Archive for March, 2010

600 People at hearing in support of Wisc. Raw Milk Bill; farm org’s sharply divided on issue

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

I was there and it was awesome! As usual, because of a strong showing of consumers and small farmers supporting the direct sale of fresh raw milk legislation, the count estimate was way under. There were over 600 signed in to observe the hearing plus over 180 signed onto to speak for a total close to 800. They traveled and registered from all areas of the state to make this a broad grassroots coalition now in place.

The only opposition came from government regulators and big ag organizations like the Farm Bureau, veterinaries etc.

Consumers and small family farms uniting for healthy food,
socal justice and consumer rights is a new paradigm that big ag has not had to deal with, so it will be interesting to watch the spin they use to maintain control of food production. Family Farm Defenders and WI Farmers Union supported the rights of consumers and farmers to do business together without government regulation.

Please thank these two grassroots farm organizations if you get a chance. There is much more work to be done but this a good sign for local sustainable food.

Let’s keep moving forward sticking together.

Fred Depies
Chilton WI

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Wisconsin Farm Bureau tries to block raw milk bill that would benefit small dairy

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

I see here where the Wisconsin Farm Bureau testified against Wisconsin’s raw milk bill (click highlighted text for story)

“(Melvin) Pittman, who chairs the Farm Bureau’s Dairy Committee and milks 75 cows near Plum City with his wife, Pat (said) ‘If a person becomes ill from drinking raw milk, it is not only unpasteurized milk that gets a bad image, but all milk and dairy products. Dairy farmers have invested millions of dollars promoting milk and dairy products, and we can’t afford to have an incident adversely affect consumption.’”

If only the Farm Bureau would show such great vigilance in protecting consumers, and those beef farmers who are trying to do the right thing, when not one or two people, but hundreds, are sickened by feedlot-evolved E. Coli 0157 h7  contamination or Salmonella contamination of tens of thousands of pounds of beef or pork in these enormous packing houses run by the new meat trust.

The film “Food Inc.” tried to expose some of these problems of widespread systemic contamination of our industrial food system. Yet the Farm Bureau leaders go out of their way to disparage this movie. Frankly, they seem to hate it, and the filmmakers, and the people who watched the film and were moved by it. Why is that, do you think? Is it because the Farm Bureau is reluctant to criticize the meat trust, while eagerly going after small-scale dairy farmers who are trying to earn a parity price for their product by offering raw milk (which is enjoying growing consumer demand) direct to consumers?

Certainly the Farm Bureau has always been on the side of large-scale agriculture and large-scale monopolistic food processing corporations. It appears that in the Wisconsin Raw Milk Bill debate, they are once again intent on preserving this legacy of diehard defense of Big Food Processing.

I for one am strongly urging our Wisc. representatives to pass this Raw Milk bill. As a tiny-scale organic grower, I certainly know that the Farm Bureau has never represented, nor will ever represent, people at the small end of farming. We need our own farmer-labor (consumer) united organizations to represent the little guys and gals in small-scale ag.

Bobby G
Middle Wisconsin,
USA Sector of The Global Corporate Economy

Posted in Ag, Biodiversity, Economics, MicroEcoFarming, Political Economy, Sustainability, ecology, globalization | No Comments »