“Ghost of Christmas yet to come” offers a preview of the human significance of so-called “Food Safety” standards, as in upcoming legislation (Senate bill S-510)

This is an excerpt from a recent post on David E. Gumpert’s “The Complete Patient” blog titled “How I Spent My Christmas Holiday: Watching Foodies Confront the Emerging National Food Safety Regimen“:

“….I had a special opportunity this year to have a different kind of Christmas by attending a food conference. Yes, a conference, beginning on Christmas Eve and continuing until Dec. 27.

“Food Safety” Bill S-510 Backgrounder

Bill S 510 is the Senate counterpart to HR2749 which was passed by the American House of Representatives earlier this year in spite of public opposition. The following compilation of internet resources and commentary is from a number of authors. Seemingly gratuitious rock video below does tie in with final article in this compendium.

How can S 510 mandate GMOs?

The explanation is lengthy in order to give enough detail so people can be certain as well as able to withstand this phrase, specifically – “There is no language in the bill that mandates GMOs or that will end organic farming.” This explanation lays out how without using those words, it is still precisely what the bill would do.

350 cowshare families in Vancouver region “Ready for Raw Milk Battle”?

Here’s an excerpt from a story in Tuesday’s Chilliwack Times by Paul J. Henderson:

The milk is flowing at Home on the Range raw milk dairy in Chilliwack, but not if Fraser Health has anything to say about it. Here, Alice Jongerden milks cows last week, but the distribution of that milk will be a challenge as Fraser Health has shut down all their commercial depots in the Lower Mainland. Photograph by : Paul J. Henderson/TIMES

“Alice Jongerden goes back and forth between washing udders, turning on her laptop computer, milking cows and answering her cell phone.

As if the neverending job of milking cows wasn’t enough, Jongerden has to deal with the fact that once again Fraser Health has decided to crack down on her small Chilliwack raw milk operation.

Dairy power play based on Monsanto style ownership of GMO grass species

Check out this story from Liberty News Online, by Marti Oakley, titled “The truth behind the drive to outlaw raw/fresh milk sales“:

Just think... if you "owned" grass you could take control of dairying!

“….First you go to either Georgia or Arizona, each designated a sole and singular milk [region] by the USDA (in this case Georgia) and you worm your way into a Land Grant University. This allows you to use taxpayer funds to set up your patent scheme and to test it and work out the bugs. But this isn’t enough. You cannot gain proprietary rights through the TRIPPS agreement which will be the only way you can seize property and end competition unless you come up with something supposedly “new”. You have to be able to claim your proprietary rights were violated (intellectual and/or scientific creations) in order to show harm. So how would this be accomplished?

Under the auspices of the land grant university you go into an area, say for instance, Eatonton, Georgia and you collect the germ plasms from about 192 native species of grasses and clovers. Although these belong to the public domain (owned by the public at large) and even though this property of the public is never sold, leased or even formally lent to the corporation gathering them, they in turn take them, attach proteins, alter dna, splice genes or whatever is necessary to then turn around and say “we invented this, and we own it”.

Speak up on corporate control of food

Slow Food U.S.A. tells how regular folks can have their voices heard, in this story titled  “Do corporations have too much control over our food supply?“:

Now is our chance to speak up. For the first time ever, the U.S. Department of Justice is on a fact-finding mission looking at how big business controls food and farming—and they want to hear from YOU before December 31st.

Maybe you’ve noticed prices rising at the supermarket even while most big food companies made record profits this year;

Maybe you are a farmer who has trouble getting your meat to market because there are no small-scale processing facilities in your region;

Maybe you’re concerned about food safety and the spread of bacteria like E. coli—which happens much faster when meat and vegetables are processed in big centralized locations;

Maybe your local farm has gone out of business because it couldn’t compete with the prices set by industrial farms and consolidated buyers.

“Durham’s Dairy Desperado keeps the raw milk flowing” says Globe and Mail

Here’s an excerpt from a story by Kate Hammer, reporting from Durham Ontario, for today’s Globe and Mail:

Durham's Dairy Desperado talks to electronic news gatherers outside the Ontario legislature at Queens Park following his November 17, 2009 press conference.

