With Caroline Persson

On January 31, 2012, 55 farmers and plaintiffs traveled to Manhattan to hear oral
arguments regarding Monsanto’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Organic Seed Growers
and Trade Association (OSGATA) vs. Monsanto.

At the heart of the lawsuit is the threat that family farmers face due to genetic trespass on their fields as a result of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) seed and the aggressive enforcement of the biotech seed and chemical giant’s alleged patent rights.

In court, Federal Judge Naomi Buchwald declared that she would rule on the motion to dismiss the trial or move forward in the next 60 days or by March 31st.

Eat Local. Support Local Farms.Groove to Local Tunes.
Presented by: JDC’s Just Delicious Catering
Applecheek Farm Banquet Hall
Hyde Park, VT
Localvore Dinner with
Live Music
February 25th – 5:30 p.m.
Live bluegrass and folk music by The Sterling Quarters
Local Speaker- Author Eric Nuse “Vermont Wild Vol. 2”
Winter Fondue party! Local Meat, Veggies, Breads and more- Delicious Apple Tart and Local Ice Cream!

$26 per adult $13 for children 12 and under

For info and reservations:

Chef Jason Clark 802.888.9407    jdccatering@yahoo.com   www.jdccatering.com

Back by popular demand! Learn how to Make Feta, Soft Cheese, Yogurt, & Kefir from Raw Cows’ Milk! Class presented by Rural Vermont and taught by the team at Metta Earth Institute. Sunday, March 25th, 1-4 pm, Metta Earth Institute, Lincoln, $20-40 sliding scale, pre-registration required. All proceeds benefit Rural Vermont. To sign up or for more info, call Rural Vermont at (802) 223-7222 or email shelby@ruralvermont.org.

The FDA won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington, D.C., region after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines and he told his customers he would shut down his farm altogether.

The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer’s supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children.

But the Food and Drug Administration, which launched a full investigation complete with a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and a straw-purchase sting operation against Mr. Allgyer’s Rainbow Acres Farm, said unpasteurized milk is unsafe and it was exercising its due authority to stop sales of the milk from one state to another.

Adding to Mr. Allgyer’s troubles, Judge Lawrence F. Stengel said that if the farmer is found to violate the law again, he will have to pay the FDA’s costs for investigating and prosecuting him.

His customers are wary of talking publicly, fearing the FDA will come after them.

“I can’t believe in 2012 the federal government is raiding Amish farmers at gunpoint all over a basic human right to eat natural food,” said one of them, who asked not to be named but received weekly shipments of eggs, milk, honey and butter from Rainbow Acres, a farm near Lancaster, Pa. “In Maryland, they force taxpayers to pay for abortions, but God forbid we want the same milk our grandparents drank.”

The FDA, though, said the judge made the right call in halting Mr. Allgyer’s cross-border sales.

“Intrastate sale of raw milk is allowed in Pennsylvania, and Mr. Allgyer had previously received a warning letter advising him that interstate sale of raw milk for human consumption is illegal,” agency spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey said.

Fans of fresh milk, which they also call raw milk, attribute all kinds of health benefits to it, including better teeth and stronger immune systems. Raw milk is particularly popular among parents who want it for their children.

In a unique twist, the movement unites people on the left and the right who argue that the federal government has no business controlling what people choose to consume.

In a rally last year, they drank fresh milk in a park across Constitution Avenue from the Senate.

The FDA began looking into Mr. Allgyer’s operations in late 2009, when an investigator in the agency’s Baltimore office used aliases to sign up for a Yahoo user group made up of Rainbow Acres customers.

The investigator placed orders for fresh milk and had it delivered to private residences in Maryland, where it was picked up and documented as evidence in the case. By crossing state lines, the milk became part of interstate commerce and thus subject to the FDA’s ban.

At one point, FDA employees made a 5 a.m. visit to Mr. Allgyer’s farm. He turned them away, but not before they observed milk containers labeled for shipment to Maryland.

After the FDA first took action, Mr. Allgyer changed his business model. He arranged to sell shares in the cows to his customers, arguing that they owned the milk and he was only transferring it to them.

Judge Stengel called that deal “merely a subterfuge.”

Liz Reitzig, a mother who has become a raw-milk activist and is an organizer of the group, said the lawyers who pursued the case against Mr. Allgyer ought to “be ashamed.”

“Many families are dependent on the milk for health reasons or nutritional needs, so a lot of people will be desperately trying to find another source now,” she said.

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