Is Another Raid Planned on Mark Nolt? The PDA’s Undercover Guys Are Posing As Raw Milk Customers

I know this probably sounds weird, but I had a bout of guilt and paranoia after I wrote a comment in response to Amanda Rose’s description of how she feels her hen house is clean enough for her two kids (following my August 12 post about the NY Ag & Markets hearing). I suggested that, given what the California Department of Food and Agriculture is doing to the private petting zoo/ag project in Napa, she might want to keep an eye out for CDFA agents. Then I found myself wondering if I was actually putting Amanda at risk (though I also have a good sense that Amanda knows how to protect herself).

I haven’t had such intense feelings since late October 2006, when I was nervous about reporting on Richard Hebron’s alternative delivery arrangements for the Family Farms Cooperative in Ann Arbor, in the wake of the Michigan Department of Agriculture’s huge sting and confiscation of Richard’s raw milk products a few weeks earlier. Then I thought to myself, maybe I’ve been writing this blog for too long.

Any concerns that I might be getting carried away went by the board after I spoke with Mark Nolt earlier today in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has made Mark its poster boy for the down side of operating without a raw milk permit—even though dozens of Pennsylvania dairy farmers are known to do so—by twice raiding his farm and confiscating expensive dairy equipment.

Such raids are usually preceded by visits from ag department goons, and it turns out Mark has had two such visits in just the last few weeks. Three weeks ago a man Mark didn’t recognize came in looking for milk. “I asked him, ‘Did Bill send you?” Bill, of course, is Bill Chirdon, director of the PDA's Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services. The man turned beet red and left.

That screwup must have stirred lots of high-level late-night strategizing at PDA, because last week, a PDA agent tried again. Actually, it was a plainclothes Pennsylvania State Police agent, Kirk Perkins. But this time, instead of confronting Mark, the cop waited till Mark wasn’t minding the farm’s dairy store, and entered while one of Mark’s sons was waiting on customers.

Perkins told Mark’s son that Jonas Stoltzfus, a nearby dairy farmer and friend of Mark, had recommended Mark as a source of raw milk. Believing the agent, Mark’s son sold Perkins two gallons of raw milk. Not surprisingly, Jonas is hopping mad about having his name used to deceive.

PDA actually described the Perkins milk buy as part of a motion it filed last week in Pennsylvania state court, seeking a permanent injunction against Mark to bar him from selling raw dairy products. It was under a temporary injunction in force through June, along with citations it issued against Mark, that PDA raided Mark’s dairy last summer, and again this past spring. Except this time, says Mark, the word around is that the PDA plans to arrest and jail him.

Now that the word is out that a raid and arrest are likely, Chirdon and the gang that couldn’t shoot straight will no doubt be forced into even more heavy-duty strategizing. How are they going to get around all the friends of Mark who will now be posted to keep an eye out for the PDA caravan?

You can be sure the PDA will be burning the midnight oil on this one. But here’s one idea for Chirdon: dress your guys up as storm troopers, with extra heavy boots, and take some videos you can use to impress new recruits about PDA’s professionalism. Oh yes, and don’t forget to return the expensive cheese-making equipment and Joel Salatin book ("Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal") your guys stole from Mark last time around.

Comments

[Amanda Rose]

Let it be known that any agents who want to inspect the hens will be put to work cleaning the coops.

Amanda

[Don]

America "THE LAND OF THE FREE" Is it just a MYTH now.
Mark and his family have been the victims of state torture for about 2 years and now his son feels awful that he was tricked by LIES into jeopardizing his fathers freedom.
The "CRIME" real milk, real butter. real cream, how much lower can we sink into the cesspool and insanity before the nation completely collaspes?
Is it about food safety, and bad germs or ensuring that we all bow on bended knees before TPTB?

[milkfarmer]

How much more morality must our state officials sacrifice in the name of 'food safety'?

Chirdon is a dirtbag....it's hard to give any respect to an authority who is lying bully......

More martyrs for the cause.

