This is a terribly sad story of a lunatic government going on a crime spree. This story is about much more than just raisins. It’s a true story of how the government can destroy ANY business, and at ANY time, with just a stroke of their Gestapo Bic Pens. Buy your Hardscrabble Farmer goods while he’s still in business. Pretty soon we’ll be eating only Monsanto “foods”.
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“They want us to pay for our own raisins that we grew,” says Raisin Valley Farms owner Marvin Horne. “We have to buy them back!”
This is but one absurdity that Marvin and his wife Laura have faced during their decade-long legal battle with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Every year, the Hornes plant seeds, tie vines, harvest fruit, and place grapes in paper trays to create sun-dried raisins. And every year, the federal government prevents them from bringing their full harvest to market.
It’s called an agriculture marketing order. Depression-era regulations meant to stabilize crop prices endanger the livelihoods of small farmers across the country, but the raisin marketing order is particularly egregious. An elected board of bureaucrats known as the Raisin Administrative Committee decides what the proper yield should be in any given year in order to meet a previously decided-upon price. Once they can estimate the size of the year’s harvest, they force every farmer to surrender a percentage of their crop to raisin packers. The packers then place the raisins in a “reserve pool,” a special holding vat for raisins that cannot be sold in the U.S. Eventually, the packers can sell the reserve pool raisins overseas at highly discounted prices set by the government or funnel them into school lunch programs for next to nothing.
The farmers were always supposed to get a percentage of the money raised from the reserve pool raisins, but as profit margins dwindled over the years, so did the return to farmers. The tipping point came in 2003, when farmers received zero dollars in return for the 47 percent of the crop they had surrendered.
“You can’t work for a whole year and then give 47 percent of what you made away and still keep that business afloat,” says Laura Horne.
Frustrated and desperate, the Hornes started packing and selling their own raisins, which they believed would allow them to circumvent the marketing order. In doing so, they inadvertently sparked a small revolution, as other independent raisin farmers saw their initial success and began to pack and sell, too. The government wasn’t happy (neither was Sun-Maid).
The USDA saddled the Hornes with massive fines in addition to demanding payment for the raisins they had failed to surrender. Marvin Horne estimates his outstanding balance at close to a million dollars, a virtually insurmountable figure for a small, family-owned farm. The Hornes decided to fight back.
When the Hornes and a few other raisin farmers tried to challenge the USDA’s seizure of their crop without payment as an unconstitutional taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment, the government balked and said that the issue should be heard in a Federal Claims court, as the case had nothing to do with the taking of property but instead was a matter of the Hornes violating farming regulations and being fined for doing so. Remarkably, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the USDA and declared that they had no jurisdiction in the case. Luckily for the Hornes, however, the Supreme Court took the case and ruled, in a 9-0 decision, that the 9th Circuit was mistaken and must consider the case on its constitutional merits.
And now, after nearly a decade of fighting, the Hornes must wait a little longer. This saga may well end in 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the next few months, or the Hornes may one day soon find themselves before the Supreme Court once again. A favorable legal outcome is far from certain, but their raisins—and our property rights—depend on it.
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/25/supreme-court-will-hear-raisin-property
So……..the bureaucrat is just out to help the farmer by taking produce from the farmer so the farmer doesn’t grow too many raisins thereby losing hard earned money, which would be bad for the economy and the farmer.
Makes no cents, except if you are a government drone bureaucrat.
I’m from the government and here to help you. Hummmm
Bastiat was right; the state is nothing but a gang of criminals…albeit a gang “everyone” ascribes God-like power.
If you love your (political) government you are a slave.
Why don’t they give them another name? Sell it as some other product?
Bureaucrats run this contry…..unelected tyrants. Jefferson said Sic Semper Tyrannis….I agree.
the raisin farmers shouldn’t expect any sort of ruling based on right to property or rule of law by SCROTUM ( Supreme Court Reprobates of These United Motherfuckers ) , but in should look instead for the old wrinkled power behind the bureaucratic dicks to shove it even further up their well reamed asses.
…no point in being naive about in whose corner the SCROTUM resides …ain’t it clear?
flash
Terrific, and scary, video. John Whitehead is a real hero in my book.
He says the last institution to fall before tyranny ascends are the courts.
Scary thought, that. Aren’t we already there? In case after case after case, it is clear the Supreme Court (SCROTUM … hahaha) has no interest whatsoever in preserving the Constitution. Their agenda lies totally elsewhere.
The Ninth JERK OFF Court of Appeals is just that………..a bunch of fucking JERK OFFS except there is never a happy ending. They are the most overturned court in the country.
Stuck, bottom line is the American people have no representatives in Congress, none in the boytoy punk -ass POTUS, and cerainlly not a one in the black robbed geriatric queens who bill themselves as the Judges of US all , but represent only the interests of oligarchy …the Calvary is not coming ..the people are own their own….good luck with that.
USA’s version of the great leap forward can only result in socialist abundance, comrades.
The purpose is to destroy America, Americans and the dollar. We live in a culture of corruption, where all politicians are owned by every corporation, special interest, foreign government and crazy billionaire that has their price. See paulcraigroberts.org and Greg Hunter on YouTube.
If we don’t stand up to them, we are doomed.
This has been an ongoing problem for years. Time to redefine his business model and repackage his product.
Raisins are not a profitable business for him. Grow those raisins but change the end product. Repackage the raisins as a different product — Call them “bio-degradable packaging”. I can almost guarantee he’ll make more money, especially if he markets them w/ his story.
I knew a guy who owned a small farm. The govt paid him not to farm the land. I don’t think he ever farmed it except for a few strategic acres to attract game. He sold leases to hunters. He also had his own excavation business.
They pay some to do nothing and force others to pay twice for what they’ve already done! You couldn’t make this shit up if you tried!
One day I’m gonna sit down and write a list of all the things the govt has fucked up and then my head is going to explode.