backwoods radicals

[mitchmaine]

last night on the news, sandwiched in between iran and mubarik, was a story about some backwoods hippy radical evoironmental pinko commie group called themselves rural vermont trying to pull some crazy stunt like try and teach someone to make butter and cheese. but the hero scruton from vermont ag stopped them cause it ws against the law.
typical of the news, there was no story, so we are limited on details. wondering if any could shed some light on the situation.

thanks, mitch

[dominiquer60]

Rural Vermont is the fiscal sponsor for our Draft Animal Power Network non profit organization.

They fought to be able to sell raw milk using a tiered system in VT, they promote the use of raw milk and through many different farms offer classes on how to utilize this wonderful farm product. Apparently the way the law reads, raw milk is only for consumption as milk and advocating using it to make cheese, yogurt and butter would therefore be against the law. From what I have read in the emails, it just looks like some anti raw milk lawyer suddenly realized that he/she could cause an upset and try to make raw milk look bad yet again.

Here is some more reading from the horses mouth, http://www.ruralvermont.org/

Erika

[goodcompanion]

Seems to me the Agency of Ag will not allow anything pertaining to raw and/or decentralized dairy unless forced to do so by statute. If the statute can possibly be read as not expressly allowing it, then the VAA will throw all their legal weight against allowing it.

Stand back a few steps and it makes the VAA look ridiculous. Clearly people buying raw milk from local producers know what they are getting into and teaching a few dozen such people how to make their own cheese and whatnot out of such milk is no threat to their health or anyone else’s. A total waste of taxpayer resources to go after them, too.

And after the customer has bought the milk, isn’t that milk their property to dispose of as they see fit? Why is the state interposing itself between a property owner and the spread of information about what to do with their own property? Clearly if I own a jug of milk and turn it into yogurt or whatever, I am not going to get a knock on my door from a state trooper. Yogurt is not a prohibited substance. So why is it a prosecuteable offense to spread word about how yogurt is made?

Baffling.

[Carl Russell]

mitchmaine;25056 wrote:

…. some backwoods hippy radical evoironmental pinko commie group called themselves rural vermont trying to pull some crazy stunt like try and teach someone to make butter and cheese. ….

Now wouldn’t you know, Lisa and I are board members (PROUD OF IT).

Mitch I wear that label with F**king pride.

One of the problems is that the law actually tries to define the raw milk that can be sold, and being different from milk sold for “manufacturing”, and therefore defines it as being sold for liquid consumption only.

To Dan Scrutin’s credit, he actually admits the law is problematic, and as Erik mentions VAA is so lacking in imagination, the only way they see they can address these laws is to enforce them. If they were to admit that it could be improved, god forbid, they might appear to be supportive of raw milk.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110218/NEWS02/110217020/Vermont-Ag-Agency-halts-raw-milk-workshops

There is a lot of public consternation, and RV is doing a great job of getting the story into the media.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

hey carl, my tongues in my cheek for sure, and i remember growing up knowing that vermont had more milk cows that people, and you strained your milk into galvanized cans and cooled the milk in spring water or cold water tanks. then came bulk tanks, and concrete floors, inspectors and do it or get out. maybe its just the pendulum finishing out its swing and due to head back soon, but we lost common sense somewhere along the way. anyway, it ain’t as common as it used to be.

[Michael Colby]

Sorry, but if Rural Vermont was really radical, they wouldn’t have canceled the workshop when the government said, “boo.” Nor would they have kept their mouths shut when Cabot Creamery used rBGH.

I wish Rural Vermont was radical. Then I’d probably join.

[mitchmaine]

Just got off the phone with paul birdsall. He was saying how a block of towns downeast have gotten an article in the warrant of their individual town meetings declaring that growing and eating your own food is a god given right and not for sale to local or federal governments. Not sure about the particular wording. And maybe a little quixotic, spitting into the wind, so to speak. But when fuel prices climb, and the cost of trucking food from California forces food prices up, local food starts looking pretty good. Pendulums coming back. I can feel it. If the vote goes our way, maybe that story will hit the news, and some dy, food safety can be our business and not the feds.

