Heather Retberg (photo by Nancy Segari)
Eight years ago, a handful of Maine food activists launched an improbable campaign for food sovereignty. The idea was to re-frame scale-inappropriate state and federal regulations on small food producers by working with local governments in towns to pass ordinances regulating local food within local borders. The campaign began painfully slowly with a very few coastal towns, where the activists lived and farmed. Over the last year, though, the campaign has picked up new momentum, to the point where more than three dozen towns have passed food sovereignty ordinances. I recently inquired with Heather Retberg, one of the leaders of the Maine movement and owner of her own Quill’s End Farm, about how and why the movement is gathering steam during this time of extreme divisiveness in so many areas of American politics, including food and agriculture.
Q: Heather, please update us on the current state of the Maine food sovereignty movement.
A: We’ve been overwhelmed with the interest and momentum over the last year since the Maine Food Sovereignty Act was enacted by the legislature and governor. In just one year, the number of towns adopting the Local Food and Community Self-Governrance Ordinance (LFCSGO) has doubled! Since June of 2017, when twenty towns had asserted food sovereignty, 41 towns have now adopted local rules for local food with another handful still pending.
Q: Why the sudden shift in momentum?
June 16th marked the one year anniversary of the governor signing the Maine Food Sovereignty Act into law. It requires the state to recognize local ordinances governing the direct exchange of food from producer to consumer. Just a year ago, twenty towns had adopted local rules for local food, using the template formulated right here at Quill’s End Farm around my family’s kitchen table. Those first towns took a risk in our assertion of food sovereignty. The state had, for the previous seven years, refused to recognize the local ordinances threatening preemption and lawsuits. With the governor’s signature, the law opened the door for hesitant communities to adopt the LFCSGO if their town or city voted to do so.
Q: What convinced the legislature and the governor to come around to accepting food sovereignty, after opposing it so vehemently for so long?
A: Each legislative session corresponded with town meeting season in Maine. And each town meeting season, another two or three towns, some years five or six towns, would adopt the LFCSGO. The towns became more widespread, encompassing more legislative districts. So, each legislative session there were more advocates on the ground in touch with their legislators and there was more legislative awareness and support.
And, those of us who have been working on it since the beginning just wouldn’t give up. We kept coming back and pressing. We learned better how the system worked and we had some staunch, dedicated legislative allies who were also not going to give up.
The governor had supported the concept of food sovereignty since 2013, but the political will needed to grow to counter the food industry lobbyist power and influence under the dome in Augusta was missing. We changed our strategy in 2017, working closely with Sen. Jackson, the minority leader in the Senate. Rep. Craig Hickman and I worked relentlessly on language to win support in the Senate to clarify the misinformation and confusion created by the food lobbies. All the while, food sovereignty advocates around the state were contacting their senators and weighing in, pressing for support. We got two small-farm lobbyists working to help us in the halls. When it passed unanimously in the Senate, we had the momentum needed to carry it well past a veto-proof majority in the House as well. It was an uphill battle every step of the way, but…each year there were more of us and each year we were stronger, had learned more, and were gaining the respect of legislators and even our opponents.
Q: How has this shift affected the political groundwork you’ve needed to mobilize over the last eight years?
A: I don’t need to travel to as many towns anymore to offer support and resources or experience to answer questions as they arise at public hearings and town meetings. I do still go to some where it is beneficial or especially meaningful because of their process. As one example, Rockland, a city of about 7,000 people, worked on passage for two years, sending a local delegate to Augusta to support the state law’s passage and then returning to the city council. They took our ordinance, re-drafted, revised and merged. They had first readings, second readings, agenda setting meetings, and then final readings, more public hearings and…a council vote. In the end, with the careful, patient work of a few very dedicated advocates there, the city council vote was unanimously in favor! Now, I often spend more time in conversations with folks and, my favorite thing to do is to refer people in a community considering the LFCSGO to someone in a closer-by town which has just adopted local food rules—THAT is a new possibility.
Q: Have the food sovereignty ordinances had any positive effect on encouraging local farming and local food consumption that you are aware of?
A: This has been truly moving this past town meeting season. Before, even with the passage of a local ordinance in their town, sometimes farmers still felt they needed to operate ‘off-radar’ as the state refused to recognize the local laws. Once the MFSA was enacted, I heard from a small farmer in western Maine jubilant to finally put up a sign, to be visible. In Montville, there was a small goat farmer who had been feeding her surplus milk to her chickens instead of selling it to her neighbors who had inquired. Her children have both gone to a nearby community college and studied sustainable ag. Now, the family feels there is room to legally operate and make it into a bonafide business that the younger generation could grow and run. In nearby Bucksport, a woman with one cow was delighted to be able to sell the surplus milk she produces to neighbors. Vegetable farmers in Lebanon could similarly diversify their vegetable farm and value-add, as well as selling milk from their one cow. In Orland, a baker with disabilities that prevented her from operating at a scale where she could license her home kitchen, advocated for enacting the LFCSGO. Now, she can take on as many or as few orders as works well for her side business and grow it at her own pace, or keep it steady if that works better. There are more stories, a few more people moving to Maine on account of the warmth and openness of food sovereignty communities. But, by and large, the simple act of being able to visibly farm and openly, transparently conduct business has been heartening from Aroostook to York Counties (pretty much north to south in Maine).
Q: You have certainly gotten to attend a lot of town meetings. What have you learned about the issues that matter to people these days?
A: I get to learn about a lot of topics of interest or vital importance to the town or city while waiting. Rockland is currently thinking about cruise ships in their harbor and how much business is good business and how or if to regulate their visits. Whoo-boy is this contentious, more so than you might imagine.
