Uppity Amish Farmers
Have you heard about the case that involves the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a Pennsylvania Amish organic farmer, Amos Miller? He runs a farm that features raw milk, cheese, butter and meat from cows, goats, sheep, camels, buffalo, chickens, ducks and geese. The larger animals are all organically grass fed. The audacity. In a blog about the federal case against Miller, David Gumpert sarcastically says that federal agricultural officials treat him as “an uppity Amish Boy.”
So why is there a case against Miller? The first problem is that USDA has been, by law, continuously inspecting meat and poultry since the early 1900s under the Federal Meat Inspection Act. That means you have to have a USDA inspector in the plant while you are slaughtering your livestock. FDA, who regulates milk, has decided that raw milk is unsafe for consumption.
As with other federal laws, FDA and USDA laws are only supposed to apply to interstate commerce. But Food Safety News reporter Dan Flynn says that Miller’s farm in Bird-in-Hand, PA has interstate sales of meat, poultry and other food products. But beyond interstate sales, there appears to be another out from federal oversight. Miller doesn’t actually sell the products per se. Apparently, he has what is called a “food club,” where customers purchase part ownership of a cow or a camel or whatever and then they reap the dividends in the form of milk, butter or meat.
This movement is called “food freedom” which the FDA’s John Sheehan says is an attempt “at circumventing laws prohibiting sales of raw milk to consumers”…which…”otherwise would be to take a giant step backward with public health protection.” It’s not just the U.S. The same sort of behavior is taking place in Canada where a challenge to government oversight of raw milk uses Canada’s “freedom of conscience and religion” act under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Back to the U.S. Why go after this one particular Amish farmer? One problem appears to be he’s getting too groot for his broek. He is not only making money (he charges quite a bit for his products) but he also has two farms, in PA and VA. And he’s using one of them to host a wedding. The nerve.
Apparently, Amish people don’t like courts and lawyers and such. He’s ignored a Consent Decree and injunction for access to his facility and records and hasn’t hired a lawyer to defend himself. He has been ordered to pay $250,000 or go to kerker. Clearly, this cocksure farmer thinks the agencies are making a big schtinke over niks.
Underlying all of this is food safety. Is it safe to slaughter cows without a USDA inspector on the premises? Is it safe to drink raw milk?
As far as I know, no one has gotten sick from the products from Amish farms despite the absence of a USDA inspector. As for raw milk, the science is changing. First, supposedly, “Raw milk is a luscious, fatty flavor-bomb with a buttery color from ivory to gold, deeply redolent of the pasture it comes from—sweet, green, nutty, animal.” As for the safety issue, Dr. Peg Coleman, along with her colleagues, has been exploring the risks and benefits of raw milk where risks are the well-known pathogens that may infect raw milk and the benefits are promotion of a healthy microbiome due to beneficial microbes that would be sterilized if the milk is pasteurized.
How will this end for Amos? Perhaps in a Waco-style shootout with tanks crashing into the Amish Made Star Barn? Or maybe it will be a Pennsylvania highway O.J.-style slow chase with something like this:
Clip clop, clip clop, clip clop, bamm!
A warning shot from an officer pursuing a slow-moving horse and buggy.
God in de Hemel.