Minnesota aims to fine family farmers $500 per day

Via Police State USA

Family farm faces showdown with state agency over privacy and the right to farm.

David and Heidi Berglund face potential fines and damaging state intervention.

Republished with permission from NourishingLiberty.com.

GRAND MARAIS, MN — If the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) gets its way, Lake View Natural Dairy Farm, owned and operated by David and Heidi Berglund and their daughter Lyndsay, will be fined $500 per day until they submit to an unconstitutional inspection of their farm.

When the farm briefly explored the possibility of selling milk for processing, this triggered a call to the MDA by the processor, and the MDA realized they had no record or control over this farm.

On October 14, 2014, the MDA demanded to do an inspection of the farm, which the family refused on the grounds that the Minnesota Constitution acknowledges their right to peddle the products of their farm. Now, the MDA hopes to fine the small operation a crippling $500 per day after the March 9, 2015 hearing if they are found to be in contempt of court.

Lake View Natural Dairy Farm, in the quaint town of Grand Marais, MN, has been a staple in the community for the past 100 years under the care of the Berglund family. Currently, they provide raw milk and locally produced meats to their neighbors, visitors and tourists. The locals adore the farm, the family, and the products.

Many who vacation in Grand Marais for the summer months make the farm their first stop when they arrive in the town with a population of 1,300. Some customers drive over 200 miles from the twin cities for the products from Lake View Natural Dairy Farm.

In the spirit of a family farm operation, the senior Berglunds gave their daughter, Lyndsay, milking privileges 7 years ago, which she has wholeheartedly embraced. The farm boasts a herd of 85-100 dairy cows and beef cattle, laying hens, and pork products. Heidi Berglund makes the coveted yogurt and butter from the milk and provides baked goodies to round out the farm’s offerings.

True to its name, the farm sits on an ecologically stable piece of land overlooking Lake Superior. As a century-old staple in the community, the family is well respected and liked as providers of food to their neighbors. It is a disconnect that they are now being held in contempt of court for operating a farm and providing locally produced foods to their neighbors.

Customers of the farm are accustomed to conducting business completely on the honor system. A small cash box in the milking house is available for the community to leave cash for a gallon or two of milk true to the Minnesota Constitution saying that farmers have a right to peddle their products directly to the consumer.

Minnesota State Constitution, Article XIII

Sec. 7. NO LICENSE REQUIRED TO PEDDLE. Any person may sell or peddle the products of the farm or garden occupied and cultivated by him without obtaining a license therefor.

WHAT’S THIS REALLY ABOUT?

For nearly two years, the MDA has requested to do an inspection on the farm citing that the farm must pasteurize the milk prior to selling it. (For the full legal background on this, see David Gumpert’s excellent coverage.)

This raises the question, yet again, whether or not humans have the right to engage in peaceful, voluntary exchanges for the foods of their choice.

What the Berglunds are doing in providing food to their community is historically what built this country and continues to build communities. They are cultivating land for the purpose of feeding their neighbors. They are adding to the aesthetics of their region by keeping land in production. The Berglund family is lovingly growing community and nurturing bonds between community members.

Now, people who work for the MDA are assuming authority, deciding that they have the right to lord over this peaceful family and demand that they conduct business in a new way that would, quite literally, put them out of business and steal a wonderful resource from the region.

Although the language of the state constitution is on the side of the farmers, the question here is one of justice.

* When is it okay to excessively fine a family for feeding their community?

* Who gets to decide what foods a farm can provide to their neighbors who are enthusiastic participants in the exchange?

* How does the MDA get to demand to inspect a family’s farming operation and demand that they change it?

* Why does the state agency have the assumed authority to interfere between a small farm and those eager to purchase from the farm?

If there is a law that has David Berglund in contempt of court for not allowing aggressive, subversive agents on his property, that law has no place in a peaceful American community.

This is NOT, and never has been, a safety issue. The farm under scrutiny has been providing their community with raw milk and other wholesome farm products including chickens, eggs, pork and beef without ever so much as a suspected illness since inception. The state’s demands, excessive fines, and its attempt to hold the family in contempt of court, take its authority out of context.

