Once they’re finished investigating Richard Hebron and the Family Farms Co-op, the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should be primed to go after Osama bin Laden.
The agencies have widened their unrelenting probe of raw milk distribution by the cooperative in Michigan…to Pennsylvania.
You read that right. Federal agents and Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) agents paid several visits during December to a farmer who supplies products to the Family Farms Cooperative.
These weren’t just get-to-know-you visits—on one occasion, the agents produced UPS receipts from the farmer’s shipments.
The fact that the MDA and FDA are devoting so much time and effort to this situation helps explain why the Cass County district attorney’s office hasn’t yet determined whether or what charges might be filed.
Peter Kennedy, the Weston A. Price Foundation lawyer, says he reads two possible implications into the seemingly never-ending investigation. “Either they don’t have enough evidence to make a case and they’re desperate to come up with something. Or else, they’re just trying to pile it on.”
This investigation really dates back to last Easter, when several members of an Ann Arbor family became ill. Never mind that the illnesses were likely caused by pasteurized milk, the investigation must go on. Go on, it has. The MDA spent six months working undercover to set up its October 13 sting, when Richard Hebron was arrested, his house searched, and his records, products, and equipment seized. FDA and Indiana agriculture agents then descended on an Indiana farm that supplies the cooperative with raw milk. (Details in my BusinessWeek.com column last October.)
Now we’re going on three months awaiting some action. So far, the only action has been that Richard Hebron has been invited to pick up most of his coolers from the Cass County prosecutor. I should note that Katherine Fedder, the MDA official heading up the investigation, had previously indicated that this investigation expanded well beyond Michigan.
I must exercise caution in details I provide here about the Pennsylvania component of the investigation, in consideration of the farmer’s request that I not reveal his identity, nor provide certain particulars of the questions he was asked. He understandably doesn’t want to agitate the investigators.
However, I did speak with a PDA agent involved in the investigation, and he told me he got involved at the behest of the FDA and MDA. He said he was asked “for a lot of information” about the Pennsylvania farm. “I shared it with the MDA and FDA.” He added, though, that the agencies didn’t share with him where the investigation was going. The Cass County district attorney’s office was closed today.
Pennsylvania is known as a state that is tolerant of farmers selling raw milk direct to consumers. The agent indicated that the Pennsylvania farmer likely won’t face any problems from PDA. “In Pennsylvania, we’d much rather settle this kind of thing out of court.” Would that it were so in Michigan.
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