Raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt is the interviewee and guest on the CBC Radio Saskatoon’s “Blue-Sky” call in program

From Michael Schmidt via Facebook:

Raw milk pioneer Michael Schmidt in the Saskatoon studio of CBC radio Canada

War over Monsanto turns ugly

From Mike Ludwig, Truth-out.org:

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: IRRI Images, Libertinus) -- via Truth-out.org

“A delegation of politicians and community activists gathered on August 7 in La Leonesa, a small farm town in Argentina, to hear Dr. Andres Carrasco speak about a study linking a popular herbicide to birth defects in Argentina’s agricultural areas.

But the presentation never happened. A mob of about 100 people attacked the delegation before they could reach the local school where the talk was to be held.

Dr. Carrasco and a colleague locked themselves in a car as the mob yelled threats and beat on the vehicle for two hours. One delegate was hit in the spine and has since suffered lower-body paralysis. Another person was treated for blows to the head. A former provincial human rights official was hit in the face and knocked unconscious.

Codex Committee squelches dissent

From Alex Jones “Infowars.com”, an excerpt from Brandon Turberville’s book “Codex Alimentarius — the End of Health Freedom“:

29th Session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses 2007, held in Germany. Photo via Infowars.com

“…The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is the active and controlling arm of Codex. It is the main body that makes recommendations and proposals and is consulted by the FAO and the WHO regarding food safety standards and their implementation. Each year the CAC meets in Rome (at FAO headquarters) and Geneva (WHO headquarters) alternately with delegations from its 182 member countries. The chief delegate to the commission must be a government official or an employee of that country, and it is this individual that decides who will speak for the delegation.  No votes are taken at these meetings, as “consensus,” not voting, is the method of decision making.[1]

“The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer” by Joel Salatin — book review

From Hella D’s blog:

Joel Salatin with pastured laying hens. Picture via Crozet Gazette

“…In October, I was also really lucky to get a loan of the book The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer by Joel Salatin from a cowshare member when we were at the Contempt of Court trial against our local community dairy, which is now being run by Michael Schmidt.

What an exciting read! It is one of those rare books that I get that I actually try to read slowly. The last one I read like that was Masanobu Fukuoka’s book The One-Straw Revolution and I would say that in many ways these books are very similar. Both are written with the integrity and passion of people with their hands in the earth and who really know what they are talking about.

Tester-Hagen as stealth NAIS in S-510

The latest insights from David E. Gumpert on his “The Complete Patient” blog:

“The Tester-Hagan Amendment was supposed to be the savior of S510, giving smaller producers an exemption from the worst requirements of the so-called food safety legislation. Now, it turns out, the amendment may be the great black hole of the entire food safety steamroller. 

While the lawyers are trying to figure out ways to finagle around the U.S. Senate’s error in venturing into the U.S. House’s territory by initiating revenue-generating legislation, another hole has opened in the crumbling dike that is S510. (Even The Wall Street Journal, normally a supporter of the FDA, has come out against it, stealing some of my lines, it seems.)