It Takes a Tough Farmer to Take on Uncle Sam
Friday, September 28, 2007 at 10:08PM 
One of the most important sections of any business plan to raise venture capital is the “Sources and Uses of Funds” section. This explains how much you expect to raise from where, and how you will spend the money.
Mark McAfee in his comment on yesterday’s post gives us a summary of the “Uses” section. There is a solar powered creamery, more portable milking stations, more pasture.
But then there is something I’ve never seen in a business plan, and I’ve seen a lot of business plans. “OPDC is taking incoming rounds from the FDA and CDFA and cannot respond. We must be powerful enough to get big and challenge the FDA and others with fulltime legal teams…” In other words, he wants enough hired legal guns to make the FDA and others think twice before going after him. (If you haven't read Mark's comment, I strongly suggest you do.)
That leads into something else that is unusual about Mark as an entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs, when they reach a leadership position in their industry, tend to become enamored of their success, and suggest that “anyone can do what I’ve done if they’re persistent.” Not Mark. He’s saying that what he’s done, and is doing, and wants to continue doing, is very very difficult. And it is, because he’s fighting Uncle Sam.
In fact, he’s doing more than that: he’s leading a crusade of sorts, trying to rally consumers and farmers alike. I’ve always been nervous about the fact that he already controls 95% of the California raw milk market, but what he’s arguing is that if he can win this “war,” the opportunities for other small farms will inevitably follow.
Not too many businesses have to fight the full power of the U.S. government, which can (and does) print all the money it needs to step on whomever it wants to step on (although it’s getting a little tougher these days--because the government has printed so many dollars, they are rapidly depreciating in value in the world marketplace). And I’m not even talking about the state bureaucracies that march in synch with Washington.
Mark’s message is a reminder not to get ahead of ourselves, as I might have been doing in yesterday’s posting anticipating how the raw milk market might eventually unfold, a la Whole Foods. There are still many battles to be fought, and won. Each time it looks as if progress is being made, the forces of resistance come up with new tactics (witness the sudden findings of raw milk listeria in Pennsylvania, New York, and California).
Yet a number of trends are working in favor of nutritional freedom. One is the financial incentives opening up in farming, which as Steve Bemis notes is discussed in today’s Wall Street Journal. What Mark is essentially saying is, "Trust me. If I'm successful, lots more eager individuals will commit to sustainable farming." I think he's earned the right to give it a go.
Reader Comments (5)
I will use the new law of pasturizing almonds in CA. How does one get samonella or E-coli from almonds? Could it be the processing? I have an almond tree, it is about 25 years old, never got sick from any of the nuts off of it. So what is the reason for pasturizing them? I also use manure from my friends farm on my garden, and I ate my spinach last year without any worries of becoming ill...
One of the chemicals they intend to or are using is Propylene oxide; Does the average person know what that is? Most likely not. In the MSDS it is listed as highly flammable and toxic---Probable human carcinogen, may alter genic material, may cause impaired fertility, human mutagenic data, harnful if ingested, inhaled, and through skin contact, serrious irritant, very destructive of mucous membranes. What is wrong with this picture? Putting poison on nuts or any thing else makes no sense.
At the recent raw dairy hearings in Harrisburg Pa. the foriegn head of Pa Food Safety [Indian I think] stated that the elderly and the children should should never consume any raw dairy.
Would or could our founding fathers even recognize their creation?????
Packing people into cities and expanding their rural and industrial infrastructures onto prime agricultural land is the epitome of man’s wasteful and destructive nature.
In my neck of the woods (Northern Ontario), where the population density is very low, agricultural land is going out of production at an alarming rate and the further south one travels the worse it gets with the only difference being, up north (for the most part) land is going to bush and down south they are building houses, industries, golf courses and highways etc. on it. In my immediate area we have gone from over 40 milk producers supplying three local dairies to a handful of small producers whose milk is now shipped 2-3 hours out of town to a larger centralized location. We have gone from an over supply of milk in the north to a need to have it shipped up from the south in order to supply current demand.
Small farmers are being driven off the land due to government cheap food policies and politically motivated regulations that cater to the powers that be. Greed, fear and apathy is our worst enemy and government institutions have become very adept at manipulating these vices.
Your picture above reminds me of a statement made by George Bernard Shaw, "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
Ken Conrad