State goons open new front in the raw milk battle
In spite of the efforts of Big Dairy and their pals in state houses across the U.S., raw milk’s popularity continues to grow. But now it seems that the gloves have come off in this fight. Recently, a Pennsylvania farmer was arrested – literally handcuffed and led away by state police – because he was selling raw milk.
As hard as this is to believe, somehow I’m not surprised.
Mark Nolt, a Mennonite farmer, has since been found guilty and fined $4,040 for his “crimes.” The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture dropped the hammer on Nolt and closed his business after he declined to renew his permit to sell raw milk. “They swooped in … like a bunch of Vikings, handcuffed me, and stole $30,000 worth of my milk, cheese, and butter,” Nolt said.
It sounds like he was farming weapons-grade plutonium, doesn’t it? But I’m sure that in a state with a large agricultural base, Big Dairy has an incredibly powerful lobby in Pennsylvania, and they chose to make an example out of Nolt.
It seems that Nolt was the victim of a Department of Agriculture sting: Pennsylvania DoA employees testified at the trial that they’d purchased raw milk and products made from raw milk from Nolt at his stand at an area farmer’s market at least three times in 2007.
At least 60 supporters protested outside of the Cumberland County Pennsylvania courthouse while the conviction came down. I’m gratified that there was at least some stink made about this incident. Granted, 60 protesters isn’t exactly a throng, but hopefully the needless Gestapo tactics employed will help stir some needed anger about this issue.
Jonas Stoltzfus, president of the Pennsylvania Independent Consumers and Farmers Association put it best when he said of the Nolt protest, “This issue has very little to do with raw milk and health, and everything to do with freedom.”
Amen to that.
Raw milk is one of my pet causes. The stuff is loaded with health benefits. It’s got lots of vitamin D, and it also contains probiotics, good bacteria that aid digestion and can attack and destroy harmful pathogens. But in spite of its many upsides, raw milk is a tough sell for many people because of Big Dairy propaganda. That the federal government and the majority of states prohibit the sale of raw milk to the public is nothing new. But the iron- fisted tactics used against Nolt represent a dark turn in this battle.
For years, the knock on raw milk from public health bureaucrats is that it’s responsible for sickening hundreds with bacterial illnesses such as salmonella, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and others. But this is patently untrue.
In fact, as I’ve told you, recent milk-related outbreaks of Listeria and E. coli that caused illness and even death were caused by pasteurized milk, not raw milk (typically, the health officials didn’t have much of an explanation for this). But the FDA and the CDC never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
I think that the Nolt incident will rile up more than just fellow raw milk advocates. Stoltzfus likened Nolt to Rosa Parks, saying Nolt “believes it is his right to sell, according to the constitution, just like it was Rosa Park’s right to sit wherever she wanted on the bus.”
I’ll be following this story to see if this particular injustice will help garner more support for the right to produce, buy, and consume raw milk.