In all the he-said-she-said around the Sharon Palmer case, one little factoid that is difficult to put out of mind is the use of undercover agents. State agriculture agencies use agents to pose as consumers buying products, often seeking to convince farmers to sell things they may be prohibited from selling.
More often than not, the farmers refuse, but the agents persist, weaving some sad story about how they need the milk or cheese for some special event, and how awful it will be if they can’t complete the purchase. A number of the farmers, put in this uncomfortable position, do what Sharon did: they just give product to the agents. It has been much the same with Manna Storehouse and with dairy farmers in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
When you think about it, this giving is a truly Christian act, done in the spirit of this commandment from the Bible (Leviticus 23:22): “When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. I am the LORD your God.'”
A reader similarly upset about the entrapment approaches wrote me a couple days ago, complaining that such cases “are about trapping somebody into an act of kindness, with no money changing hands. In fact the victims went the other way, giving product away for free. I’m generally of the mind that regulators are more poor fools than evildoers, but these events are so awful one has to wonder if there is a devil at work. State-sanctioned violence against these farmers is difficult to stomach under any circumstances, but the schemes employed to justify them are so far over the top that I can no longer believe that they are driven by anything but evil intent.”
I should add that the daggers being thrown at Sharon Palmer by Joe Slow look to be additional cases of evil intent. There are a number of people I trust investigating this situation, and they’re being told Sharon is a trustworthy customer. I always hesitate to enter the he-said-she-said waters Joe Slow swims in, but the real stories behind the cases he cites have elements of the Wild West associated with them—grain thefts and water rights, among other things. In other words, there are very much two sides to these stories.
The article in the Ventura County paper yesterday provides details on the raw milk aspect of this story—an area I had refrained from discussing because it wasn’t clear the authorities were interested in this as well as the facilities licensing issue. If this is something they are pursuing, then it is another example of a herdshare type situation coming under pressure.
But regardless, it all seems to start with the unsavory undercover tactics, which really aren’t undercover acts at all, but shameful acts by rulers afraid of the ruled.
————–
This is off-topic, but I wanted to share some interesting and disturbing information that I recently dug up. It turns out that there is a Washington D.C. based organization called the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA, http://www.nasda.org), founded in 1915 and whose mission is to "represent the state departments of agriculture in the development, implementation, and communication of sound public policy and programs which support and promote the American agricultural industry, while protecting consumers and the environment." NASA is governed by a ten member board consisting of department of agriculture directors from various states, currently including Robert Boggs of Ohio, Patrick Hooker of New York and directors from eight other states.
NASDA currently has seventeen Policy Statements on topic areas developed by the NASDA membership – "These topics are consistent with the guiding principles outlined in the policy statement titled ‘Guiding Principles for Agricultural Competitiveness and Working Partnerships.’ NASDA policies are the operational, working policies that guide our efforts to influence the development and implementation of sound policy and programs at all levels of the federal government."
On a hunch, I took a look at Policy Statement #4, "Food Regulation and Safety." In section 4.3 "Roles and Responsibility" buried about half-way into the document are two paragraphs under "Milk Quality-pasteurization" that are very interesting:
"Only pasteurized milk, milk products and properly aged cheeses should be sold for human consumption. Sale includes distribution by use of animal or herd sharing, bartering, exchange or agistment. In those states where the sale of unpasteurized milk is authorized, those products should be labeled ‘Not Pasteurized and May Contain Organisms that cause Human Disease.’
Apparently healthy cows and goats can shed in their milk organisms which are pathogenic to human beings and may cause diseases such as brucellosis, Campylobacter enteritis, salmonellosis, and tuberculosis; and inasmuch as milk handlers may introduce pathogenic agents during the handling of unpasteurized milk (including certified raw milk)…"
What is most disturbing about this policy is that NASDA, an organization consisting entirely of the heads of the state departments of agriculture, has decided entirely on its own in opposition to various state laws and court decisions that all milk sold for human consumption should be pasteurized. Furthermore and contrary to various court decisions, NASDA has decided all by itself that herd shares, bartering, exchanges and boarding contracts are all "sales"!