[Dave Milano]

The Hydra of regulatory administrators and agents with their rubric of fees, fines, and permits, is indeed the governmental monster of our day, and Don is certainly right to note the twisted irony of regulatory oppression in the Land Of The Free.

Unfortunately, because there is so much inertia in the system, the monster is not likely to die soon. In our day it has matured to the point that the government folks START from the premise that control is their right, so spend their energies only devising tactics to better exercise their powers. Hardly an official anywhere endures even a momentarily flickering thought that their very presence damages freedom.

Personally, I don’t believe that we will achieve freedom from regulatory oppression until the average American seriously reassesses the meaning of responsibility and liberty. Food freedom—along with property ownership one of our most basic freedoms—may just be the trigger we need to accomplish that. Regulations have become so ubiquitous that they now stamp down simple folks engaging in nothing more dangerous than fundamental activities of daily life. Those regulations will more and more be seen not as just, but cruel, and then more people will speak up, and stand up, against them.

We can rejoice when the desire for basic liberty reaches critical mass.

[cheryl]

Food freedom might mean a lot more by this fall.

The Milkweed, a alternative dairy industry paper, reports that the Federal Milk Marketing Orders (please don't ask me to explain how all of this federal mumbo-jumbo works) has dropped the price of raw farm milk paid to dairy farmers, as of September 1. Surging fuel/grain/hay/trucking prices, and a drop in milk price, will surely see many farmers calling it quits.

In another article, The Milkweed reports that many beef, chicken and pork producers are losing money left and right, and that right now, all around the country, bull calves are being shot in the head and buried (sorry it's graphic, but it's true) because no one can afford to buy them and raise them up as beef. It is predicted that many beef, chicken and pork producers will also call it quits this fall.

Where does this leave us? The conventional farmers are teetering on the brink - in the meantime, the government is cracking down on the farmers doing it themselves. Where is our food going to come from this winter? China? Get real!

Mark's case is a human rights case, a Constitutional rights case, an individual liberty case, a government gone tyrannical on its own power case, and...an eat or starve case.

[damaged justice]

One of the primary difficulties with punishing people for [in]actions that are not true crimes is that the "authorities" must not only use force, but lies, to achieve their goal. In every case of an "undercover buy", the state's agents deliberately lie about their identity and/or motivations, because it is the quickest way to make the bust short of actually pulling out their guns and resorting to outright violence. In just about every such situation, all involved parties are consenting adults engaging in voluntary transactions. And since there is no victim who has been injured, the state's agents create a legal fiction they laughably refer to as "the state" -- or even more laughably, "the people of the state" -- who have theoretically suffered some injury which must be made whole.

At least, that's how it would be in a traditional courtroom. Nowadays we have more efficient methods, in the form of agents who are somehow empowered to do whatever they want without laboring under such inconveniences as warrants, or real plaintiffs who have suffered actual injuries.

[Don Neeper]

This is off-topic, but a very good article just popped up on Plenty magazine's web site.

http://www.plentymag.com/blogs/ecoeats/2008/08/is_less_sometimes_more.php

[pete]

cheryl,

Which article was that about the bull calves? I take it that is dairy calves and not beef?

Pete

[Lisa Imerman]

I find it a horrible commentary on what the government stoops to to prove a point. We are wasting precious taxpayers resources to trick a young boy into actions that could hurt his family.

I wonder if the undercover agent was made to fill out a membership application for CARE?

[Don]

No Lisa, Mark is not a CARE member. Mark has decided to stand on his and we his customers right to the FREEDOM to engage in private contracts per it seems the now dead US Constitution.
I recently read that the Roman Senate also destroyed the small family farms just prior to the fall of their Republic ushering in the dictatorship of Julius Caesar.
Agrabusiness has never worked. Its to bad the USDA, PDA, CDFA, FDA and all the other alphabet soups are so utterly clueless to the screaming historical failures of the past.
Sorry I digressed Lisa. Mark could have joined CARE but TPTB has attacked CARE members aswell. If one is producing raw milk you are not completely safe anywhere at this time.

