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FDA Persecutes Raw Milk Dairies: Raids Amish Farm

Call to Action—or Lose the Right to Choose What You Eat

by Heidi Stevenson

23 April 2010

The FDA is using strong arm tactics on family farms that do their best to produce genuinely healthy milk for customers who care about their own family's health. They have raided an Amish dairy farm with the accusation, "We have credible evidence that you are involved in interstate commerce." There's no accusation that the raw milk they produce is unsafe. They couldn't find a legitimate charge, so they've used a trumped up one.

The FDA is ignoring its remit to guard the health of Americans. They're raiding and prosecuting on the basis of trade law. They're going after family farms. Have no doubt about the purpose: The FDA is protecting enormous Agribusiness corporations. They fear these small farmers, because people are waking to the fact that their health relies on access to real food raised in healthy conditions.

Pennsylvania Amish farmer Dan Allgyer has been under pressure from the FDA before. His farm was raided on 4 February—not officially, though agents trespassed, harrassed him, and followed a man who'd been visiting the farm. Now, they're making it official.

At 4:30 in the morning of 20 April, Algyer was heading out to milk his cows. He noted that something was going on, that there was too much traffic. Three cars pulled onto his neighbor's private property, and then at about 5:00, they proceeded to drive down the lane of his own farm. He tells what then happened:

I stood back in the dark barn to see what they were going to do. They drove past my two Private Property signs, up to where my coolers were, with their headlights shining right on them. They all got out of their vehicles—five men all together—with big bright flashlights they were shining all around. My wife and family were still asleep. When they couldn't find anybody, they prepared to knock on the door of my darkened house.

Just before they got to the house I stepped out of the barn and hollered at them, then they came up to me and introduced themselves. Two were from the FDA, agent Joshua C. Schafer who had been there in February and another. They showed me identification, but I was too flustered to ask for their cards. I remember being told that two were deputy U.S. Marshals and one a state trooper. They started asking me questions right away. They handed me a paper and I didn't realize what it was.

Agent Joshua C. Schafer told me they were there to do a "routine inspection." At 5:00 in the morning, I wondered to myself? "Do you have a warrant?" I asked, and one of them, a marshal or the state policeman, said, "You've got in your hand buddy." I asked, "What is the warrant about?" Schafer responded, "We have credible evidence that you are involved in interstate commerce."

They wanted me to answer some questions, my name, middle initial, last name, wanted to know how many cows we have on the farm. I answered those questions and some more. Finally, I got over my initial shock and said I would not be answering any more questions. They said okay, we'll get on with the "inspection."

I went to go talk to my wife. As I walked away, they held a quick excited conversation and I heard one of them say, "I'll take care of him." At that point, apparently, they had designated one of the marshals to stick close to me and dog my footsteps. He followed me as I walked toward the house. I went in the house quickly and told my wife a few words to let her know the situation, then immediately came back out of the house before the marshal had time to follow me in. When I came back out, they were inspecting all the coolers sitting out. They spent about a half hour digging through the packed coolers filled with milk and other food - all private property - taking pictures.

At one point during the cooler inspection the state trooper said to me, "You have a nice farm." I responded, "We're trying to be sustainable, but they don't want to let us."

While they inspected the coolers, I read the warrant. Among other things it said that any search was to be conducted "at reasonable times during ordinary business hours." When I exclaimed, "Ordinary business hours!" and pointed this out to the marshal who was dogging me, he said, "Ordinary business hours for agriculture start at 5:00 a.m." I challenged him that the warrant does not say agriculture hours, it said ordinary hours. He replied, "That's what the government told us."

Then they started looking around, as though in search of something in particular. They went up to one door that had a clear No Trespassing sign on it, specifically including government agents, and they did not go in the room, though they shone their flashlights around in it. Then they asked me, "What is on the other side of the door in that room?" Agent Joshua Schafer asked this. I looked him in the eye and did not answer. When they saw I was not going to answer, the other FDA agent said, "Okay, come on," to agent Schafer, and they went into the room and through the closed door on the opposite side. I had another one of those signs on my walk-in cooler adjacent to my freezer, so they went through that door also. They spent probably another half hour rooting around, like a couple of pigs, in the freezer and cooler area and took many pictures.

When they came out, they asked me where I keep my containers and jugs for milk, and I refused to tell them. I figured they could look for themselves. Then they were walking all over the farm, checking everything out, everything except the house. Agent Joshua Schafer even opened my dumpster and inspected inside it, as though he thought I was hiding something in it. At that point I went and started milking my cows - it was way past milking time.

When I was just about done milking, Schafer and the other agent came in the barn and wanted me to answer some more questions. I told them I would not. The second agent said, "Are you gong to deliver those coolers to Bethesda and Bowie Maryland?" I just looked at him. Then Schafer made a gesture and said, "The stickers with those towns names are on the coolers," as through to say, you might as well tell me.

I replied, "I told you I won't answer any questions." After that they said, "We are done for today. You'll be hearing back from headquarters."

Then they got in their car and left. The state trooper and the marshals had left already.

They came in the dark, shining bright flashlights while my family was asleep, keeping me from milking my cows, from my family, from breakfast with my family and from our morning devotions, and alarming my children enough so that they first question they asked my wife was, "Is Daddy going to jail?"

This is today's FDA. They protect their corporate masters and harrass real farmers producing real food and selling it to real people who desperately want and need what they do. This is just one prong of their attack on food and health. The FDA is defining any food as a drug if a health claim is made for it, no matter how well documented by science. But they aren't going after truly dangerous highly so-called foods processed so highly they've been reduced to little more than sweetened (with toxic chemicals) cardboard, because that's what Agribusiness produces.

The FDA is moving quickly now. If you don't want to lose your right to healthy food or to tell or hear about it—you know, that little thing called free speech—then you need to take action. Please, do what Dan Algyer has asked. Either write or phone the FDA and speak out about this issue. As the National Consumers and Farmers Association (NICFA) says,

Express yourself. Tell them that you support Dan Allgyer. If you drink fresh, unpastuerized milk tell them that. Tell them that more people every day are drinking fresh milk and this is going to increase. It's not going to stop no matter how many farmers they persecute. Tell them the government has no place between individuals and the farmers from whom they get their food.

Here are the address and phone number:

Please act soon. There's no time to waste. The FDA is moving very fast now, taking down one real dairy at a time, redefining food as drugs that they can regulate out of existence, and trying to control your access to real foods, while letting poisons be inserted into your food supply by Agribusiness, and limiting your access to real information.

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