I would just chalk this up to departmental hubris, were it not for the fact that this is a policy statement guiding all departments of agriculture, who are also members of NCIMS – the National Conference of Interstate Milk Shipments. NCIMS (http://www.ncims.org) is responsible for writing the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO), which is the template legislation for milk and dairy production that is mostly adopted as-is by many dairy producing states. The topic of raw milk and herdshares has come up in past NCIMS conferences, and no action was taken during the last one. The next conference is scheduled for this April in Orlando Florida, and the danger is that one of the committees may decided to insert language into the PMO defining herdshares as "sales" or banning them entirely. States often adopt the PMO with a very cursory review if at all, and it would be very easy for Ohio, New York or Pennsylvania to suddenly find that herdshares are illegal under their state’s revised code. There are many people keeping an eye on NCIMS and the PMO, and we would certainly have advance warning if the PMO was changed to disallow herdshares.
One final tid-bit that I found was that during the NASDA’s midyear meeting in February 2008, Director Kawamura of California submitted an action item requesting "NASDA to conduct and update a survey on raw milk regulation and food safety issues at the state level." This item was moved to recommend, passed by the membership and is presumably being implemented. We can only speculate to what nefarious purpose this survey has been or will be used.
————
Date: January 12, 2009
Contact: Martin Kanan,
President and CEO,
King Nut Companies
(440) 248-8484 ext. 244
Subject: Statement to the Media and Our Customers Clarifying the King Nut Peanut Butter Recall
January 12, 2009
On Saturday, January 10, we issued a recall of our peanut butter distributed to food service companies under the King Nut label.
We issued the recall after learning that salmonella had been discovered in an open container of peanut butter with our label. We also made it clear that we do not manufacture King Nut peanut butter nor do we supply any ingredients for the peanut butter. We are simply the distributors.
Since that time, we have been working closely with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control to help them trace the cause of this contamination. This takes time, but we are cooperating fully with their investigation.
Today, the Minnesota Department of Health suggested that King Nut peanut butter is linked to illnesses nationwide. We only distribute in seven states and therefore King Nut peanut butter could not possibly be the source of a nationwide outbreak of salmonella. (King Nut peanut butter is distributed to food service companies in Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, Arizona, Idaho and New Hampshire.)
Questions about the manufacture of the peanut butter and nationwide distribution should be directed to Peanut Corporation of America.
We thought it was very important for the public to understand this. We are doing everything we can to get our King Nut peanut butter out of distribution because our first priority is the health and safety of those who use our products. But we can only recall the product that was distributed under our label, and clearly that does not extend nationwide.
Martin Kanan
President and Chief Executive Officer
King Nut Companies
Solon, Ohio
So let me get this straight. Writing bad checks for hay justifies her being prosecuted for selling raw milk. Is that the underlying argument? She’s a villian, so lets get her any way we can?
That does reek of ex-husband, judging from my own direct experience in such matters; or at the very least a disgruntled neighbor wanting to cause a person as much trouble as possible.
It has nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with any raids regarding a herdshare or raw milk. Lets not mince topics here. If you want a posse to catch and hang a villian, please go start your own blog.
Gwen
So, where next? Live within or change the laws? Again, here are some "Great Thoughts" presented by Steve Bemis a few posts ago. This is not an absolute endorsement of these thoughts on my part, but the pragmatic approach could be a good starting point for discussion of the bigger picture and most pressing issues. Or not? I am curious what other readers think.
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2008/12/29/is-regulator-alerting-us-to-real-raw-milk-issues-or-excuses.html
The following Great Thoughts are offered here as "targets" for further discussion (sorry about the detail and length of all this; it’s coming from a lawyer). They are an attempt to synthesize some of the major issues and discussion currents which have been flowing:
1) The FDA Petition should be broadened to exempt sales OR OTHER DISTRIBUTION of raw milk and raw milk products, which sale or other distribution is legal in both the originating state and in the consuming state.
