Christine Anderson – Flickr
Health Impact News
An Oregon raw milk farmer is fighting back against Big Dairy and the state of Oregon for limiting her free speech.
The state of Oregon allows limited sales of raw milk from the farm. Based on a law passed in 1999, if a farmer has 3 or less dairy cows, with no more than two lactating, they can sell raw milk directly to the public.
Yet, in spite of these tight restrictions, the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association pushed for even more restrictions last year.
So, while it is still currently legal to sell raw milk from a 2-cow dairy farm, it is a criminal offense if you advertise your product. If a raw milk dairy farm even publishes the cost of their product online, they can face a year in jail and $6,250 in fines. All Oregon farmers who sell milk on the farm directly to consumers are prohibited from advertising the milk online, in flyers, via email, or on signs.
“I’m not allowed to put up an ad in my local health food store, or take an ad out in the local newspaper, or go to a festival and promote our farm. So when I have a new customer come to the farm, they can’t even find the farm because I am not allowed to put up a sign,” says Christina Anderson, of Cast Iron Farm in McMinnville, Oregon.
Being faced with the possibility of going out of business, Christine decided to fight back, with the help of the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties law firm based out of Arlington, Virginia. This week they filed a suit against the Oregon Department of Agriculture in U.S. District Court in Portland, claiming farmers’ Constitutional rights to free speech are being violated.
The sale of raw milk by conscientious small-scale farmers directly to the consumer is a growing movement around the U.S., and as a whole, a huge threat to Big Dairy, and their dairy pools. They like to hide in back of the “safety issue” by promoting fear in favor of banning raw milk, but an honest look at the data easily shows that raw milk is no more dangerous than any other raw product sold in stores. The produce section and the meat refrigerated cases of your local supermarket are far more dangerous, based on a historical look at outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. According to a CDC survey done several years ago, the estimated raw milk drinkers in the U.S. was over 9 million, and probably a lot more today.
As you watch the video below where Christine talks about the reasons for the lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Agriculture, and where another unnamed farmer talks about having to go out of business due to the suppression of free speech in Oregon that bans him from advertising, and where he masks his identity due to fear of retaliation, ask yourself:
Is this what has become of America, where honest hard-working farmers are now seen as criminals?
Sources:
Global Censorship of Health Information
The Politics of Controlling Therapeutic Information to Protect State-Sponsored Drug Monopolies
by Attorney Jonathan Emord
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