Are you a small farmer who sells or wants to sell directly to the public? Are you a member of the public who likes to buy directly from small farmers? If you fall into either of these categories, you might already be aware that there are government agencies, headed by appointees who come from and are loyal to BigAg and corporate food industry interests, who have placed a target on these types of relationships. They’d prefer to see you get your food from their industrial/corporate sources, and they are using their positions of power to attack small farmers and their consumers.
For instance, Amish farmer Dan Allgyer and his customers, who were the subject of a FDA undercover sting operation that took place for over a year. The FDA sent in spies to the operation, posing as milk share customers, so that they could “bust” this farmer, even though the milk from his farm had never caused anyone to become ill. The crime? They can say it’s because of the 1987 FDA ban on interstate raw milk sales, but let’s face it, the real reason is that those folks were not buying milk from the grocery store, which comes from the large CAFO operations that well-funded lobbyists work so hard to protect. Small farmers can’t afford to hire lobby firms – so what can we do?
Thankfully, there is an organization that will fight on our behalf. In 2007, the Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund was founded, and it’s been working to protect and fight for the rights of small farmers like us. We joined as members this year, and we cannot say enough good things about FTCLDF. As a farmer, you will benefit by joining for a number of reasons: unlimited consultation with the fund’s attorneys regarding matters related to your farm business, which includes having milk share contracts drawn up for your farm, and a toll-free hotline that you can call if you are ever paid a surprise visit or inspection by a government agency, to know what your legal rights are during that visit. It’s been shown time and time again that these agencies often overstep their bounds when raiding a farm – so knowing that you have someone to advise you, should that occur, is a great bit of insurance.
Even if you aren’t a farmer, but you enjoy purchasing products directly from a farmer, you might want to consider joining FTCLDF – because you will be helping not only to protect YOUR farmer(s), but your right to continue purchasing the healthy foods they are raising for you.
I’m not being paid or compensated at all to write about this – it is simply something we strongly believe in, and highly recommend! Please check out their site for more information. You can learn more about how your donations help farmers on their site, too. Thanks!
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