[Mark’s petition is modeled on Ron Paul’s original Resolution, which is still buried in the House Energy & Commerce Committee, and which should be broadened to free up interstate traffic founded in other legal arrangements (such as cow shares, which with all due respect Mark, are not "black market"). If, as I suspect, FDA at some level really would like to get out of regulating this tiny raw milk market, they would not really get out of the business if they implemented the Petition as it is presently drafted since the Petition bakes in a high level of both state and federal regulation; hopefully, FDA would at least approve the Petition for further comment, where these additional points can be raised.]
2) There should be some kind of consistent identification of raw milk and raw milk products coupled with standard warning language, whether basic such as current restaurant-style warnings, or more elaborate such as current California warnings.
3) Claims for health benefits may be made by any customer in the producer’s advertising or sales forum only if in the form of personal testimonials or peer-reviewed scientific papers; or by the producer in the producer’s advertising or sales forum only if in the form of a statistically accurate summary of unsolicited customer testimonials or peer-reviewed scientific papers.
3) Sales at retail (where the consumer by definition is remote from the producer) should be regulated under state law.
4) Transactions (whether sales, cow shares or otherwise depending on state law) direct from farmer to consumer whether on the farm or otherwise, or from farmers with herds smaller than a yearly-average [100] milking cows, should not be regulated other than by individual agreement.
[Model here for application to the feds, which should be ample precedent for a similar exemption of raw milk, is the federal Egg Products Inspection Act (Pub. L. 91-597, 84 Stat.1620 et seq.) which exempts eggs direct farm-to-consumer or any sales from flocks of less than 3000 birds. At the state level, some states permit sales to various degrees and at the other extreme, some few prohibit all kinds of raw milk transactions; these issues will have to be dealt with at the state level.]
5) Parents are free to feed their children whatever foods they choose.
6) Farmers and individuals who provide raw milk or raw milk products to "others" should have legal protection in litigation (absent reckless behavior or actual knowledge of pathogens or other significant risk factors) so long as the proper identification and warnings (as in, #2) were provided and, in the case of "others" who are minors, so long as the identification and warnings were effectively communicated to the minor’s parent or guardian prior to consumption.
7) Educational materials (directed to both producers and consumers) for the safe production, handling and processing of raw milk and raw milk products should be developed and widely distributed generally and in the producer’s advertising and sales media.
8) An open, collaborative, transparent and scientifically rigorous approach should be taken by producers, consumers and public health officials in all instances of disease outbreak with a common commitment both to protect public health and to protect continued viability of responsible producers. Public health warnings which are not connected to outbreaks of illness or which prove to have been unfounded, shall be followed by public health advisory followups which are communicated with the same level and extent of publicity as the initial warning, including exoneration of producers as appropriate.
9) Independent research (including analyses of testimonials and other real-life evidence as well as traditional reductionist studies) should be publicly funded to examine the nutritional value, environmental impacts of production, and the acute and chronic impacts on human health from raw and traditional foods and from industrially-produced foods.
10) Broader insurance availability for producers and other risk-sharing approaches should be developed as a counterweight to regulation-by-litigation.
[Farmers might consider voluntary production standards such as various kinds of testing protocols or simply rely on many years of problem-free operation, so as to induce insurers to write policies, otherwise the insurers will want to "go automatic" and insist on compliance with various regulations which is their current typical mode. Similarly, a litigation defense which is founded in compliance with the testing protocols of a voluntary standard or in decades of trouble-free operation by simply "looking at the animals and watching what’s in the filter," should help to defend against litigation, and ultimately, to reduce litigation’s attractiveness simply because problems are so rare. It is a truism, that what insurance companies want most, is to write insurance where it is not really needed, since that’s the most profitable way to write insurance. As David points out, since we don’t really know how many people drink raw milk, we really don’t have any idea of the denominator and thus cannot calculate the real incidence of raw milk disease outbreaks.]
"Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back."
I thought that entrapment was illegal.