In Orland, which adopted the local food ordinance in June, yard sales were on their town meeting agenda. Townsfolk there forewarned us to expect heated debate. I had no idea why or what or wherefore. We would learn, however, that some townspeople there have big messes in their yards called ‘yard sales’ that never get put away. This is a problem for others in the town. Others have yard sales many weekends in a row and traffic lines the roads, also creating concern for others in the town. Whoo-boy is this contentious, too—more so than you might imagine.
Whether yard sales or cruise ships, mandated sprinkler systems, sewer system updates, trash recycling, or local food and farming, town meeting is where we deal with the essential question of how we, collectively, want to live with each other in community. We don’t, collectively, always agree. But, it is where about 10% of us gather to decide the fundamental question of: Who decides? What kinds of relationships do we want to have with each other? And, how do we encode that into law? Who are we as a community?
In Rockland, they answered that last question by carefully considering that no, they were not Bar Harbor, and would not become a town of trinkets and kitsch, but could and should proceed cautiously, later, on deciding just how many cruise ships to allow and of what size and type. In Orland, they decided by a close margin that they would not limit their neighbors to only three yard sales per year with a special town permit and potential fines for leftover messes. Both Rockland and Orland decided by overwhelming consensus that they didwant to enact a law to support local food and farming.
Q: How do you explain your ability to achieve accommodation and compromise on food sovereignty during a time of seemingly endless political polarization at all levels of politics?
A: Briefly, we kept it human. Rep. Ralph Chapman, early on, encouraged us to keep our friends close but our ‘enemies’ closer. I refused to look at our policy opponents as ‘enemies’ or ‘the other’. They had a job to do, they believed a certain way for their own reasons, motivations, etc.
But, the system needed to change. We couldn’t ‘go along to get along’. We desperately need(ed) to de-centralize the decision-making around food and farming. But, we didn’t need to attack the individuals to change the system. No name-calling, no vitriol.
So, I often sat next to Department of Ag officials during public hearings and work sessions. We’d talk, shake our heads over some of the same ludicrous developments. When the committees would conference behind closed doors, we’d talk about our family, college decisions and more. Over the years, we sat down with specialty cheese-makers who opposed us, who had been so red-in-the-face-mad they wouldn’t even look at us. We sat down over a meal, we talked, we didn’t agree (mostly on where we are), but we could agree on some ways to move forward. We needed to confront the system, but not for the sake of argument, or of our rightness, but for the necessity of transformation.
Transformational conflict is not something to shy away from, but it is also no reason to be ugly. The amendment process was a long, intense day when the Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry was wrangling right along with us on how to properly amend the Maine Food Sovereignty Act under USDA threat of take-over of Maine’s meat inspection.
That day, the acting director of the Quality Assurance and Regulation division, the same man who had threatened years before to refer our farm to the attorney general, cheered with me, beside me, when the ACF Committee unanimously passed the amendment. He reached over and shook my hand and said, ‘congratulations, you did it!’. That is transformational confrontation. A moment both of us were glad to reach. And… that changed the system so he no longer needed to be a policy adversary, and all the while community governance of local food could grow.
Q: Finally, given your ability to mobilize support from both the left and the right for this hugely important issue, and win respect around the state, have you given any consideration to seeking public office?
A: Consideration, yes. But…not for too long. There is too much work to do out here in our communities. Oftentimes, just when people have figured out how to serve their families and truly benefit their own communities, they are selected for greater spheres of influence before the time when it will really be beneficial. Since our children were small, I have always believed that a family is a society in embryo and that we grow strong societies by cultivating strong families, then strong neighborhoods, then strong communities. While we need to keep engaged on legislative levels, it is increasingly important to build up what we want to see in our own towns and let that spread and grow. That is resilience. Then, if policy doesn’t go the way of helping people, people have learned to help people. We have structures in place. What good is legislative ‘power’ if the farm goes fallow? Or, political battle without the building of what we need? We doneed good policy, so our home and community spheres of influence don’t become too small or constricting. For now, I think I can do the most good from the outside of those ‘halls of power’, by working with people to use the power they have for good where they are.
Congratulations to Heather Retberg for providing wonderful leadership skills to Maine’s food sovereignty movement. I remember meeting her and several of her co-conspirators eight years ago at a Maine state fair where I was speaking, and listening to them describe their plan for getting individual towns to adopt food sovereignty ordinances….and wondering to myself whether anything substantive could actually come of it.
The movement’s success is testimony to their tenaciousness and patience, but also to their commitment to the rule of law–their willingness to place their faith in the town meeting and state legislative processes, even when the deck seemed stacked totally against them. I find their approach to negotiation and settling differences especially inspiring during this time when vitriol and name-calling and conspiracy theory seem to be consuming and destroying our country.
you’d do better to ditch the very tired cliche “conspiracy theory” Mr Gumpert. Some accusations dismissed by people who are sound asleep, as ‘conspiracy theories’ have a lot of hard evidence to back them up. Prosecutors put bad guys in prison, every week, after convincing a jury that there was a plan to do something illegal. Conspiracies to commit crimes happen at every level of human society … right to the very top of governments. At Nuremberg, the theme put forward by Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson, was : that the named Defendants had conspired to take over and run Germany ILLEGALLY. A notion never heard of before in history, but it was enough to have them hanged
… a good test would be ; take your investigative journalist talents to Sandy Hook New Jersey, and see if you can locate the basic elements of the major crime which – supposedly – happened there = 26 children and a few teachers, murdered by the “lone nut”. The EVIDENCE I’ve seen inclines me to believe that, from Obama on down to the local cops, there was a conspiracy to concoct a made-for-media propaganda piece. Post a surface mail postal address, and I’ll send you a copy of James Fetzer’s book “Nobody died at Sandy Hook”. we’ll see if you can muster the intellectual integrity to at least read it. then face the question arising : What if he’s right?