[Carl Russell]

Michael we canceled the workshops so that the farmer teachers wouldn’t have to take the risk. The fact is that we got a warning months ago and we kept on holding the classes waiting for the “Official letter”. When we got it we canceled the classes to make the point that the agency is interfering with privacy rights of those concerned, and all of the media was already lined up, waiting.

There have been issues about some previous strategies, but I can assure you the current board is about as radical as RV has ever been. You may be in for some interesting activities over the next year.

Carl

[Michael Colby]

I have great faith in you and Will Allen, the only two folks I know who are on the current board. Will & I have been cuffed and arrested on many occasions together — usually war related. And we’ve collaborated on many other activists and writing endeavors (Fatal Harvest, for example). Thus, I hope your radicalism will prevail on an organization that has been limply liberal over the years and all-too willing to “cork it” when the “official” heat gets too hot for them.

But I still wish the “official” letter from the State would have been greeted with one, big “shove it” from Rural Vermont. And I know there were many folks out there asking them to not only do that but also turn the “illegal” event into a significant act of civil disobedience.

I look forward to Rural Vermont’s turn to radicalism. I’ll be the first to join when I see it.

[CharlyBonifaz]

can’t the classes not be on:
“How yoghurt and cheeses are made in (let’s say) France”

[jac]

Good idea Charly.. what about “Cheese and Yogurt making for your dog”…cant be illegal to eat pet food surely ???
John

[goodcompanion]

These guys at the VAA are just stuck in the age of consolidation.

I kind of feel bad for them in a certain way. They are unable to reinvent themselves and remain relevant in an agricultural landscape that is changing with or without them. They are protecting the interests of an industry that is in chronic, inexorable decline and the interests of a public that is no longer as uninformed as they assume them to be.

The thing that galls me though is that their inability to adapt forces farmers into outlawdom. I know the farmer-pirate thing is funny to some but I frankly don’t find it so. Personally, I believe in rules, order, and standards since it is pretty difficult to have community without them. And farmers as a group have historically had the most to lose if common faith in the rule of law goes by the wayside! A settled, well stewarded landscape is orderly; Good Farming should be the wellspring of Good Law.

But when the government renders it illegal or simply extremely impractical to make a living from ones own land using ancestral knowledge then we are really in trouble. It seems that our bureaucracy cares more about a$$-covering than the wellfare of its own citizens trying to build and rebuild true community.

[near horse]

How ’bout a slogan “Vermont Agriculture Agency – Making Education a Crime!”

Sad that you might have to conduct “underground” courses using secret codes. milk = white rain.

Man am I getting tired of this regulatory BS – get the pitchforks and torches AGAIN!

I don’t see how they can keep you from teaching people something that they’re allowed to practice at home – or are you guys really teaching how to cook meth?

[goodcompanion]

“Suspect was pulled over for 49 mph in a 35 mph zone. Upon being asked for ID suspect became agitated. Officers removed the suspect from the vehicle and placed under arrest. Search of the vehicle revealed 133.5 grams of homemade cheese of high potency, and approximately 200 ml of a kefir-like fluid. Arraignment pending for assaulting an officer and posession of prohibited substances.”

[gwpoky]

Just over the boarder, in Minnesota, a small farmer who was selling raw milk, legally, was accused of making 16 people sick, but the state would not give him the names of these people, so he contacted all of his customers and found that none of them had gotten sick or any people they had been in contact with. So who got sick? and how did they come in contact with the milk? Was the milk even the problem….my guess is not. No one will tell the farmer who his accusers are, do we not have that right? Anyway, thanks for this great discussion, we have people seeking out our farm and farms like it for a source of unadulterated, nonindustrial food, the crowd is getting louder.

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