Bridges - radical disruption or civilized change?

The answer is up to you...

Welcome to Raw Milk Mama, a newsletter about food freedom, our food systems, and how to create local food security in our communities. As always, I appreciate any and all paid upgrades. I am a solo writer bringing you real, sometimes difficult, news from the front lines of our food system. Sign up here for weekly posts, or keep reading…

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Many years ago, circa 2008, a crew of 10 law enforcement officers and agents from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) marched onto the farm of Mennonite farmer Mark Nolt, confiscating products and equipment worth over $25K.

It was an ugly and abusive raid.

The on-farm cameras caught the action.

Along with raw milk products and farm equipment, they took personal items.

People’s blood boiled. And rightly so. It was a prime example of abuse of government power.

A few months later, on a court order, police returned and arrested Nolt. They released him shortly after, and Mark infamously walked home rather than accept a ride from one of the officers.

From the incident, Mark owed over $5,000 in court fines and costs.

The alleged offense?

After years of having a permit to sell raw milk from his PA farm, Nolt allowed his permit to expire and did not renew it, yet kept selling raw milk and products made from the raw milk from his farm.

To him, it was a God-given right, and constitutionally protected.

To the PDA, it was their job to track and test milk to ensure the safety of food produced and distributed in Pennsylvania.

It is here that, perhaps, we can see the intractable differences in the two world views.

Perhaps…

Nolt’s story was not unique. Several other small farms suffered under the same draconian enforcement in Pennsylvania around the same time. And mostly, due to the actions of a few agents.

Primarily due to proximity–I was involved in these stories, my own story intertwined with that of these farmers.

It was from a cluster of small farms in Southern PA that I sourced milk for my own family as they were the closest option to me, on the outskirts of Washington DC.

My young children were allergic to pasteurized dairy. I’d made the conscientious, well-researched decision to switch my family to raw milk, and the one Maryland farm that legally provided raw milk was abruptly shut down by the efforts of one overzealous health inspector.

It was a puzzling time, full of grief and bewilderment.

How could a nation that believed in “Freedom,” behave this way?

If raids such as these were permissible, what did “Freedom” even mean?

How could one man decide for a whole state—and all the mothers in it—what we could or could not feed our children?

These agencies–enforcing in the ways they did–propelled me into high gear. I gathered people together and we took our issues to the state legislature, where–I was told–we could make the appropriate change happen.

And changes happened.

But they took time. And dedication. And patience.

A few years after the raid on Nolt’s farm, I spoke to him and his wife, MaryAnn. I wanted to tell their story.

But this time, not Mark’s story as it had been told many times throughout the media. 

I wanted to tell MaryAnn's story.

After all, I saw this as an issue vital to women. Here we are, primarily responsible for food security in our households and here we were with the threat of the US government bearing down on those producing the food for our children.

“What was it like,” I wondered “to watch your farm get raided, your husband arrested, and your livelihood threatened?”

The only “criminal” activity in question was the production of raw milk and the products made from that milk.

Was I raising my children in a country that criminalized peaceful farmers for milking their cows?

Was inaction complicity?

I assured MaryAnn this would be a worthy project. I would collect the voices of women affected by these aggressive enforcement actions and we would have a story to tell, a way to connect and relate to the other 97% of Americans who did not care about raw milk or whether we had access to it.

Our motherly perspectives mattered.

MaryAnn declined to share her story. For her own private reasons which I respect and will not relate here.

And time moved on, as it does.

Nolt’s ideas spread

Perhaps for Nolt, his was a principled stance: personal resistance to a perceived “tyrannical” government? Certainly, he had the story to back it up.

His primary complaint, it seemed, was that the PDA’s raw milk permit didn’t include value added products. (Value added products include cream, butter, yogurt, kefir and other items made from raw milk.)

Nolt’s ideas, it seemed, took root somewhere in his community.

More farmers took his lead, let their permits expire or refused to get one to begin with.

It was certainly one strategy to voice resistance.

Did the other farmers do so based on a deeply held conviction as Nolt had? Could greed and ego have played a part?

Would these antics prove to be the strategy of wisdom? Or a trap for fools?

As the years slipped away, a new PA governor got elected. He appointed new leadership in the PDA. And so, as always happens, change occurred.