My reference to “conspiracy theory” wasn’t to deny that conspiracies take place, but to their use as a crutch and excuse by foodies to avoid doing the hard work of the type carried out in Maine to make food sovereignty a widespread reality.
time to quit [ what once was ] the Slow Food Movement. It’s been co-opted by the commies… no longer about the joy of good food, now, it’s another once-upon-a-time good work overtaken bu the Marxists as they execute their “Slow march through the institutions”. Litmus test, being : “what’s their policy re the right to use and enjoy one’s personal property?’
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKJTzxXmJGHWqVBHksQKQkWVZnlBRzWPBlXZmpVSKdWRfWVvkFLKQgWdhHrTZTHTDZxb
the Young Agrarians are already in the cross-hairs. Let Venezuela be a lesson to this generation as to what IN-evitably happens to a society when communists usurp the high places of govt. = only to kill, steal and destroy
That link you provided Gord is does not work. I t sends me to my Gmail page…
Gordon,
The book you referenced by James Fetzer, “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook” is available as a free pdf file here: https://rense.com/general96/NobodyDiedAtSandyHook_final.pdf. The first two pages that show on the screen are blank, so when you download it, you’ll need to scroll down to see where the text starts.
I read that book when it was first released, looked at the photos in it, and Mr. Fetzer does seem to make a good case for Sandy Hook being a made-for-media propaganda piece. I would like to see someone present the other side and disprove or dispute the factual evidence on which Mr. Fetzer makes his case.
I agree with Mark, these people claiming the Sandy Hook murders didn’t happen are sick,sadistic bullies. Beyond their theories, they have harassed the parents of the murdered children to such an extent that a number have taken legal action against the spewers of this stuff. One of the families has been forced to move seven times since their son was murdered, and now live so far from his grave they can’t visit as often as they’d like.
Here is the latest on the parents’ court case:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/alex-jones-defamation-suit-sandy-hook.html
I also agree with Mark that this isn’t a subject for debate on this blog. So my suggestion to Watson and McGaha is that if you feel compelled to continue discussing it, you do it on another platform.
Thank-you, David, for the years-long conversation. It continues to be a pleasure.
David,
Your post regarding local dairy is timly. We are in the midst of an American dairy crisis andthe public doesnt dvdn know it. It is a silent tragedy. I just returned from speaking at a major Dairy Summit event in Albany NY. I have never more scared dairyman in all my life. To see the proposals presented visit the Agri Mark website. The SMISA proposal that I helped write is posted. You can comment if you desire.
I invite everyone to come out to Hudson NY on September 8th to Churchtown Farm for a presentation on “raw milk….a food like none other on earth.” I will be speaking at 2 PM EST at the most beautiful place you have ever seen cows milked.
Years ago I met Abby Richefeller and she had a dream. That dream was to convert some of her family ground into a beautiful raw milk dairy. That she did. Churchtown has completed their RAWMI audit and will soon be the 17th dairy to be RAWMI Listed in North America. The dairy is built on organic and biodynamic principles and has employed some of the most striking architecture I have ever seen. It is simply gorgeous and very special. Super clean but also embracing biodiversity at the same time.
I hope to see our east coast raw milk friends for an afternoon of raw milk education and sharing.
Thank you, David and Mark, for your posts. It is inspiring to learn of Heather Retberg’s work in Maine and Abby Richefeller’s work in New York. I am one of your east coast raw milk friends who looks forward to ‘an afternoon of raw milk education and sharing’ on Sep 8th at Churchtown Farm in Hudson, NY.
As a medical microbiologist/microbial risk assessor who serves as president of the Upstate NY Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), I am developing local and international partnerships with other SRA leaders to bring scientific evidence on benefits and risks of raw and pasteurized milks into open deliberations with the public and policy makers. Many SRA members, myself included, have served on National Academies of Science NAS) committees exploring benefits and risks of microbes.
Check out the slide set from last year’s SRA webinar on deliberating evidence of risks and benefits of the natural microbes in milks (microbiota) at http://www.sra.org/upstateny/. My colleague Warner North, a past president of SRA, partnered with me on this webinar and also contributed to the NAS committee that prepared the report entitled ‘Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society’ that can be downloaded free at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/5138/.
I invite all interested in benefits and risks of the natural microbiota of milks to check out the redesigned website for my woman-owned small business, Coleman Scientific Consulting, at https://www.colemanscientific.org/. I will be posting blogs under the ‘news’ tab related to benefits and risks of the microbiota of milks, particularly from humans and cows.
I hope to meet potential partners in this work at Churchtown Farm in Hudson, NY on Sep 8th. Also, save the date for the next Upstate NY SRA event, a seminar on benefits of the breastmilk microbiota by immunotoxicologist and author Rodney Dietert at Cornell University on October 4th. I will bring more details on this and other SRA projects to Hudson.
Peg,
Your work is brilliant and holds up the highest degree of scientific integrity. I only wish that the leadership at fda held these same principles.
When science means less than politics and market control, we as a human species will suffer. And we have.
Please keep up your excellent risk assessment work and I look forward to seeing you on the 8th.
I am always aghast when I see the 82 dead Americans all killed by processed dairy products since 1972. Yet the FDA ignores this data. Few if any people have ever died from tested retail raw milk. In fact….hard to find one in the CDC data base.
