Let’s Switch Gears–Some Useful Media Output

Enough Wife Swap. There’s actually been some informative media of late about government bullying of small farms.

First, there’s an excellent interview of Linda Faillace, author of "Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA’s War on a Family Farm", from the public radio program, "Living on Earth". Be prepared, though, it’s very emotional, especially when her daughter is asked to describe the photo on the book’s cover.

I did a review of "Mad Sheep" in September in a weekly BusinessWeek.com column I write about entrepreneurship. But I realize now that that review was insufficient to capture the injustice of what Faillace and her family experienced. Knowing what I know about the government’s treatment of raw milk dairies, I appreciate that what Faillace says about the arbitrariness and arrogance of the USDA holds true among other agencies like the FDA as well as many of the state agricultural agencies.

The only area that Faillace has some difficulty articulating is exactly why the government went after her, and continues to go after small farms a bit out of the mainstream. That’s because it is difficult to articulate, but it has a lot to do, as many readers have stated, with being seen as a threat–to existing ways of doing things and to big business interests.

As long as I’m on the subject of government bullying, there’s an excellent opinion piece in a recent Ann Arbor News by Grace Singleton taking the Michigan Department of Agriculture and the U.S. FDA to task for dragging their feet on resolving the Family Farms Cooperative/Richard Hebron mess. She criticizes them for using scare tactics about raw milk and concludes by demanding an apology to the Hebrons. I’d like to still be alive to witness the apology, but right on in making the demand.

And finally, some excellent links and quotes about raw milk debate at Planet Raw Milk.