“Durham’s dairy desperado rode into town on horse back yesterday, a few paces behind the Olympic torch and its procession of security officials and sponsors.

Flanked by his son and an apprentice, Michael Schmidt trotted through the snow-covered community he has pulled into the eye of Canada’s raw milk debate.

It was just over three years ago that Mr. Schmidt’s farm was raided by inspectors from the Ministry of Natural Resources and he was charged with distributing and selling raw milk. A judge’s decision on those charges is due in just a few weeks.

Mark McAfee at Acres U.S.A. conference

Here’s an excerpt from the first of four posts on Kimberly Hartke’s blog, of California raw milk farmer Mark McAfee’s presentation at the recent Acres U.S.A. conference titled “Taking back the American food chain”:

California raw milk farmer Mark McAfee with his wife Blaine

“Two years ago a kind, soft spoken gentle older woman came to me under the Vine covered arches of the Fresno Farmers market. She spoke in short sentences with both hands on her stomach as she endured her abdominal crisis and stood slightly bent forward in pain . She said….I have IBS and take the purple pill costing $200 dollars per month and other drugs but they do not seem to work and it is getting worse and the doctors can not do anything more for me. They are talking about possible surgery to take out the part that is causing the pain.

She said that her friends had told her that our food can maybe help her because it had helped them. Her story was so much like so many other consumers that had come to OPDC to find Raw Milk and Raw Milk Kefir to heal their IBS and Ulcers. I gave her two quarts of Raw Milk Kefir with out charge and said these are on me. I taught her how to make Kefir smoothies using our Raw Milk Kefir and the many wonderful whole raw foods found at the farmers market. Raw pastured eggs, raw honey, strawberries and blueberries.

Glencolton Farms starts its own study on raw versus pasteurized milk.

Experimental subject Mr Pasteur is on pasteurized milk

Experimental subject Mr. Rawky is on raw milk.

So just because no universities that we’ve heard of are undertaking such studies doesn’t mean they won’t be carried out by concerned citizens. In the story that follows, Michael Schmidt outlines Glencolton Farms’ latest foray into the realm of scientific research:

“In 1995 I offered the Milk Marketing Board, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of Health our farm as a research farm to explore together the effects of raw milk versus pasteurized milk.

Our first study in 1995 to 2006 was to produce milk safe for human consumption. It included years of baseline testing by an independent researcher for pathogens and also the absence of reported illnesses linked to our raw milk for 20 years.

Our second study  started 4 weeks ago with 2 calves as you see them in the pictures.

Global warming fraud clearly explained

Have you been believing Al Gore and his gospel of human-induced global warming? Well, here’s your antidote in the video linked to from the picture below. It seems there’s a lot more to this climate thing than first meets the eye.

Click image to watch video of Lord Monckton speaking on the "Climategate" material in Berlin.

Adam_DOP comments on the above clip on Vimeo:

“This guy tells it how it is. The theory of man made global warming as an excuse for a world wide carbon tax to make unelected officials trillions of dollars. Biggest scam of the century. This is a must see!”

Rich Matarese says, also on Vimeo:

“I have not yet seen a more cogent explanation of the criminal fraudulence and conspiracy (for that is precisely what their crimes encompass) of the CRU correspondents and the political figures allied with them….”

Michael Schmidt’s New-Year’s Message

Here is raw milk farrmer Michael Schmidt’s review of significant events involving raw milk and Glencolton Farms in 2009:

Michael Schmidt talks to a Toronto Star reporter outside the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket, Oct. 2009

Dear Friends

Another year comes to an end. Many things have been evolving in a very positive way. This is encouraging and heart warming.

Let me reflect on our great journey in 2009.

This has been the third year since the raid in 2006. Glencolton Farms has evolved on many levels despite the constant invisible threat of authorities and organisations connected to our raw milk battle.

The farm has nearly doubled its herd of cows and expanded also its farm share members.

The cow share ownership is currently in the process of being transferred to a farm share ownership in the Agri Cultural Renewal Co-operative which now owns Glencolton Farms. We also managed to buy another 200 acres which was part of the farm prior to the first milk war in 1994.