While the family and community suffer — as beautifully articulated by customer Greg Gentz — from not knowing how this will play out, the MDA continues its gratuitous approach of “compliance for the sake of compliance.”

HOW YOU CAN HELP THE BERGLUNDS

What does this farm family need? They need support at their hearing for contempt of court on March 9, 2015 with warm bodies in the courtroom. They need the support of their community by continuing to purchase their products.

The Berglunds need us to stand in unity with them nationally and recognize that it is not the place of government to interfere with the direct farmer-to-consumer relationship in peaceful, voluntary exchange for food.

If you are anywhere near Cook County Minnesota on March 9, please show up in quiet support of David and Heidi Berglund, and their daughter, Lyndsay, who have spent countless days lovingly caring for their animals and their community.

It is through your support that, as individuals, we can renormalize the relationship between food producer and food consumer understanding that there is nothing wrong, or even illegal, with a farmer feeding his community.

Ultimately, this case isn’t about milk or this particular farm; it is about whether strangers working for a state agency will control peaceful exchanges for food between happy neighbors or if the community members have the prerogative to make their own choices.

{ SUPPORT POLICE STATE USA }


HELP THE BERGLUNDSPeacefully support the Berglunds with a showing in court. The next court appearance is:

March 9th, 2015
9:00 a.m. (Please show up early)

Cook County Courthouse
411 West 2nd Street
Grand Marais, MN 55604
(Click for Map)

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Tommy
Tommy

I’ve been to Grand Marais many times, its a Hallmark card – absolutely serene. They should get the word out in Duluth over at the college, they’ve pot at least a few hundred or more dope smokin’ hippies who likely just need a bus to climb aboard.

Stucky

Raw milk to the Fuckedup Department of Assholes (FDA) is like blood in the water to a shark.

One wonders why. Maybe because milk comes from a tit … and if you’re gonna suck off a tit, it BETTER be a government one?

The government hates ALL productive workers, including small farmers. I hate this government and will support any entity trying to get rid of it.

MuckAbout

I really dislike “regulators” who can’t follow their own laws (or State Constitution)!!

MA

Stucky

FDA Declares War Against Raw Milk

Despite the low opinion that most have of government in general, many of its agencies actually make a concerted effort to serve the interests of the public. However, there are other agencies that act quite differently. These government bodies, which exist primarily to serve powerful special interests, are known for their arrogance, heavy-handed tactics, and willingness to ignore the Constitution if it should happen to get in the way of their agenda. Without any question, one of the worst of these agencies is the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Ostensibly created to protect the health and welfare of the American people, the FDA functions as an extension of pharmaceutical companies and agribusiness, approving dangerous drugs that damage the health of millions while allowing big agriculture to introduce genetically-engineered crops and food products into the food supply without adequate safety testing. Despite the FDA’s supposed dedication to public health, small farmers and sellers of natural substances such as vitamins and herbal remedies do not receive the same kind of support from the bureaucrats at the FDA – instead, small-scale producers and merchants are treated as a hostile enemy by this gang of government thugs, presumably because they are seen as a threat by the big money interests that the FDA so slavishly serves and protects.

Raw Milk in the Crosshairs

One of the groups that has drawn the enmity of this corporate front group disguised as a government regulatory body are the sellers and producers of raw milk. Despite the fact that over 10 million Americans now regularly drink it, the FDA has declared raw milk unsafe because it has not been put through the pasteurization process (bursts of high heat that kill living organisms in milk claimed to present a threat to human health) before being sold to the public. Thanks to effective lobbying on the part of agribusiness, the sale of raw milk – which is exclusively produced on small, family-style farms – has been outlawed in several states while being subject to significant restrictions in others. At the present time, only ten states allow raw milk to be sold by retailers, while a few more allow consumers to purchase it directly from dairy farms.

