“Everyone is a farmer”, says embattled Michigan “feral” pig farmer Mark Baker

From David E. Gumpert, on the Complete Patient blog:

“Michigan pig farmer Mark Baker has been under a virtual embargo the last several months because of his state’s prohibition on raising so-called “feral” pigs–essentially any pigs that Big Ag doesn’t want to see produced. The high-end restaurants he formerly supplied with heritage pork don’t want to do business with him for fear local public health authorities will come down on them. The local USDA slaughterhouse won’t handle his pigs because its owners fears regulator reprisals.

So Baker has begun exploiting the only option he could think of: taking his knowledge about pig butchering and meat curing on the road. His first stop was this weekend at a home in Concord, MA, nearly within sight of the Old North Bridge, where the first shots of the American Revolution were fired in 1775.

Windsor councillors vote to remove fluoride from city drinking water

From Doug Schmidt in the Windsor Star:

Councillors Ed Sleiman, Alan Halberstadt and Hilary Payne (left to right) listen in during the fluoridation debate at city hall in Windsor on Monday, January 28, 2013. Photo from TYLER BROWNBRIDGE / The Windsor Star. Caption: Windsor Star

“Windsor on Monday joined the growing number of municipalities which have voted to end the decades-old practice of adding fluoride to the water supply in the fight against tooth decay.

“A lot has changed in the last 60 years … fluoride is not the be-all and end-all to prevent tooth decay,” said Mayor Eddie Francis, who voted with the majority.

New film “Milk” airing tonight on CBC Doc channel, features Michael Schmidt

“Milk”,  the third documentary film in which raw milk and food rights activist Michael Schmidt has figured prominently, airs tonight at 8 pm on CBC’s Documentary channel.  See trailer below:

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/16449903]

From the cbc.ca promo page for the film:

“Milk: The Documentary is an entertaining, award-winning documentary that dares to question the conventional wisdom of the much publicized health benefits of milk and dairy products. An inquisitive man sets out to find the facts about milk and discovers more about the growing controversy surrounding it.

Britain’s FSA goes after farmer and store for selling raw milk in London

From Louise Gray in The Telegraph UK: 

“Selfridges is being taken to court for putting public health at risk by selling fashionable ‘raw’ milk at its flagship London store, the government’s food watchdog has announced.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) believes Selfridges broke strict hygiene regulations by allowing Sussex farmer Stephen Hook to sell raw milk in the food hall in December 2011.

Selfridges, which is frequented by chefs and celebrities, allowed raw milk fans to fill up their own bottles from a vending machine in the store for £3.50 per litre.

Why can’t we test GMOs for health impacts? — The end-user licence agreement prohibits such tests

Jokes abound about software end user licence agreements, which, by and large, nobody reads, although to install the product, you do usually have to click on the box that says you have read it and agree to its terms. Well it seems Monsanto has learned a thing or two from the software industry, and while they’re not requiring you to give up your firstborn child to use their products, they apparently ARE requiring that you not do scientific tests to assess possible health risks to humans. Global Research has the scoop:

“One of the great mysteries surrounding the spread of GMO plants around the world since the first commercial crops were released in the early 1990’s in the USA and Argentina has been the absence of independent scientific studies of possible long-term effects of a diet of GMO plants on humans or even rats. Now it has come to light the real reason. The GMO agribusiness companies like Monsanto, BASF, Pioneer, Syngenta and others prohibit independent research.

“An editorial in the respected American scientific monthly magazine, Scientific American, August 2009 reveals the shocking and alarming reality behind the proliferation of GMO products throughout the food chain of the planet since 1994. There are no independent scientific studies published in any reputed scientific journal in the world for one simple reason. It is impossible to independently verify that GMO crops such as Monsanto Roundup Ready Soybeans or MON8110 GMO maize perform as the company claims, or that, as the company also claims, that they have no harmful side effects because the GMO companies forbid such tests!

Michael Schmidt in court yesterday in Cobourg re sheep conspiracy charges

Michael Schmidt, speaking at a fund-raising event at Montana Jones’ farm in September 2012

Yesterday, Michael Schmidt appeared in court in Cobourg to face criminal charges related to the disappearance of Montana Jones’ flock of heritage Shropshire sheep which the CFIA had placed under quarantine and were planning to slaughter for testing. Montana Jones is also among the three others charged with conspiracy in this case.

Some months after their disappearance, most of the missing sheep were discovered, then slaughtered by the CFIA, and found to be not infected with the dread Scrapie, a disease in sheep that’s similar to mad cow in cattle. The CFIA had been particularly suspicious of Montana’s flock because their genotype supposedly made them more susceptible to the disease, and because a sheep that was originally from Montana’s flock was, some years later, connected with the disease.

The final solution…. Morningside Dairy saga comes to an end thanks to the FDA

From Doreen Hannes, via Morningside Dairy’s Uncheese Party blog:

“On August 26^th, 2010 the destruction of Morningland Dairy began. Having lost a two and half year battle with cancer of the State, the interment will take place on January 25^th, 2013.

People involved in all aspects of food production, be it growing, processing or distributing, should read through all the documentation [found on this blog – Hen] and understand that Morningland’s saga is the model for all independent food production under the FDA’s new Food Safety Modernization Act. Critical to this destruction are “science-based standards” as opposed to scientifically accurate controls and concerns. The Global Food Safety Initiative combined with “Good Agricultural Practices” and the “Guide to Good Farming” will ensure that an inability to feed the population will occur.  Morningland Dairy is an early casualty of these “science based standards”.

America is becoming a land without farmers, says USDA anthropologist

From Evaggelos Vallianatos at Independent Science News:

Abandoned farmhouse, Washington. Photo: Homini

The plutocratic remaking of America has a parallel in the countryside. In rural America less than 3 percent of farmers make more than 63 percent of the money, including government subsidies.

The results of this emerging feudal economy are everywhere. Large areas of the United States are becoming impoverished farm towns with abandoned farmhouses and deserted land. More and more of the countryside has been devoted to massive factory farms and plantations. The consequences, though worse now than ever, have been there for all to see and feel, for decades.

The true price of a gallon of raw milk

From the Midlife Farm Wife:

Midlife farm wife rings bell to trigger conditioned response.

“Yesterday we had some very unusual visitors, raw milk farmers like ourselves. But because they work very hard to stay under the same radar I am always swinging from dressed like a clown grabbing as much attention as I can, I will not share their names or their location.

Ancient grains from Biblical times

From Justin Cascio, on the Boston Local Food Festival blog:

University of Massachussets Organic Wheat trials 2011. Photo via Boston Local Foods Festival

“Eli Rogosa has a long history with rare seeds. Twenty years ago Rogosa went to the Middle East to work with farmers in the ancient lands of the “Fertile Crescent,” the birthplace of wheat. She discovered stunning heirloom varieties of grains and vegetables, unlike anything available in the United States, that grew robustly in the harsh desert climate without irrigation. Curious how this vigor had evolved through the local traditional farming methods, Rogosa embarked on a journey that would lead her to remote traditional farms across Europe and the Middle East.