""Linda and Larry Faillace wanted to start a farm. They dreamed of raising sheep and making cheese in rural Vermont. They did the research, followed the rules, and worked hard for years. Finally their family business began to succeed; healthy new lambs were born on their small hillside farm while the Faillaces and their three children learned herding, milking, and cheesemaking together. Then, without warning, all their dreams turned into a nightmare. The U.S. Department of Agriculture told them that the sheep they imported from Europe and New Zealand (with the USDA's seal of approval) carried BSE, the dreaded "mad cow disease". After months of harassment and surveillance including USDA agents spying from nearby mountaintops armed federal agents seized the Faillace's flock. Despite documented proof that the government agency's claims were not only false but also impossible, the animals were slaughtered. A family farm was destroyed so that the USDA could claim it was protecting the public from mad cow disease and protecting the beef industry from an outbreak of BSE, which had sent Britain's beef business into a tail spin. Mad Sheep is the unforgettable story of one family's struggle against a bullying and corrupt government agency that long ago abandoned the family farmer to serve the needs of corporate agriculture and the industrialization of our food supply."
In September of 2006, armed government agents stormed the hog and sheep farm of Cindi and Danny Henshaw in Virginia and violently slaughtered by shotgun the Henshaw's livelihood, while armed guards controlled the Henshaws movements on their own property for eleven days. At the same time, another depopulation took place on the hog farm of Eugene Davis in Virginia. The pretense of this "depopulation" was suspicion of the animals carrying pseudorabies, a disease not contagious to humans, but reportable in the "pseudorabies-free" state of Virginia. Pseudorabies is a viral disease most prevalent in swine, often causing newborn piglets to die. Older pigs can survive infection, becoming carriers of the pseudorabies virus. Other species of animals can become infected from swine, which is also known as Aujeszky's disease and "mad itch." It is non-fatal in ruminants and infected cattle and sheep may first show signs of pseudorabies by scratching and biting themselves. In dogs and cats, pseudorabies can cause sudden death. Exposure is through consumption of raw infected pork products. This disease is preventable with vaccine. Agents charged with depopulation violated Virginia regulations that allow the sale of hogs that test positive for slaughter for human consumption. The live animals were neither tested or were their owners allowed to recoup their losses by sale of any infected animals. Instead their Constitutional rights to privacy and property were violated and the state presented the owners with a bill for their "depopulation services." The bleeding carcasses were improperly removed by the agents from the premises, creating the possibility of spread of disease to wildlife and local pets."
http://www.ctlr.org/Resources/CTLR-NAIS Position.html
"Its alleged that on the morning of Dec. 1, ODA and Lorain County Health Department agents raided the Stowers home and in-house organic food cooperative, Manna Storehouse, and unlawfully seized their personal food supply, cell phones and computers.
The county says the Stowers need proper licenses to operate their retail store in accordance with state food safety rules.
They brag on the Internet they dont have anything to do with the government, but theyre selling perishable products to people, and that means they need a license, said Scott Serazin, an assistant county prosecutor.
The Buckeye Institute argues the right to buy food directly from local farmers, distribute locally grown food to neighbors, and pool resources to purchase food in bulk are rights that do not require a license."
http://www.farmanddairy.com/news/or...case-against-health-department-oda/10752.html
"the next court hearing is scheduled for Mark Nolt, a Pennsylvania farmer who turned in his state permit to sell raw milk because it didn't allow for the sale of the other products he offered.
"They swooped in ... like a bunch of Vikings, handcuffed me and stole $30,000 worth of my milk, cheese and butter," he told the New York Daily News.
His case is just an example of what the government is trying to do to those who believe based on medical results that raw milk is better for them than the processed milk available in most grocery stores, according to Nolt's supporters."
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63225
" on Mar. 6 of this year, everything changed. At about 1:15 in the afternoon, Gary Oaks arrived at a Cincinnati parking lot for what he thought would be a routine delivery, distributing milk to his shareholders. He got out of his truck, opened the trailer, and began handing out bottles of milk to a few of the dozen or so shareholders present.