Pubmed is now well populated with at least 20 Peer reviewed studies about the benefits of raw milk. Some of these benefits are life saving like reduction of asthma,colds, ear infections etc.
Never hear anything about the 10 kids that die each day in America from asthma and how it can be prevented. America is very sick…. at so many levels.
David ,
Freedom of speech has limits. I think the denial of 26 dead children at Sandy Hook breaches that limit.
Conspiracy is a mental illness. It reveals extreme lack of analytic capacity and a cult like need to deny reality.
Consider perhaps setting some limits on gross illness at this blog. Racism, white supremacy and denial of 26 dead children. That does it for me.
couldn’t agree more wit’ chya Mark McAffee … re your description of > “a cult-like need to deny reality”. that being exactly how your political pronunciamentos have come off, on this forum, for the past 2 years. Does your memory go back so far you can recall prophesying “Pence by Xmass!? I left off counting how many time you predicted “Impeachment”. t’would be a good time to ditch all that Never Trump crap-ola on this forum, too.
Mark,
When it comes to employing their freedoms, including free speech, human beings have a great deal of soul searching to do. That said, without faith in God and his Son I’m afraid that no viable answer as to how our freedoms ought to be rightly applied can be attained. What seems to get lost in this drive to speak freely is compassion and tolerance… the direct consequence of man’s innate egocentricity and obsession with control.
I suspect you cherish your right to free speech including the right to dehumanize the unborn child by describing it as a “lump of tissue” and to label Trump supporters as inferior human beings in stating that they are “brain dead stupid”… Now although I strongly disagree with your opinion on both counts and would go as far as to suggest that your statement in regards to the unborn child borders on creating a “clear and present danger” for that child, I nonetheless firmly believe that you should not be restricted or censored for making such comments.
On several occasions I’ve herd individuals refer to the raw milk movement as a cult… or perhaps as you suggested in your comment above, individuals who reveal an “extreme lack of analytic capacity and a cult like need to deny reality”. Who is denying reality in this case the accusers, or the accused? Would you agree that there is a concerted effort by the TPTB to conspire against the raw milk movement? I think there is, and I also believe that they are conspiring against those parents who refuse to vaccinate their children… does that mean I am suffering from a mental illness?
Thank you David for that very uplifting report. I wonder if Heather et al are prepared to take their cause into neighboring States?
Steve, YES!!
When the Maine Food Sovereignty Act was first signed into law last June, but before it could go into effect in November, the USDA threatened to take over Maine’s meat inspection program if the law did go into effect including meat and poultry. When people in other states saw that heavy hand so visibly, there was much more interest in asserting self-governance of food at community scales, whether county, town or township, from states across the country.
To get started, check out our website http://www.localfoodrules.org
You’ll find the ordinance template we drafted and a lot of other organizing info.
There is a publication we put together on the site called Justice Rising. It is a little dated, but still relevant, I think, to be helpful to people in other states.
It can be done! Key to success: “those of us who have been working on it since the beginning just wouldn’t give up.”
Joseph, indeed!
Re-calibrate. Be open to learning. Change strategy.
But…refuse to give up.
I won’t lie–we swore off working at the state legislative level at least twice. Once, after losing three different food & community governance bills on the appropriations table (that landed there by political sleight of hands and corruption). And, again, after a hard push to encode the right to food freedom and food self-sufficiency in Maine’s constitution. The food lobbies were always more present and knew how to work it with the Dep’t. of Ag.
But, we just couldn’t give up. So, we kept at it instead.
You are absolutely right. It can be done. Most everywhere.
There are very few states that don’t have home rule. In all the states that do, there is a claim of authority to press. These are ‘dusty tools’ of democracy that very much need to be polished up and put to use.
Very important point, Heather. At this point in time, eight years after the launch of this crazy idea of going local with food sovereignty, it all looks pretty neat and tidy. But, of course, we all know it wasn’t easy, in the least. As you point out, there were times when you and other supporters of food sovereignty were tempted to give up, to retreat to the comfort of extremism and alienation. (Yes, extremism and alienation offer a comfort of sorts in a world of complexity and diversity.) The fact that you all have achieved as much as you have in the atmosphere of polarization we have been moving through is reason in itself to celebrate your achievements…..while staying attuned to the reality that there is still much more to accomplish.
For some yes, yet that “comfort of sorts” you speak of is not satisfying enough for others in that it doesn’t satisfy their yearning for control.
There are also people, especially those who lean to the left that are hell bent on undermining complexity and diversity by categorizing individuals and things and lumping them into one box… Complexity and diversity in particular as it relates to economics, culture and free will is anathema to a controlling ideology such as socialism.
For those inclined to socialism the following pragmatic statement by Winston Churchill is apropos, “Socialism is like a dream. Sooner or later you wake up to reality”.
Ken, I’m not sure how you got from my comment all the way to socialism. It seems to me that one of the true strengths of what’s happening in Maine is that it is devoid of the conventional political labels. The food sovereignty that is spreading around the state is a function of community organizing and decision making, and it is engaging people from all sides of the political spectrum, along with those in the middle.
One of the best TED talks I’ve listened to…
Indeed, “clean and dirty are two sides of the same coin”.
Yes…
“Extremism and alienation” is what triggered the thought and sent me down that path. Socialism, an extremist and controlling ideology takes advantage of and nurtures alienation in order to achieve its extremist objective.
This grass roots movement towards food sovereignty is commendable in that it is, as you suggest, “devoid of the conventional political label”. Rather then alienate it nurtures unity. Indeed, and as Arthur Miller stated, “Without alienation, there can be no politics.”