I would learn years later that it was a few people within PDA–conscientious objectors in their own right–all these years who stepped up and repeatedly called out their colleagues over the way that they treated Nolt, and refused to allow it to occur again. Much of it had been unnecessary–a point many in the agency would readily agree to now.

But had the damage been done?

Had that example propelled a group of farmers to embrace a black market?

It certainly gave them a “relatable” excuse.

Extremist media personalities sowed division, rather than unity. They riled people up in justified but harmful anger against the PDA, making no distinctions between the people who did the damage and those being targeted for anger.

People who revel in violence, and fear, fomented this division rather than bringing people together to create the necessary changes for ALL farmers.

What might unity even look like?

For nearly 15 years now, a small group consisting of dedicated activists, members of the PDA, legislators, and certain organizations have worked hard to advocate for serious and lasting change in raw milk regulations.

Farmer/consumer groups have gathered in intense strategy sessions to find agreed-upon terms for serious change.

It’s not just the outspoken extremist and anti-government raw milk farmers with skin in this game. It’s hundreds of farmers and thousands of customers who are affected.

Contributors from all areas weighed in. Through difficulty and compromise, we came to agreements of what we could advocate for that would be enough flexibility for farmers, that would be greater freedom for ALL.

A Nightmare Occurs

Then, disaster struck not only with Amos Miller in 2016, but with one of his comrades a few short years later.

In 2018, Aaron Miller–a small farmer who had bought into the anti-government, black market mindset that Nolt preached, caused an alleged illness in a 2-year old New Jersey child. Brucellosis. A nightmare for the family affected, for the PDA, for New Jersey, for the FDA, for the CDC. A nightmare for all raw milk farmers everywhere. A nightmare for those who know what that means historically.

This story with all its details deserves–and will get–its own entry. It has massive twists and turns. A story that will come to light in its right time. For the purposes of this story, the brucellosis incident was a setback in all the efforts that PDA and independent food freedom advocates were working towards.

Would this serve as a fracture in the efforts? Would it lead to a crumbling of support from the agencies? They could point to this incident as proof that raw milk was dangerous and therefore must be more heavily restricted, not less so. They could easily withdraw their dedication to finding solutions that led to improved access for all and make this incident their justifiable rallying cry, just as others had made the PDA’s actions against Nolt their rallying cry for more freedom.

Were we facing an intractable difference?

No. We kept going.

Food access and food security are too precious to give up on.

In 2019 there was finally consensus.

A meeting. A promise. Powerful changes in Pennsylvania raw milk policies?  

The change would happen, the clock started.

And then, Covid hit the world, capsizing plans and priorities.

And things took longer than any of us would like.

Progress moved painfully slowly. For all of us.

Meanwhile, and through it all, the PDA continued to treat their farmers fairly. They bent over backwards to not go anywhere near the enforcement tactics of the past.

It was more important to educate and encourage Amish farmers, with their 8th grade education, about the benefits of testing and clean practices than it was to raid and shut them down for farming and production practices that would appall most sensible Americans.

Education was a strategy I could agree with wholeheartedly.

We held workshops, we offered educational material and sessions for farmers who had literally never looked into a microscope before.

Some farmers remained suspicious. So we provided anonymous ways for the farmers to ask questions, to learn the process of getting set up with testing, with permitting, etc.

We even introduced federal food investigators to farmers with the protection of anonymity and no retaliation for asking about questionable farming and sales practices. Not just the PDA, but federal agencies were reaching out to farmers who were in a pinch–or who surely would be in one soon–if they continued to follow Amos Miller and Mark Nolt’s agendas.

At this point, the aggregate paranoia among farmers was deep. Even so, I repeatedly witnessed the PDA address farmers’ concerns. In every possible way, they provided leniency and understanding in the process.

Many farmers pushed through their resistance and they showed up to learn.

And learn they did! They learned what the inside of a cow’s udder looked like and they got to look through a microscope for the first time seeing for themselves what pathogens were–that they actually do exist.

All of this happened while certain leaders of the Amish dairy community, entrenched in the profits of the black market, made life extremely complex and agitated for the Amish farmers that were desiring to produce food in a safer and healthier way.

Many of these small farmers truly wanted to provide clean, healthy food to people eager to connect with them.

Several interested farmers got tests done on wells and learned how water could also contaminate their operations.

Bridges were being built. These bridges were connecting worldviews that felt impossible to span a few years ago. They were fostering relationships that prevailed over “duty” and superstition but where duty was never ignored.