Gelhaus wasn't there, but another shareholder who was, Joanne Miller, of Morrow, Ohio, remembers vividly what happened next. "I was placing empty bottles in carriers when I noticed a Cincinnati police cruiser moving through the parking lot slowly toward the trailer. Another cruiser followed. Officers moved toward the cow-share owners and told them not to pick up the milk that had already been set out, and actually moved in to prevent members from picking up the milk."
Out of several unmarked cars emerged men in plain clothes who "gathered near the tailgate of the trailer," Miller says. Only one would identify himself, an agent of the Ohio Dept. of Agriculture (ODA), she says. Other agents were there from the Kentucky Public Health Dept. and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Joanne Miller thinks there were about eight agents there, plus the four Cincinnati police. As the agents began confiscating the milk both from the truck and from a few shareholders, and loading it into an ODA van, she says, they told objecting shareholders, "What's happening here is not your concern."
"All Kinds of Laws"
This upset the shareholders, who began shouting that the milk belonged to them, that the agents had no right to it. One of the shareholders stood on the trailer's tailgate and waved her shareholder documents at the agents, who ignored her.
Sensing the situation might be getting out of hand, the Cincinnati cops called for reinforcements, and two additional cruisers arrived. In the meantime, several plainclothes agents moved to separate Gary Oaks from his shareholders. For the soft-spoken 43-year-old, who grew up on a Mississippi farm and had only once in his life even been stopped for speeding, it was all becoming a terrifying blur. They moved him toward one of the unmarked cars and ordered him in. "They asked me what I was doing. One said, 'You're in a lot of trouble. You've broken all kinds of laws.'"
Oaks didn't know what to say. "I was ignorant. I didn't know it was illegal to drink milk. I hate to sound ignorant."
Then they moved him from that car into a second car, and the routine started over again, except more intensively. One agent was shouting from the back, and another in the front was demanding that he write something that sounded to him like a confession that he was selling unpasteurized milk. He began feeling ill. "They were telling me what to write, that I wouldn't sell milk." He believes he started to write something, but can't remember what. "
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/nov2006/sb20061121_167591_page_2.htm
"the proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS). For example, if any of my free-running hens were to hatch out a brood of chicks, I would have to implant microchips, record the birth and chip numbers all within 48 hours or be subjected to penalties starting at $5,000. The big corporate outfits, however, would only need one number for an entire lot of animals."
http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-farmer-and-NAIS-by-Paul-Martin-Griepe-090128-243.html
"The owners of the Double H Farm in Nelson County, Richard Bean, 62, and Jean Rinaldi, 60, were arrested last Friday, September 21 for violating FDA regulations regarding the processing and labeling of their pork products. In addition, Virginia Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services agents seized Double H pork products from area restaurants last week, including an entire roasting pig from the South African restaurant Shebeen, which was denatured (made inedible) on the spot using a bleach solution, according to Rinaldi. Bean and Rinaldi are scheduled to appear in Charlottesville District Court tomorrow at 9am to learn when their case will be heard.
The news came as a shock to many local restaurant owners, City Market goers, and supporters of the local food movement often called the slow food movement who have eaten or used Double H products and believe that communities are better served by local farmers like Bean and Rinaldi, who have been selling their products locally since 2001.
These charges, to my knowledge, do not arise from any complaints on the part of people who have purchased and eaten Double H products, writes Erika Howsare, a special section editor for C-Ville Weekly, in an email to fellow members of the EAT LOCAL forum. They represent a decision on the part of the state of Virginia to target two people who happen to be outspoken advocates of small farmers rights.
However, no one appears more shocked than Bean and Rinaldi.
I never would have dreamed that the government was so controlling, says Rinaldi, who describes 10 VDACS agents, one state trooper, and a Nelson County sheriff showing up at her farm, arresting her and Bean, seizing their computers, and placing them in separate cars. It was terrifying, she says.
Indeed, according to Rinaldi, VDACS agents have been harassing them for year and she describes the arrests as overkill.
The charge? Using the wrong labels as price tags, says Rinaldi, admitting the labels say certified organic even though the pork isnt officially certified. We just hadnt got the new ones in yet. They just dont like that we were processing the pigs ourselves, she says."
http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2007/09/27/pork-bust-local-farmers-arrested/
Pass the tinfoil.