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/entrapment
http://research.lawyers.com/glossary/entrapment.html
Entrapment
Definition – Noun
1 : the action or process of entrapping <~ is un-American and has no place in law enforcement Tip O’Neill>
2 : the state or condition of being entrapped
also
: the affirmative defense of having been entrapped by a government agent (as an officer or informant)
see also predispose
Entrapment is available as a defense only when an agent of the state or federal government has provided the encouragement or inducement. This defense is sometimes allowed in administrative proceedings (as for the revocation of a license to practice medicine) as well as criminal proceedings. In order to establish entrapment, the defendant has the burden of proving either that he or she would not have committed the crime but for the undue persuasion or fraud of the government agent, or that the encouragement was such that it created a risk that persons not inclined to commit the crime would commit it, depending on the jurisdiction. When entrapment is pleaded, evidence (as character evidence) regarding the defendant that might otherwise have been excluded is allowed to be admitted.
Rather it is the manufacturing of a crime. These farmers demonstrated that they knew the law, by refusing to sell to the inspector. Their verbal refusal should please the regulators, instead they persist, to what, fulfill their quota? Perhaps farmers need to have these perpetrators brought to justice. They are the ones breaking the law.
I am wondering in what class all these inspectors were taught this strategy? Entrapment 101?
Kimberly
Visit my blog at http://www.hartkeisonline.com
if you look at it all together, it is worthy of panic on a collective basis, our country is racing into fasism at break neck speed by a gov’t completely compromised by the same corporations who cause (by far) most of our problems…
so far, no panic is allowed.. how long this artificial calm lasts is anyones guess, but in my opinion should the economy actually recover it’s a sure thing that americans are completely out of touch with reality and/or in denial. this is not a good thing… the wake-up call is ringing. if one looks at what the fda and ftc are doing to herbal remedies and natural health care real milk fits right in.
but none of these individual issues is the problem, the pattern is well established and will not abate until it all collapases or millions of plain folk pick up arms and a lot of bodies pile up…. if may be a dacade off or it may be this year. when i look at current society all i can see is how untenible it all is. all it will take is a trigger event, maybe a pretty big volcano will ruin the growing season, maybe the power grid will fail for a week or 10 days… maybe someone will nuke iran, or isreal…
the trigger event list is as long as ones imagination cares to ponder the possibilities.
sadly, i’m an optimist… i’m farming with a goal to feed some 30 famlies, but should things continue the way they are i can imagine the feds shutting me down for selling fresh veggies and chicken eggs.. i make my own compost, i have bugs and worms and all sorts of wild life with free access on my farm. i use zero chemicals and grow fabulous tomato’s and my chickens eat bugs and occationally chatch themselves a mouse or mole or other little critter… but boy are their eggs good! and their meat is exceptional…
i can see how what i and a few others (i read an estimate that there are some 2 million small farms left in america, but only a few hundred thousand have chickens, cows, pigs, goats etc… and actually polyfarm the way most people did 150 years ago.
if you know a local farmer, ask them that when the s**t hits the fan can you move in and help them protect the property and garden and livestock. remember you’ll need skills to offer in trade…
i really don’t see any hope to re-rail this train. it has to wreck, a hundred million or more americans will likely die, if you live in a city or dense suburb you probably have no hope of making it by staying put. once the grocery store is empty the hungry teenage boy mobs will be looking to see what’s in your pantry. luckly most of those people will never leave the city, i don’t believe they have the sense to actually be survivors.
in reality i imagine the military will seize my farm so i’m not much better off, but with luck we’ll have gathered together 30 or so strong/smart/capable families and if need be we’ll head for the hills on horseback.
i imagine many who read this post will scoff;, it’ll never happen! but when the trigger event hits i believe it’ll happen so fast that no marshall law or police action will have any effect beyond killing off a lot of people faster then they’d die on their own.
then the issue becomes how to rebuild, i can promise i’ll do my best to insure that no individual from current gov’t is allowed to "take charge".
pantry item of the day: bah, who needs a stinking pantry anyway….