If You Want More Local Food, Stop Criminalizing Family Farmers [View all]

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Published on Tuesday, January 10, 2012 by [font color="blue"]CommonDreams.org[/font]
If You Want More Local Food, Stop Criminalizing Family Farmers

by John Kinsman


On Wednesday January, 11 Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Herschberger must appear before a county judge in Baraboo, WI. His crime? Providing unpasteurized dairy products from his small herd of about twenty pastured cows to members of his own buying club. Half way across the continent in Maine, Daniel Brown, another family farmer with a small livestock herd was notified last November that he was being sued by the state for selling food and milk without a license. At the time he was milking one Jersey cow.

In Valencio County, New Mexico, the Hispano Chamber of Commerce was forced to cancel its popular Matanza Festival set for Jan. 28th under pressure from the USDA which said the centuries old tradition of processing and serving pigs on site could no longer be done outside of a federally certified slaughter facility. Last July in Oak Park, Minnesota bureaucrats threatened Julie Bass with up to three months in jail for daring to grow vegetables in her own front yard. In September, Adam Guerroro was ordered to remove his kitchen garden because it was deemed a “public nuisance” by Memphis, Tennessee officials. Apparently, Michelle Obama’s victory garden at the White House falls under a different jurisdiction.

This government crackdown on family farmers is absurd given the current sordid state of our food/farm system and the urgent need to relocalize agriculture for the sake of our health, as well as that of the planet. Study after study has shown that the most dangerous food is usually that which has endured the most processing and traveled the furthest.

“With millions of Americans contracting food borne illnesses each year, the USDA is committed to supporting research that improves the safety of our nation’s food system,” wrote USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan in the December 2011 issue of Agriview. In the same issue, it was also revealed that U.S. meat and milk exports had failed to pass the European Union’s standard for drug residues. Deborah Cera, leader of the drug compliance team at the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, admitted there were many violations involving scores of drugs in U.S. livestock. In a November 2011 article in the Wisconsin State Farmer, Kim Brown-Pokorny of the WI Veterinary Medical Association, warned that Wisconsin was the worst violator nationwide in terms of illegal drug residues in the meat of culled dairy cows. Yet, there was no mention in either article of prosecuting or penalizing these drug users or even informing U.S. consumers of this obvious food safety threat. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/10-0