
Mark
Hey all, lay off Bill -he may be young and therefore naturally full of himself, but he's also learned and brave. He's got my vote, and I appreciate his contributions of knowledge. Good grief, let's not shoot inward. It's all divine.
Mark, thanks for your words of support and will you come to our rally (currently no fixed plans, but maybe in mid January? Depends on when bill is submitted.) Micheal Schmidt, Max Kane, other heroes are welcome but got to warn you, we are heart-rich, money-poor. We'll be launching a fund-raiser soon…
Had a particularly serendipitous event this week. Been stressing about political strategy, and what do you know, CU political advocacy students came calling about our legislation. Senator Shawn Mitchell is teaching a class and gave assignment about forming a lobbying plan for raw milk legislation. All these bright young people brainstorming… What a gift! They had terrific ideas.
I learned that CDPHE is already warning our legislators that we'll be coming forward with legislation that will kill babies. They sat in our stakeholder's meeting; they know what we're proposing is only what we've been doing for 5 years already. But they are playing the scare tactic. Nuts.
-blair
Not trying to equate TB with Johnes/Crohnes. I'm wtih you on the Johnes/Crohnes issue. That is supposedly why the UK raised their legal pastuerization temp, to get rid of mad cow from the commercial milk supply (Pete Hardin of the Milkweed told me all about this).
The TB thing is a seperate, though related issue.
TB and Johnes are both just lurking, waiting to strike… only time will tell when they will rear their ugly head against the U.S. dairy and beef industry. Who knows what draconian measures FDA/USDA will try to contain these beasts of their own making?