Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. thinks I’m being way too pessimistic in my assessment of the California situation and AB1735.
He says that not only have key legislators been hit with thousands of emails protesting AB1735, but that the lawmakers are angry about the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s improper, and possibly illegal, behavior in pushing the 10-coliforms-per-milliliter standard through the legislature. According to Mark, the CDFA portrayed the standard with the legislature’s agriculture committee leaders as a small detail that would put the state in agreement with federal standards, and thus avoided hearings on the topic. The state requires that any executive agency pushing legislation to first notify the governor’s office for assessment, he says , and that didn’t happen with AB1735.
“The tea leaves are reading that we’re getting a reversal of AB1735,” Mark told me. The reversal will happen “on a procedural basis” rather than as a result of any debate on the merits of the coliform standard, he predicts. “The people who passed this law were duped.”
He credits a top California lobbying organization he and Ronald Garthwaite, the owner of Claravale Farm, hired to help make sense of the political issues underlying the legislation, and setting the stage for what he thinks will be the eventual reversal.
He also says a lawsuit seeking an injunction against enforcement of AB1735 has been written by lawyers for the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, but is on hold, based on all the progress that has been made. “Nobody wants to be deposed on this,” he says.
If Mark and Ron win this battle, it will be in large measure because they quickly learned to play the lobbying game—mobilizing public outrage and buying key access. But readers commenting on my posting yesterday are correct to wonder about the bigger picture, about why agribusiness is fighting seemingly small outfits like Organic Pastures and Claravale Farm so intently. A number who raise the issue of genetic engineering are, I believe, on the right track.
This week’s cover story in BusinessWeek is about Monsanto, with the subheading: “Despite the noise about organic food, Monsanto is quietly winning the battle over genetically modified crops.” Next, of course, come animals.
The customers of Organic Pastures, Claravale, and the hundreds of other raw milk dairies around the country are a threat because they have in effect opted out of the Monsanto vision of the future. Every person who opts out is not only a lost customer, but a lobbyist generating additional opposition. Increasingly, those of us in the opposition will need to learn how to lobby these issues.
Now, Monsanto is trying to do the same thing in Ohio and New Jersey. The opposition in Ohio, however, is strong, is well coordinated and has put the word out to Governor Strickland that truth in labeling laws should be the focus, not Monsanto’s market share of its synthetic product. The opposition believes that the public should have all the information it needs to decide whether it wishes to consume milk from cows treated with sythetic hormones. We seem to be winning in Ohio. Stay tuned for future developments.
The AB 1735 battle is quietly raging in CA. We have been asked to let the political experts hold the meetings and point fingers at the guilty. We have been asked to just make good raw milk and have the consumers ready for the attack at a moments notice. Winning AB 1735 is about finding out who-don-it and not about raw milk. There are those that simply went over the line procedurally and they have been identified. Now the members of the legislature are trying quickly to distance themselves from the criminals and look good for both the big dairies and the raw milk consumers. Thats not easy.
It appears that is exactly the solution that will play out. Reverse AB 1735 and then let who ever wants a coliform count for raw milk come forward and introduce it again in public and in the light of day…hold the hearings and let every one speak. That is the escape route that is rapidly taking shape. No one has to be pro raw milk to be pro democratic process. What happened with AB 1735 was a terrible breach of due process and even those in CDFA are admitting that the rules were not followed.
Raw milk is being saved by the internet email lists and the ability to rapidly direct passionate motivated consumers and their families to attack on a field of battle that is quick to change and filled with corrupt players. Literally the orders come in our emails go out and in hours the calls and faxed letters start hitting on the designated political targets. This is a new democracy in action.
So far our after severe consumer beatings our elected officials have been very responsive to the families who drink raw milk in CA. Everyone is getting an education on the subject. By the end of this, many of the assembly and legislature will be drinking raw milk…guaranteed!! There are 10,000 passionate educated raw milk consumers and teachers calling and faxing hard every day. They are the citizen heroes. Their actions are just as patriotic as their fore fathers that would have taken to the streets with their muskets on this type of issue.
Lets keep up the pressure and keep the threat of litigation ready to go. No one in CDFA wants to be sued and deposed under oath. Oh how embarrassing and perhaps worse. The guilty have been identified.there are no more secrets.
Sales of raw milk are exploding in CA….but yet the threat of raw milk starvation is intimately upon us all, making that call to the assemblyman very real indeed. I get a call nearly every day from a legislature office saying "we are on your side call off the avalanche of people that want raw milk". Our faxes are being emptied. We are voting behind reversal of AB 1735…white flags are waving all over the place on this subject. This is democracy at its best and worst. But it is our democracy. If we want change we must be that change.
I am so very proud of California and its raw milk consumers they have changed history and saved their living food. Trust meI will never let my guard down again. We will always have a lobbyist watch dog watching and watching for the wolves. We must meet the wolves at the gate and never let them in or let them sneak over the fence again. Our growing email list stands ready just like my great great grandfathers old trusty musket. America can only be a democracy when Americans fight for what they believe.
Only living milk brings life!!
Mark McAfee
Keep that spotlight on the criminals…and send a clear message to those that might consider this elsewhere.
This is a youtube movie of Monsanto’s Disneyland "House of the Future" made from plastic.Sure, it was 50 years ago, but it is enlightening still.
For example, the food storage system that includes storage for irradiated food.It is mentioned so casually, the perfect PR manipulation to make it seem normal and desirable.
This may be a little off topic of raw milk, but any company that has a vision of our future that includes rigid gender roles, how we will live, communicate, what sort of food and cooking we will do and even what sort of dishes it will be served on, and most other aspects of how we would "ideally" live is more than a little creepy.
And this is the company that now is positioned to control the world’s food supply.
The movie has two parts, the second is shorter but very upbeat!
The scary part is their infiltration and influence in our government, especially the USDA.
Money talks, to hell with the rest.