by David Gumpert
The Complete Patient
Now that a Wisconsin judge has rejected raw milk farmer Vernon Hershberger’s religious freedom arguments to justify having a witness testify on his behalf, his trial looks likely to go forward as scheduled beginning May 20.
As proceedings draw closer, we will no doubt hear much from the local media that this is a case about about food and dairy licensing, and Hershberger’s refusal to obtain essential licenses. Hershberger is accused of four criminal misdemeanors–failing to have a retail food establishment license, operating a dairy farm as a milk producer without a license, and operating a dairy plant without a license (though Wisconsin issues no licenses for raw milk producers). The fourth accusation is that Hershberger violated a holding order from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) in June 2010, when he cut the agency tape shuttering his farm store, and resumed serving his food club members.
But the technical legalities of the case fail to convey that, at its heart, this is a political case rather more than a legal case. Most fundamentally, the case is about whether Hershberger has the right to distribute food privately to individuals who have contracted with him, without regulatory interference.
The reason the case is so important politically is that it isn’t just about whether Hershberger has the right to distribute food privately, it is about whether all of us have this right on either end of the equation–to distribute food privately or to contract with producers to obtain food privately. If Hershberger is acquitted by the jury of his peers, the shock effects will reverberate throughout the country, and regulators will be forced to re-examine their crackdown on private food distribution. If Hershberger loses, not only could he go to jail for more than a year, butregulators everywhere will lick their chops and go after private food more aggressively than ever.
Among many ironies, this right–to distribute or obtain food privately–is one we and our forefathers all have had for hundreds of years. But quietly and nearly unnoticed, our rulers have steadily infringed on this right over the last fifty years, to the point where they are now asserting that we have no such right, have lost that right via legislative and regulatory changes, and are impudent and wreckless to even think about asserting it, since the times we live in are so much more threatening and dangerous than they once were.
The huge implications, and arrogance, of this government assertion are gradually dawning on growing numbers of people, to the extent that food rights is evolving into a major political issue. The extent to which it is becoming a major political issue may become apparent the week of May 20, when Hershberger’s trial opens in the small town of Baraboo, WI.
Read the Full Article Here: http://thecompletepatient.com/article/2013/april/28/lots-people-humming-i’m-goin’-baraboo-my-mindand-realto-help-vernon
The Raw Milk Revolution
Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
by David E. Gumpert
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