David and Ken,
a great unifying document for everyone to take a look at as a first step is their own state constitution. Once a seed was planted that ‘something’ must be possible to re-align the principles of democracy with its ideals/intentions rather than our current realities, it’s the first place I looked. In Maine Art 1, Sect. 2 in our Bill of Rights is called ‘Power is Inherent in the People’. In NH, the corresponding article is called ‘The Right to Revolution’. Really!! Some form of this clause, taken not from the U.S. Constitution, but from the Declaration of Independence, exists in each state’s own constitution. In some states, it is stronger and other states weaker, but in all states, it exists in some form. The combination of that clause, in whatever form it exists in your state constitution, and home rule authority (however that may exist in your state statutes and/or constitution) is the basis for your legal assertion of self-determination/self-governance over your community food system. It’s essentially an assertion of community governance (town, city, township, burrough, etc.) to protect individual rights to food freedom.
Here’s our most recent template (revised to align with the Maine Food Sovereignty Act) as a model for how you might proceed in your own locality:
http://localfoodrules.org/ordinance-template/
Starting this way can be thought of as ‘horizontal policy diffusion’–spreading broadly across localities/regional structures to build power and resilience before working on ‘vertical policy integration’ (state and/or federal structures).
On that same site, you can also find a link called Organizing 101. http://localfoodrules.org/organizing-101/ Putting the two together can be the beginning of food sovereignty growing legs beyond Maine–a much needed development!!
What an inspirational post! Thank you to Heather and her fellow activists for persevering in the face of relentless opposition. And thank you to David for sharing the good news! May their example spread to other communities and states.
We hope so, too, Shana! Glad our experience in Maine can inspire.
I absolutely believe that food sovereignty is the vehicle to regain the participation of people in our food system, and our own health and well-being.
Check out our website http://www.localfoodrules.org to get some ideas on how to spread food sovereignty to other communities in other states.
I know Heather and I hope that the Local Ordinance movement is very successful. We need to advance as much as we can the original intentions of our constitution and the right of people to raise food and sell it to their neighbors. The only issue I have is that I am a Mainer, and am skeptical of almost everything. Look what’s happened with Maine congressman Chellie Pingree who comes from Minnesota (from away) and who voted for the Food Safety and Modernization Act. That bill was the death sentence for small farmers, everyone knew it, and we are now screwed. She came up almost the same way as some kind of “savior” of farmers. So my point is I do not trust any of these activists. Chellie Pingree had a long history of working with Maine Farmers. So Heather works with Craig Hickman who is a Harvard graduate and is now living in Maine. So, given these red flags, I am supposed to support this movement? Lol. We will see. (The plebs are onto the agenda)
John, you make me smile. “So Heather works with Craig Hickman who is a Harvard graduate and is now living in Maine.” Okay, you’ve forced me out of the closet–I’m a Harvard alum as well (graduate of a Harvard Business School executive education program). I think a big part of Heather’s point was that lots of different people from different backgrounds (and locations) needed to learn to work together to allow the Local Ordinance movement to catch on. To the extent we obsess about the “red flags” in people’s backgrounds or beliefs, we won’t make much progress. I’m not saying to ignore troubling legislative votes or stated positions, but the only way progress of the sort Heather has made is going to happen is if people hear each other out and figure out ways to work for the common good.
I wish there was a delete option on my comment. It was completely out of order, given all the hard work Heather, Craig and others have done.
So my original comment about Heather or Craig being from away was pretty bad. So I’m pretty knowledgeable, but I’ve never claimed that I have my shit together.
My main problem is that what we have is a communist system in the U.S., and at this point in most of the world. I remember the term “central planning” from my 1960’s high school days. So when you have Communists in control, the central plan is to acquire all the land over time, and somehow find a way to make people vulnerable, and get rid of all the people that oppose your rule. History is full of evidence of this.
So let’s plug the fact that beef prices, and milk prices are at atrocious lows. These two sectors represent a massive amount of land around the world. In Maine I have seen a LARGE number of dairies failing just this year. We have the land trusts and conservation movements in full swing with heavy funding from taxpayers; buying up easements and farmland. This also fits in with Communist’s reputation for destroying local agriculture as a way of controlling people, indeed starving them.
What I think I’m saying is that the business farmers are what has built America. That is being destroyed by the communist system. So while I like what Heather and Craig are doing, I’m skeptical that small farmers will feed America or the World. Some of the Communists and Freemasons in the government and universities don’t deserve to be “heard out” and accommodated as they would recommend.
John, appreciate your acknowledgment of what Heather and her supporters working towards. I tend to have difficulty with blanket assessments like yours that “we have a communist system in the U.S.” So-called communists systems have been imposed in a few countries over the last century or so–USSR (now Russia), Cuba, China, assorted other countries in Southeast Asia. Those systems were much different than anything we have in the U.S. right now. For one thing, there was no encouragement of private enterprise, and in the U.S. we have a vibrant private enterprise system (just look through all the companies on the NYSE, OTC, etc. for starters). Those countries also severely restricted free speech, while we are pretty much free to say and do what we want politically.
As for the power of large corporations, especially in agriculture, I agree that we definitely have a problem. In dairy, large processing companies are well on their way to an industry consolidation that makes it nearly impossible to run a small dairy in the traditional way. However, that doesn’t mean the small dairy has no business options. I won’t go into that, because it’s another lengthy comment, or even a book. But just look at other industries faced with seeming extinction, and you see the challenge. Today, traditional newspapers appear to be on their last legs because fewer and fewer people want to get their news via newsprint. Dozens and dozens of newspapers have shut down. That doesn’t mean some enterprises aren’t figuring out ways to selling news information; even some of the old newspapers (like NYTimes and Washington Post) are doing it.