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves all powers not specifically delegated to federal or state governments to the states and the people respectively, clearly indicates that states should have the right to regulate the commercial sale of foods within their borders, and that citizens should be free to use their power and influence to try and change any policies or decisions they disagree with at that level. But the FDA has refused to leave the issue of raw milk sales to the states or to the judgment of the people. In their infinite wisdom, the FDA has banned all interstate trade in raw milk, and they have used this edict along with the other restrictions in place in forty out of fifty states as an excuse to declare all-out war on producers and consumers of this health-promoting product.

Singing the Fourth Amendment Blues

While it may be hard to believe, the FDA has actually conducted armed raids against farms suspected of selling raw milk illegally. One recent (2010) target was Pennsylvania Amish farmer Dan Allgyer, who is now in the process of being put out of business permanently for selling raw milk to undercover FDA agents and shipping across state lines to Maryland, where raw milk is illegal. Yes, you read that right – the FDA actually used undercover agents to run a sting operation against an Amish farmer who was selling raw milk to consumers just across the Pennsylvania border. This plan was, of course, necessary because the Amish are known far and wide for their prolific criminal activities. In 2010 and 2011, the FDA carried out two raids against a private raw milk buying club in California called Rawesome Foods, essentially holding workers and customers hostage for hours while they confiscated all of Rawesome’s computer and written records (twice), in violation of Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures. Raw milk is legal in California, but this has not stopped the FDA from routinely raiding raw milk suppliers and sellers in the state, always on the pretext that these businesses are intentionally selling milk across state lines.

Gestapo tactics against raw milk suppliers have been going on since 2006, when the FDA decided to begin its current ongoing campaign against a product that is legal in the majority of states. As bad as things have been, however, they are only going to get worse now that the Food Safety Modernization Act has been passed. With this new act in place, from now on the FDA only has to suspect that foods it classifies as dangerous are being sold or used somewhere, and it will then be free to conduct armed raids against people’s business operations or homes without any further due process. The important point here is that the FDA will no longer face any restrictions on its hegemony, and if it wants to trump up phony charges against every raw milk producer in the country, there will be no authority anywhere that can stop them.

Pasteurized Milk is Dead

Pasteurization may make some sense when used on milk produced on factory farms, where cows consume unnatural diets of grain and soy, are pumped full of bovine growth hormone, and get loaded up with antibiotics to treat mammary gland infections (mastitis) that develop because of the unhealthy and stressful lifestyles that are endemic to modern industrial farming.

But this process, which kills every microbe living in milk regardless of whether it is harmful or beneficial, is hardly necessary when milk comes from grass-fed cows allowed to graze outside on open pastureland. This is exactly the liquid that raw milk aficionados are buying, and the kinds of pathogens that thrive in the nutritionally compromised milk produced on factory farms are seldom found in unpasteurized raw milk that comes from healthy grass-fed cows. Because it has not been cooked to death, raw milk is much denser in crucial vitamins and minerals than the pasteurized version, and it also contains significant amounts of good living bacteria that perform important functions such as helping the body digest and absorb raw milk’s abundant nutrients.

Owning Our Bodies for Fun and Profit

Make no mistake about it – the FDA hates raw milk because it is seen as a threat to the power of agribusiness. If the FDA really cared about the health of the American consumer, they would leave raw milk alone and start putting out warnings about pasteurized milk, which in various scientific studies (the ones not paid for by agribusiness interests) has been linked to multiple allergies, asthma, lactose intolerance, skin disorders, arthritis, and anti-social behavior of all types. Bovine growth hormone, which is considered so dangerous to consumers that it is banned in Europe and Canada, has the full support of the FDA and is completely legal in the US, which tells you a lot about where the FDA’s true priorities lie.

The FDA is a rogue government agency intent on handing over total control of the food supply to big agricultural corporations that want to sell us nothing but glorified junk food because that is what keeps their costs of production low. The obsessive quest for obscene profits by agribusiness is why raw milk producers around the country are in a fight for their survival; and it is why small farmers in general, who have been the backbone of the American economy for generations, have now been driven to the point of extinction. Truth be told, the war against raw milk is really just the latest skirmish in a war of gradual attrition that has been going on against independent producers of goods and services for a very long time.
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FDA Declares War Against Raw Milk

Stucky

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Joe
Joe

Any government scumbag parasite that trespasses on their property ought to be shot.

