UPDATE 5/25/2013

Wisconsin Raw Milk Farmer Acquitted on 3 Charges

By Rick Barrett
The Journal Sentinel

Excerpts:

Dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger was acquitted on three of four criminal charges early Saturday morning. Jurors in Sauk County District Court deliberated about four hours, until nearly 1 a.m. Saturday, before returning a verdict of guilty on one charge of violating a holding order placed on products on the Hershberger farm, following a raid on the farm in the summer of 2010. The 41-year-old farmer faces up to a year in jail and $10,000 in fines on that conviction. A sentencing date will be announced later, said Judge Guy Reynolds. Hershberger was found innocent of three charges that included operating an unlicensed retail store that sold raw milk and other products; and operating a dairy farm and dairy processing facility without licenses.

Hershberger said he was pleased with the acquittals, and that now he can return to his farm in Loganville and continue to run his food store without a retail license because it’s a members-only buying club. “I can continue to feed my community,” he said.

Read the Full Story Here.

Is Raw Grass-Fed Milk Safer Than Pasteurized?

By Dr. Mercola

As you’re probably aware of by now, there’s a war being waged against raw milk. While raw milk sales or distribution are legal in many US states, and progress has been made toward improving access, there’s strong opposition to this trend. Each victory is hard-won.

Our federal health agencies claim to be protecting us from this ‘dangerous’ product.   As you walk down the aisles of junk food at your local grocery store, pass by the liquor section, and watch individuals buying cartons of cigarettes – you have to wonder is this really about our personal safety or the safety of the milk industry.

Criminal trials centering around raw milk are scheduled to take place in both Minnesota and Wisconsin this year, and a new bill threatens to make herdshare illegal in North Dakota1.

(A herdshare is a private agreement between a farmer and an individual in which the farmer is paid to take care of an animal, cow for example, that belongs to one or more people. You essentially pay a onetime purchase fee to “buy a share” of a farmer’s herd, which entitles you to the benefits of owning that cow, such as a certain amount of milk each week.)

Raw Grass-Fed Milk is SAFER than Pasteurized, So Why the Persecution?

One of the most common excuses given for why farmers are raided, prosecuted, and shut down is that raw foods may be potentially harmful to human health. But to think that pasteurized milk is safer than raw milk from a healthy, grass-fed cow is simply not true.

And for those of you who have been lucky enough to try this illegal product as raw dairy milk, cheese, and yogurt – you know what an incredible difference there is in taste and texture.  Tests have shown substantial nutritional benefits from raw milk as well, over the pasteurized and defatted products you typically find at your grocery store.

While the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that raw milk can carry disease-causing bacteria, what they completely overlook is the fact that these bacteria are the result of industrial farming practices that lead to diseased animals, which may then in turn produce contaminated milk.  They make no distinction whatsoever between disease-riddled factory farmed milk and the milk from clean, healthy, grass-fed cows.

The former MUST be pasteurized in order to be safe for consumption. The latter does not.  You definitely avoid drinking any raw milk from a conventionally-raised feed-lot cow! But drinking raw milk produced by grass-fed cows from clean, well-run farms, on the other hand, is actually far LESS dangerous than drinking pasteurized milk.  In fact, not only does raw milk contain good bacteria that are essential for a healthy digestive system, raw milk also offers protection against disease-causing bacteria.

CDC data3 shows there are about 412 confirmed cases of people getting ill from pasteurized milk each year, while only about 116 illnesses a year are linked to raw milk. And research by Dr. Ted Beals4, MD, featured in the summer 2011 issue of Wise Traditions, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, shows that you are about 35,000 times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk!

The science is equally clear on the above points, but that’s not why farmers like Hershberger are getting slapped with criminal charges. The larger issue at stake is the issue of food freedom—the right to sell, buy, and consume fresh food that hasn’t been produced by some multinational conglomerate.

Farmers have been getting a raw deal for some time now, as the dairy industry wants to keep a majority of the profits in their pockets.  The local farmer to consumer model is not very beneficial to the big corporations, as they have brought the farmers share of many of these products down to less than 7 cents to the dollar in the retail market. Manufacturers, distributors and retailers are taking the majority of the profits from the farmer’s labor.

It’s really nothing more than Mafia strong arm tactics aimed at shutting down the competition. The reason why small-scale organic dairy farms are so threatening to the dairy industry is because they simply cannot produce safe raw milk in a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO). Cows raised under such conditions produce milk that must be pasteurized in order to be safe to drink, as the unnatural diet and environment dramatically alters the nutritional and bacterial composition of the milk.

Why are Farmers Being Jailed while Big Business Gets Off Scot Free?

Meanwhile, real criminal activities that place you and your family’s health at grave risk are being ignored, if not outright condoned, by the same agencies that are trying to jail small-scale farmers like Hershberger. For example, no less than 19 drug companies made AllBusiness.com’s Top 100 Corporate Criminals List for the 1990s. Their crimes included defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and even the FDA; international price-setting; false claims; hiding serious problems with their drugs and, in one case (Ortho, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson), obstruction of justice and eight counts of persuading employees to destroy documents in a federal investigation.

Yet not a single person from any of those companies has seen the inside of a jail cell. Not even when Pfizer was ordered to pay $2.3 billion to resolve criminal and civil charges relating to the painkiller Bextra in 2009, or when GlaxoSmithKline was found guilty in the largest health fraud settlement in US history last year.

Why is it that a company, which is run by individuals, can harm and kill tens of thousands of people and get off paying fines that really amount to pocket change, while small farmers face serious jail time for selling healthful food to willing buyers? We simply must band together to support our local farmers against such injustice, and protect your own right to buy and eat whatever food you see fit for your family.

 Support Your Local Farmers

Hershberger is just one of many farmers who has been unreasonably harassed and victimized in the war against raw food. There are many other examples. And every year there seems to be one bill or another aimed at taking away your rights to feed your family with whatever foods you see fit. For example, right now a new bill threatens to make herdshare illegal in North Dakota8.

This fight is about much more than just raw milk. It’s a fight for the most fundamental of rights—the right of farmers and consumers to engage in private, mutually consenting agreements for food, without additional oversight. We’re not dealing with drugs here. We’re dealing with FOOD!

Yet while Big Pharma can sell hazardous goods without major repercussions, farmers can’t sell healthful food without being harassed! This must end. One of the best ways you can support this movement is to support your local farmers by buying their food. You can also help make inroads by supporting the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund with a financial pledge.

Read the Full Article Here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/05/21/raw-milk-sales.aspx

 

The Raw Milk Revolution
Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
by David E. Gumpert

Raw Milk Revolution book cover Raw Milk Vending Machine Supplier in UK Targeted by Government

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