[cheryl]

Pete,

The article is entitled "Protein Scarcity: Serious Future Meat Shortages Ahead!", page 11. And yes, it is regarding dairy bull calves, not beef calves.

[Sylvia]

I am sorry this is off topic-sort-of; People actually feed this to their babies? OMG! How awful. I saw the ad for this on the left side of this blog. I cannot imagine polluting a baby with this. No wonder so many are ill and/or ill as they grow/age.

Why is it ok to feed this crap to babies and not raw dairy?


http://www.nutricia-na.com/pages/neocate_inf_formula.htm

Ingredients
Corn Syrup Solids, High Oleic Safflower Oil, Refined Vegetable Oil (Coconut, Soy), Calcium Phosphate Dibasic, L-Arginine, L-Aspartate, Tripotassium Citrate, L-Leucine, L-Lysine Acetate, L-Glutamine, L-Proline, L-Valine, L-Isoleucine, Glycine, CAEM (An Emulsifier), L-Threonine, L-Tyrosine, L-Phenylalanine, L-Serine, L-Histidine, L-Alanine, Sodium Chloride, L-Cystine, L-Tryptophan, L-Methionine, Magnesium Acetate, Magnesium L-Aspartate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Bitartrate, M-Inositol, L-Ascorbic Acid, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Taurine, L-Carnitine, Niacinamide, DL-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate, Calcium D-Pantothenate, Cupric Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Vitamin A Acetate, Thiamine Chloride Hydrochloride, Potassium Iodide, Chromium Sulfate , Phylloquinone, Sodium Molybdate, Folic Acid, Sodium Hydrogen Selenite, D-Biotin, Vitamin D3, Cyanocobalamin.

[David Gumpert]

Sorry Sylvia. I don't control the ads--Google does, based on key words that appear in articles and comments. But good question.

[cheryl]

Sylvia,

And don't forget - those corn syrup solids and soy oils are undoubtedly GMO.

[Sylvia]

David, I realize that google controls the ads and I understand the purpose of them.

It just struck me as strange that many feel it is ok to feed chemicals to babies/children yet they scream when "natural" foods are consumed. I guess I just don't get it.

[Steve Bemis]

An excellent and reasonably balanced overview article just published on raw milk:

http://americasfuture.org/doublethink/2008/08/some-like-it-raw/

[elderberryjam]

Don't look now, but Ohio's former ODA director is now running for the Ohio Congress for the 18th district. This is the guy who is set on banning milkshares in Ohio, and eventually resigned. I found out he was running for Ohio Congress at the last Farm Bureau Annual Meeting in Belmont County when flyers were at the place settings. To my knowledge, Ohio Farm Bureau has not endorsed him - they invite all politicians to their meetings to discuss issues. If I'd only known before the meeting, I might have gone prepared!

http://www.daileyforcongress.com/

I think I'll write a letter to the editor.

Gwen

[elderberryjam]

I'm sorry - make that U.S. Congress.

Gwen

[Don Neeper]

Well, that just makes me want to spit! Luckily I'm up here in Dennis Kucinich's district and won't have to suffer the indignity of seeing Dailey's name on the ballot. Although to be accurate, he was appointed by former Gov. Taft and all state department directors resigned and were replaced with the election of Gov. Strickland. The fact that he campaigned for Strickland's opponent certainly didn't help either!

So where in Ohio are you located, Elderberry?

[elderberryjam]

Why, I live between Bellaire and St. Clairsville OH. You know, I think I might be in the 18th district after all. I can't recall what year they changed, but I wrote Charlie Wilson's name in on the ballot the year he won by a write-in vote, and he's in the 6th. But they changed the place I vote in the last 2 fall elections after some gerimandering, and my township isn't listed on the 6th district. Take a look at this little map they drew on Bob Ney's behalf. Note the finger in the 18th district that enters Belmont County from the north and embraces St. Clairsville, OH. Note that little bridge through Athens, and tell me this is a rational map.

http://www.ohiochamber.com/governmental/pdfs/110congress.pdf

I like your dinky little district up in Cuyahoga County, and I like Kucinich too.

Gwen