BUCKHED
BUCKHED

I purchase raw milk every week….it tastes fantastic….way better for you than the other crap .

Chatham Police
Chatham Police

Buckhed

You are a fugitive from the law. You raw milk terrorists are a danger to our society. We know your IP address and will be sending a SWAT team to take you down.

joel

this article brings back fond memories of having 2 diary cows jersey/guernsey, afraid to sell surplus for fear of being sued, yet had no problem feeding large quanties to my children. leftovers went to the pigs. later i begin a small herd? of sheep, only to later find out the grandmother of my champion ram suspected of scapies, in lieu of testing the entire group i liquidated which was ok. to my surprise. a friend sells goat cheese and last i heard disregards the state, she is tough, probably go to jail before complying. i suppose my insecurites began with a midnight call declaring a house i wired was on fire. longest 45 minute drive i ever made, to my delight the house was standing tall, compressor low on oil produced a bad odor, yet the die was cast. many years later front page of the local paper a house fully engulfed, i freaked out even though 10 years had gone by. the suspicion was electrical of course when cause unknown. buy some beer, get up my courage call fire marshall a demand a thorough search for cause. determined the owners left home hastily due to family emergency and left an appliance on. of course those with authority have zero responsibility. odd how liberals and former government and insurance people would request doing work without permitting. allowing me an excellent excuse to decline the work, knowing full well others may decide otherwise, safety and sanity were the cornerstones of my business, during the cold spells years ago it was almost a given many house would cook, mostly from wood stoves and human carelessness. i wonder if credit is due to building inspections or just a more competent work force. for me regarding this MN farm let the buyer beware, worked for many years. a positive of the internet, it exposes to the public who they may choose to avoid.

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

Another example of government overreach “just because we say so”. Fuck ’em!

card802
card802

This will be a tough sell to a lot of our dumbed down population. For generations all we hear or read about is the government daily recommended allowance of _______________fill in the blank.

Vitamins, food groups, etc.

government regulator dogs keeps us safe dont cha know. Most of the idiots will hear that all the government wants to do is inspect the farm, so the people are safe. And the idiots will side with the government.

Fuckedupandbullshit.

Smoke Jensen
Smoke Jensen

HAHA! See what the peaceful solution gets you. A boarded up farm.
The non peaceful solution kept the Bundy Ranch alive.
These bureaucrats only listen to one thing. Force.
Power grows out of the barrel of a gun (Mao). It’s why we had a revolution because King George ignored all attempts at peaceful discourse. These parasites also ignore peaceful pleas to follow the constitution and the law.
One day they’re going to push too far. I hope I live long enough to see it.

Didius Julianus
Didius Julianus

Well, in New Zealand raw milk is legal and the farms openly advertise it. You can not but it in the supermarket (although you can get raw cheese) but you can get it direct from the farm or at “depot” stops the farm has prearranged with enthusiastic consumers.

TE
TE

Looks like the USDA is standing back and awaiting the state outcome, smart use of our tax dollars.

This farm is already out of compliance with the USDA laws implemented by Bush and CONgress on their way out.

The new laws states that ALL farms/food sales MUST be approved and pass inspection of the USDA.

Even if it is just your Grandma with a mulberry tree and the most delicious preserves you ever get.

CONgress, Pelosi if memory serves, PROMISED that they would not allow that part of the law (family farms/kitchens) to be regulated, yet they LEFT it in the law and we now live in the gray area of “on their honor.”

Which means when hunger kicks in, so will the law.

We are fools and this is the inevitable outcome of our ignorance of natural law, food supply and our modern lives.

I pray for this family, and all the farming families that have already been crushed under Big Brother/Nanny State’s heels.

BUCKHED
BUCKHED

Chatham…raw milk is legal in S.C…..drank a big glass with a cheese/pepper spread made from raw milk on a bagel….yummy !

How can something that comes straight from the cow be bad for you ?

Rick Caird
Rick Caird

If they were in Wisconsin, they might stand a chance. But, Minnesota, not so much.

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