Consumer habits change, technology changes, and so businesses need to change as well. Small farms are businesses, and they need to change and adjust. What Heather and her food sovereignty movement are doing, in a sense, is seeking to improve the business climate for small farms.
Interesting article here in Lancaster Farmer: “Raw milk is the farm’s top seller.”
Direct Sales Offer Alternative to Commodity Milk
https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming/dairy/direct-sales-offer-alternative-to-commodity-milk/article_4131e179-7233-58ea-987d-cbef8db77742.html
yes Joesph….trickling springs has been around a while though about years I think maybe a bit more…but you are correct and I knew this would happen 8 years ago…
.when the tanker truck comes to stop at each farm to get their milk I hear that they were only given 1.00 approx a pound….thats a crazy cheapo price….just recently 2 farmers I met have sold their herd of 300 cows to start up small grass based direct to consumer….getting .00 a gallon and more for their small goods like butter and cottage cheese…. 10 years ago a problem was occurring in upstate New York…probably still is and a few farmers were committing suicide.because the pasteurization prices were putting them out of business.the milk tanker truck people and horizon is one of the bigger ones is offering crazy cheap prices to give these very hard working farmers.weather they are organic or non organic.
sorry typo………..getting 7.00 a gallon direct farm sale
We sure do not have a communist system here. We have a corrupt capitalist system. The market signals are not free to adjust properly because those price and supply signals are being puppetted by processors that make huge money off the backs of dairymen.
Mark,
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wisely stated, “The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble”.
In an interview with Joseph Pearce Sr. in 2003 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn correctly stated, “Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive”.
Ken, Solzhenitsyn was right. That’s why most of his books are still banned in English. I talk about Communism because most people in the U.S. think Communism is “bad”, but have no idea that their “capitalism” might be the other half of the coin. That’s why I am skeptical about this Maine Food Sovereignty movement. This may be a classic dialectic.
“In the Red Symphony revelation, insider Christian Rakovsky showed how Communism and Capitalism were part of this dialectical process. . In each case, the Illuminati Jewish banking cartel controls all wealth and power.
“In Moscow, there is Communism: in New York capitalism. It is all the same as thesis and antithesis. Analyze both. Moscow is subjective Communism but [objectively] State capitalism. New York: Capitalism subjective, but Communism objective.”
https://www.henrymakow.com/geneva_versus_peace.html
go get your high-school copy of the Communist Manifesto- personally autographed to you by Caesar Chavez – Mister McAffee. Then tell us which of its 10 Planks ( tenets) are NOT in place in Ham-merica, today? Perhaps start with the one requiring a Central Bank, upon which all the others depend
for the sake of a bit of shadenfreud ( on my part ) pay attention to the Conservative Party of Canada coming unglued, over the dairy quota supply racket. I take great glee in sayin’ “I told ya so!” …as Maxime Bernier’s camp shines the light of public scrutiny on the organized criminality of the Dairy Farmers de Canada.
the ridiculously-perverse coddling one segment of producers, to the detriment of society at large, is playing-out as a textbook example for business schools, of how NOT to go about state intervention. It ALWAYS does more harm than good
the scandal about the dairy racketeers is the “spark which set on fire the whole forest.”
in this poor suffering Dominion, we have a federal law against “abuse of dominance” in a market. Sort of like what Dean Foods got caught doing … and you want us to believe that there’s a free market in milk?
Show me a free market in first world nations. There is no free market examples. None. Markets are policed and regulated. If not there is rampant cheating and corruption.
Mark,
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wisely stated, “The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble”.
In an interview with Joseph Pearce Sr. in 2003 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn correctly stated, “Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive”.
Ken,
What model for society do you embrace that would be good for humanity?
Most of the UK, EU, NZ, Australia and Canada use a hybrid mix of shared social responsibility along with competitive capitalism. Not perfect, but seem to work fairly well.
Do you have a better model? Or combination of models. Would love to hear about it. You notice I did not use labels here.
A model Mark that respects our God given free will.
Robert Kennedy stated. “Freedom has the strength of compassion and flexibility”… as apposed to a socialist ideology such as “Communism everywhere”, that according to Kennedy, “has paid the price of rigidity and dogmatism”.
Well Mark, here are a few things (in the USA) that could be done.
1) Rule and declare that local agriculture is indispensable to a free and healthy society.
2) Allow all farms and stores within local communities to sell food from a certain radius without local, state, federal, or International (particularly the UN) interference, as long as the farm name is on the food.
3) Impose a 50% tariff on all imported milk or milk products, beef or beef products, pork or pork products (ALL food) unless there is determined to be a disastrous impact on Americans.
4) Allow for Americans to buy back all the Farms that have been fraudulently conserved or bought by the land trusts or any of these “conservation” groups.
5) If the 50% tariff above does not work, increase it to 100%.
This is a start, but I know that most people here are more knowledgeable than me so I would love your comments.
I hope Mark that this would not impact your business, but the shit is hitting the fan, and we need to take back our ability to feed people.
