In the Context of Community-Based Agriculture, The PDA Is Simply Another Obstacle to Overcome
As I drove around on country roads in central Pennsylvania earlier this week, I felt envious of the people who live near Mount Holly Springs and Elizabethtown. I saw lots of cows grazing on open pasture—a sight you don’t see in most parts of the country. Many farms advertised raw milk and grass-fed beef.
I came home with a cooler filled with all kinds of delicacies—cottage cheese, crème fraiche, cream cheese, yogurt, Swiss cheese—all made from raw milk. And all purchased from local farms. (I'd rather not say which ones.)
Was I violating Pennsylvania laws by purchasing such products? Was I violating federal law by transporting them across state lines…actually, several state lines?
It doesn’t seem right that because I live a few hundred miles away, in a different state, I should be denied access to such products from local farms. Any more than people who live near Mark and Glenn should be denied access. (The photo above shows the empty cheesemaking vat at Mark Nolt's farm, rendered idle by Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture agents, who stole its machinery.)
But that’s the situation today. I learned from some of Mark Nolt’s supporters who came to Pennsylvania from North Carolina that that state just passed legislation to prohibit herd shares.
The craziness is compounded by the fact that the world is now facing up to the reality that agribusiness can’t provide all the food that is needed. So here we have this wonderful healthy fresh food, being produced in a local community for a local community, and a government agency is confiscating it and prosecuting the farmers who work their tails off to produce it.
Government-sponsored harassment is just another aggravation for many farmers, who struggle to link up with consumers, because our transport system is tailored to agribusiness, not to small farms serving local communities.
I just learned more about some of these difficulties from the owner of a Boston food market that is committed to providing only locally-produced food to his inner-city customers (described in more detail in an article I just did for BusinessWeek.com).
Lionette’s Market in Boston’s South End neighborhood is using a variation of the CSA (community supported agriculture) concept to raise $200,000 of financing from its customers to expand the market. Some 50 customers are paying anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 apiece, and in the process advance-purchasing various quantities of food over the next two years. The idea is so popular, the owner actually has a waiting list of customers who want in.
While my article focused on the innovative financing, a much bigger challenge, says Jamey Lionette, an owner, is simply getting food from the 100 or so Northeast farms he relies on transported into the city. Some aren’t close enough to shippers, so have to drop their good off at other farms that are on shipping lines. Some bring it in themselves via vans and small trucks. Some rely on small distributors. “The infrastructure to get local food into the city has been wiped out,” Jamey told me.
Jamey would love to open another one or two or three markets in other neighborhoods of Boston, using the same community-based financing, since there’s little question that demand is there, be it for local eggs or grass-fed beef or fresh vegetables. For now, though, he’s having a hard time seeing through the process of dealing with 100 local farms for even one store. Eventually it will happen, since demand trumps all in this country…doesn’t it?
The Complete Patient
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Standard American Diet equals Standard Americans Diseases equals Slow American Deaths. I wish Big Brother would let me make my own choise it can not produce any worse results. I could at least enjoy the taste of my own folly please pass the creme fraiche. YUM
It is with extreme saddness to see Marks empty milk vat I have never seen it look like that before. As for our benefactors who have done this to a hard working FARM family of 12, I am sure they are praying for you, thats the kind of people they are.
There are currently 2 bills being drafted for raw milk in Pa. As I understand them one allows for sale of additional raw dairy products ice cream ect. but standards of identity are to be set by "regulation" and sale only at the farm not at farmers markets ect. The second bill is one thats very favorable to the raw dairy farmer. So what will we end up with a mixture of the two and maybe a ban on creme fraiche?
Quote by Don:
"Again I says its utter madness."
Sure, there will have to be a place for mass production, and selling gallons blind off the store shelf. But do we want this to be the MAIN way raw milk is purchased, or could raw milk contribute to a more significant change in our society (we already know it's doing this through our health).
Raw milk should not be pigeon-holed into the conventional food delivery system.
Pasteurizing it and re-introducing microorganisms back into it as is done with yogurt would destroy enzymes and drastically lessen the diversity of the microherd.
The convenience of ultra-high temp pasteurization - refrigeration is no longer necessary and shelf life is vastly prolonged - is too good a gig for Big Dairy to pass up. I can taste the difference though, and I think quite a few people find the taste and mouth feel objectionable. Nonetheless UHT milk is the only product to be found on the shelves now.
Last year the FDA on their website [its still there] posted a warning letter to Mark Nolt, he has 53 cows, no employees and in their view he is worthy to be mentioned among multibillion dollar multinational drug mfg. It leaves me speechless my mind is blank, is there a pill for that?