Georgia legislator favours raw milk

From a recent issue of the Small Farm Journal:

Perhaps someone could contact this man with suggestions.

What do raw milk and lemonade have in common? — gov’t over-regulation!

From Tiffany Gabbay, on The Blaze.com:

This story was all over the internet yesterday and today it’s even in the Toronto Star. Here’s the scoop:

“MIDWAY, Ga. (AP/The Blaze) — Police in Georgia have shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls trying to save up for a trip to a water park, saying they didn’t have a business license or the required permits.

Farms in Georgia stuck with fruit rotting on the vine as new law sends illegal immigrants out of the state

From Jay Bookman at Blogs.AJC.com

“After enacting House Bill 87, a law designed to drive illegal immigrants out of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that HB 87 is, well, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia.

It might be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Thanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced to leave millions of dollars’ worth of blueberries, onions, melons and other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put state officials into something of a panic at the damage they’ve done to Georgia’s largest industry.

Biscuit-Gate rocks Savannah Georgia

Thanks to Farm to Consumer Legal Defense for bringing this travesty to the public’s attention. Oh, and yes, this takes place in the state of Georgia, in the U.S.A., not in the former Soviet republic:

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”.

DIY — Dump It Yourself — raw milk

Here’s an excerpt from a recent post by Dar on the Dane 101 blog:

Wisconsin farmer Scott Trautman was forced to dump his milk, so he dumped it at the state capital, in front of supporters and reporters. pics from Channel 15 NBC Video. Click images to view video.

“Recently a farmer showed up at the Wisconsin Capitol to dump his milk in protest. The state has been making him dump his milk because they fear he is selling it raw (it is unclear if he actually is selling raw milk), which is illegal in Wisconsin. So he decided to dump it on the Capitol lawn, not only in protest of his loss of income, but also to make a statement that raw milk ought to be legal to sell in Wisconsin.

I am a proponent of local, organic food. I have been since my days working at the now defunct Magic Mill Natural Foods. But raw milk is not something of which I’ve ever taken much notice. My thoughts have run along the lines of, if other people want to drink raw milk then good for them, but I’ll take mine pasteurized.

And so I wouldn’t normally have taken much notice of the protest on the Capitol. But something happened in mid-October that changed my awareness about raw milk.

In college I was engaged to be married to a wonderful man, Eric. We dreamed of a happily married future together as physicists. Then actual life happened and I broke it off to pursue a life of dating women and advocating for bicycling while he became an organic farmer (well, a farmer with a computer problem). Pesky life, it always gets in the way of the best laid plans.

Raw Milk Crackdown — first Georgia, now Wisconsin, in regulatory crosshairs

Here’s the latest on the situation from David E. Gumpert, on The Complete Patient blog. This excerpt is from a post titled “Buyers Club Crackdown Continues: WI Moves on 5th Amendment Rights Illustrate Need for Clarity on Raw Milk“:

Raw milk consumers in Athens Georgia, forced to dump their milk. *

“The buyers club crackdown, which saw members of a Georgia buyers club being forced to pour out their own milk, has now moved to Wisconsin. There, Max Kane, the head of the Belle’s Lunchbox buyers club that supplies raw milk customers in Chicago, has a court date December 21 to tell a judge why he shouldn’t answer questions from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection.

The Wisconsin DATCP previously subpoenaed Max Kane last spring, seeking information about the buyers club. He showed up at the session with copies of the U.S. and Wisconsin constitutions, and protested that he wouldn’t testify in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self incrimination.

Video of raw milk customers in Georgia forced to destroy their milk — is this the proper role for government in America?

This is a followup to our earlier story on raw milk seizures in Athens Georgia. Read that here:

Raw milk seized in Athens Georgia raid

Here’s an excerpt of the story from Merritt Melancon of OnlineAthens.com titled “Some Sour as State Grabs Raw Milk — Inspectors impound supply meant to be sold at Athens farmers market”:

customers line up to buy local food from a coop in Athens Georgia

Athens locally grown food advocate Eric Wagoner has an appointment with representatives from the state Department of Agriculture on Monday.

They are coming to his house to watch him pour out 110 gallons of unpasteurized milk.

Inspectors call the milk, which is illegal to sell or distribute in Georgia, an imminent health risk, but the dozens of people who had ordered the milk say it tastes better and is better for you than pasteurized milk.

Locally-grown milk in Athens, Georgia

Lead photo from Farm Dreams blog, Atlanta, Georgia

All across the continent, health-minded folks are establishing their own local supply networks for food outside the mainstream agribusiness-supermarket paradigm. Here’s one more example of this phenomenon, this time from Athens, Georgia. Read the whole story here. Or start with this excerpt:

“…Moving here I was worried about finding local sources for everything. I got on Local Harvest and found out about a group called Athens Locally Grown. It is basically a co-op. A group of people found farmers that would provide products every week. On Sunday, they post what is available that week and members can place an order. The organizers then go around to all the farms and pick up the orders, then the members go pick up their orders at a centralized place at an arranged time.

They have produce of all types, eggs, meat and raw milk. The meat to choose from included beef, chicken, pork, lamb and goat. The raw milk included cow and goat milk. They also have many cheeses.