US dairy farmers struggle as Trump blames Canada
https://www.facebook.com/cnnmoney/videos/2131893300383401/UzpfSTUyMjU0OTI0NjoxMDE1NTk0OTgxMTY3OTI0Nw/
“Taxpayers in Trump’s America prop up milk prices, yet Canadian supply management always cast as villain” at http://nationvalleynews.com/2018/09/04/taxpayers-in-trumps-america-are-forced-to-prop-up-milk-prices-while-canadian-supply-management-is-villainized/
tragically, the Slow Food movement has been co-opted by the so-called social justice warriors. Latest missive from the Slow Food USA is all about “inclusiveness / multi-cultural-ism”. More proof how The Long March through the Institutions is proceeding.
the commies are venal, but they’re not stupid. They realize that young white people are awakening to our heritage … getting out on the farm thus = in touch with the real world, tends to do that. Rediscovering the food and agricultural laws as set out in the Bible, white people figure out “white national-ism” for demselves. Despite the social justice types running out front of it, frantically attempting to herd the movement away from discovering our racial identity … “Blood will out”.
I’d say the ‘Fast Food’ movement was long ago co-opted by your type–Dean Foods, Tyson, Monsanto (and now Bayer, which has bought Monsanto, and collaborated with the Nazis). I’ll take the Slow Food movement and its interest in social justice and diversity over your types any day of the week.
“my types” = Dean Foods/ Tyson/ Monsanto Bayer ? that’s pretty funny, in light of the fact that I was one of the pioneers of the organics movement, in BC. Recognized by Madame Justice Levine as “a longtime political activist” when the raw milk case got to the Court of Appeal
even more ridiculous is attempting to tar me with your kneejerk pejorative “Nazi” because I advocate for the interests of white people. Even a Harvard grad can be a life-long learner! Confer with the extensive work done by your tribesman, Henry Makow, as to the origin of that word : the NA stood for national social-ism, to which was added the ZI when Adolf and his pals allied demselves with the Zion-istas. But don’t take my word for it … go get the Facts and think for yourself.
My point in listing those corporations was to highlight their roles as symbolic opposition to the “Slow Food” movement, which you say you despise because of its growing commitment to human rights and diversity. As we used to say way back when, “You’re either part of the problem, or you are part of the solution.” Repression, whether from corporations or politicians, stands in opposition to food sovereignty and rights, and thus is part of the political problem we face.
I should add that we’ve begun to see some hopeful signs on the corporate front, most noteworthy, Nike’s backing of Colin Kaepernick, the former SF Forty-niners’ QB who was blackballed for kneeling during the Star Spangled Banner. Comparable action on the food side would be for Dean Foods to feature a raw dairy farmer in its promo, on importance of choice and nutrition.
nowhere do I say I “despise” the Slow Food Movement. I’m sure the majority of its members are dedicated to improve food quality + quantity according to the main theme of ‘slow down, enjoy and be grateful’.
… What I do say, is : the communists are characterologically UN-able to create anything. Their Modus Operandus being, to kill steal and destroy everything virtuous. Seeing the success of the the Slow Food movement; they targetted it for infiltrtion in order to mis-lead naive young people full of life, off into the weeds … wasting time and talent on non-sense of ‘gender parity’ mis-cegenation and all the rest of the intellectual masturbations. === Case in point : in British Columbia, the Young Agrarians have fallen prey to this ‘social justice’ non-sense. Landless young people are working their hearts out … for what? My answer = a new form of feudal-ism, in which BY DESIGN farmhands wind up with no personal capital / below the poverty line / expected to be grateful just for a place to reside… serfs on the land our forefathers pioneered.
https://dairyproposals2018.com/view-proposals/proposals/proposal_4.pdf
Joe,
Thanks for posting this piece of dairy news. I have been very busy on this subject for the last two months. In fact, I drafted SMISA along with our team at California Dairy Campaign. The three legged milk stool is described in our proposal. It was presented in Albany NY at the Dairy Sunmit when I spoke. We received a 100% of all Dairymans hands up vote for the proposal.
We have support from both large and small dairies and also organic dairies as well. I am meeting with Bernie Sanders Staff in DC next month and we hav already met with our local CA congressman. He loves it. Bernie’s staff loves it. Members of the big coops love it.
We should not blame Canada for our USA dairy debacle. They have the finest dairy system in the world with one little fault. The don’t allow or make a place for legal raw milk! In the 1960s Canadian dairymen made the brave move to a Three Legged Milk Stool with farmers regionally in charge. The prices in Canada paid by consumers is the same as in the USA and processors are thriving. Dairies get double the price of US dairies at $27 per CWT.
They control :
Price
Supply
Import Export
We in the USA control none of these the critical elements. We don’t have any legs on our stool. As a result we are loosing 3 dairies per day with no end in sight.
Today the National Farmers Union president Roger Johnson released a press release ths said we in America would do well to take a chapter from the Canadian dairy system.
We have screwed ourselves. I received a call from two directors of the Ontario and Quebec dairy boards. They both wanted to let me know that US trade negotiators were trying to take apart their Supply and Price management system and flood Canada with cheap American dairy products. They are standing tall behind their farmers and will not change their systems.
I applaud the Canadians. This is our problem and SMISA would fix it with out one dollar being paid from the tax payers.
The American dairy farmer has been misrepresented by Trumps anti Canada assault. We don’t need export to Canada….we need to control our own Three Legged Milk Stool.
There is a strong national movement to make this change. Pain creates conditions for change. Pain is upon the American dairyman and three more years of pain is projected ( Cornell Univ Ag Economists ).
I have a unique position to be able to speak. I don’t answer to a processor…my dairy friends have asked me to help carry their message for them and with them. Processors kill off dairies that speak up or protest.
Little do they know that Saputo Cheese became very wealthy in Canada under Supply and Price management. Stable supply and a known price make for stable processing conditions. No plsnt closures etc.
We have a battle brewing. Supply is actually down yet prices stay down. It is a broken system. Trucks are carrying milk from huge CAFO systems thousands of miles to reach processing plants. This costs huge amounts of money. Money that is lost in inefficiency. Money that should be flowing to local farmers. Canada keeps milk local. It is a Smart System.
Ours is broken and chaotic. Dairies are dying.
By the way, demand is growing for dairy products. But supply is not connected in a smart or planned system. Prices are kept artificially low because processors love I that way.
Mark
Mark, you’re living in a fool’s paradise…
I can and already have pointed out a good many faults with the Canadian milk management system apart from the one lone fault you mentioned above. Yet, you persist with the same misleading assertions!!! As I stated before, ”supply management is not the magic bullet you make it out to be”…
a lot of non-sense, for all that verbiage. Sadly and badly out of touch with the facts … particularly : consumer sentiment. Suffice to say : crybabies in Quebec ( coddled by compliant political whores ) produce half the milk for all of Canada. Meanwhile les Quebecois consume 25%. So a very small number of producers, hold the rest of the country for ransom, in a system which was PROVABLY designed by communists / Fabian Society. How fitting that you turn to a card-carrying commie = Bernie Sanders = for approval!
Local? what a joke. Quebec milk products travel 3000 miles, to market ONLY because their cartel is protected AT GUNPOINT. you think I’m kidding?
the geniuses whom Mr McAffee commends ship their milk from the Fraser Valley to be processed in Calgary, then it’s shipped back to the Greater Vancouver market. This poor suffering Dominion of Canada is still run according to the Corn Laws which ruled the United Kingdom for a century. Local??? only someone with no understanding of the politics of it, can say that with a straight face…. British Columbia cannot get the “right” to produce even as much milk or eggs as people here consume … because Central Canada has a lock on the way the racket is run.
the good news is : half a century of centrally-dictated control over the food supply , is coming to a dramatic end / the Conservative Party comes unglued, when its utter perverse policy to do with supply management, was exposed.
Ken and Watson,
What system of dairy management do you suggest might work better than the Canadian system
Seriously. What system do you suggest?
Give me the nuts and bolts of a system that is stable and puts farmers at the table. At present the USA is losing 3 dairies each day. Is that the system you suggest is good. Good for whom ?
“As a society, our food supply and even our vaccines are awash in glyphosate, which should be of grave concern. One study has shown that 93% of individuals tested in the U.S. show levels of glyphosate in their urine. Average levels of glyphosate in urine of children in this study eclipsed 3.5 parts per billion. This is highly disconcerting given that another study shows glyphosate-related damage to the liver and kidneys of rats at levels as low as 0.05 parts per billion. Despite all this evidence, the U.S. EPA sticks to their claim that glyphosate is safe for consumption. As is the case with vaccines and other medical products, with our food supply, we simply cannot trust our government to tell us what is safe to put in our bodies.”
https://worldmercuryproject.org/news/rounding-up-glyphosate-toxicity-known-since-the-80s-so-why-werent-we-protected/?utm_source=mailchimp
And we persist at blaming microbes for what ails us!?
Bill Marler and his gang of supporters would do well to focus their attention on the above rather declare war on a microbe that is merely responding to the toxic environment that we have created.
Raw milk vending machines provide a convenient outlet for residents to stock up on what is considered a healthy and wholesome food. Self-service machines may be found at farmers markets and small farms as well as in shopping centers and near schools and playgrounds. In addition to England, raw milk is available via vending machines in a number of countries, including, Austria
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Lithuania
Netherlands
Poland
Romania
Serbia
Slovakia
https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/raw-milk-vending-machines-flourish-europe
Thanks to the supply management autocrats/tyrants there is an outright ban on raw milk sales in Canada…
Raw milk and supply management can go together – that worked in England – a farmer could get quota for “raw drinking milk” or quota for milk for the processor.
DFC is the lobby group which had the Feds pass the ban on sales (in the Food and Drugs Regulation) back in 1991. To remove this ban, DFC support is vital – we have been told this by a certain cabinet minister in the “Trudeau 2.0” gov’t — that they will not legalize raw milk sales as “DFC won’t be pleased.” But maybe the threat of NAFTA killing supply management will make DFC consider supporting raw milk sales now. Does anyone here have a contact who is DFC board member?
On Saturday Mark McAfee delivered a fantastic talk at Churchtown Dairy. The 17th dairy to be listed by RAW Milk Institute. Congratulations to Mark McAfee and Abby Rockefeller of Churchtown Dairy
The barn on this dairy farm is absolutely beautiful. Churchtown Dairy is a must see: http://www.churchtowndairy.org/
Thanks for the alert, Joseph. Sorry I couldn’t be there. I just posted some photos from Mark McAfee on the Facebook page for The Complete Patient.
It was a complete honor to see Dr Joe Heckman, Peg Coleman, Liz Reitzig, Abby and her team at Churchtown. Being able to present a talk on raw milk in the architecturally awesome inspiring round house was a complete joy.
Churchtown Dairy has been hard at work refining their RAWMI RAMP for the last several months. Their test results are awesome.
CT Dairy, welcome to the international community of Listed raw milk producers.
Mark
‘Anti-Probiotics’ Could Suppress Weeds and Invasive Plants
Scientists are finding microbes that are good for crops but bad for weeds.
“It’s creating a microbiome that really favors the crop over competitors,” said White. “There’s a whole world down there that we don’t know much about.”
https://www.insidescience.org/news/anti-probiotics-could-suppress-weeds-and-invasive-plants