The Amish and the English were working together on common ground as equals.

But black market profits remained too tempting for many of the farmers.

They had gotten used to selling whatever they wanted without competition, without following agreed upon standards, without respect for their neighbors who were following the safety standards.

For a small minority, perhaps, it WAS a matter of principle: Freedom. Food Security. Relationships with their customers.

Sadly, for most others, it was an allegiance to the almighty dollar.

Farmer and production mistakes that adversely affected consumers were simply, just “too bad” for the customer.

Soured milk upon receipt was so common that some–new to sourcing raw milk– thought that’s what raw milk tasted like!

Broken glass in milk containers was dismissed in a casual manner. Improperly refrigerated milk and meat products being transported over hundreds and even thousands of miles were not uncommon.

Sadly, I saw what was once a community of support and encouragement for new producers of raw milk, turned into a cacophony of competition–Amish farmers undercutting neighbors, “stealing” customers, offering freebies to entice people, and sometimes outright lying through their teeth about their “organic” practices, safety standards or whether their cows were A2/A2.

Was there a leader?

Perhaps yes and perhaps no.

There was a beacon.

Amos Miller.

A “kingpin?” Maybe. More than likely?

Known in his community for his successful business, he stood out. Not as a spiritual leader, but as a financial success.

Young farmers followed his lead.

Perhaps some of these farmers mistook PDA’s commitment towards education and avoidance of draconian enforcement as tacit permission for their black market operations.

Black market vs permits

In recent months, some–both Amish and English–have applauded Amos Miller and mislabeled his antics as “heroic.”

They’ve portrayed him as a patriot fighting for justice, fighting for the American ideals of freedom.

Are his antics in any way heroic?

The Baltimore Harbor incident this past week serves as a perfect illustration to answer that question. The bridge collapse is a massive temporary disruption to distribution of goods. We haven't seen the full impact yet.

This is one tragic, but small incident overall. With all our aging infrastructure, and vulnerabilities to hacks or sabotage, it could be anything else another day.

The antidote to any collapse, attack, or sabotage, is to create a sustainable, hyper local food system and food security for all BEFORE it is critical.

Is Miller’s operation doing anything of the sort?

Definitively No.

He's got the same model as the big conglomerate farms that make up agribusiness.

If you think he’s a “small farmer,” then perhaps you can answer the question “how many?”

How many farms does Miller need to own, run and operate before he becomes “big ag?” How many corporations does he own that we don’t yet know about or that he dictates operations to?

How many farms does he need to aggregate from before he’s no longer a “small farmer” by your definition?

What “is” a small farmer?

There's nothing innovative or courageous or heroic about what Miller is doing.

He’s using an old, tried-and-true business model of aggregating and building into a big business that sources from multiple states, dozens of farms, and sells to anyone across the whole country via big shipping companies and using infrastructure built and repaired by the very “government” his minions and mouthpieces rail against.

Miller’s system of aggregation and big business doesn't do anything to improve food security for Americans. It lines his black market pockets while giving him notoriety amongst a fringe group of Americans who have an unhealthy anger and loathing towards anyone working for “government,” even if those individuals are the ones building or repairing bridges.

Will Miller’s next move possibly be to advocate for people to harass the very agencies and individuals that are essential to creating a better relationship between small farmers and the agencies? The very agencies that supported him and offered him fair and even lucrative solutions to his self-imposed dilemmas?

How does it help to build food security while constantly changing lines drawn in the sand with officials?

And the fundraising continues…

It appears Miller and his team continue to solicit funds and beg for donations to fill their now $800,000 goal.

Even though Miller LOST the court hearing, even though the injunction still holds against him, he continues to fundraise.

Again, I ask, who's making the money?

Who's asking the independent people to donate?

Is it wealthy attorneys leading the donation campaign and getting paid by it? Is it Miller with his multi-million dollar farms?

Are many of the people who are donating or amplifying Miller's message perhaps themselves being duped by fraudsters?

What is the money going towards? Are they working to build bridges of food security for ALL Americans? Or is this an unwinnable legal case that somehow got a high enough profile to be a serious cash cow?

If you are donating to Miller’s “cause,” if you are posting untruths to amplify the situation–sadly, you are not helping the cause of food freedom and food security. Your name however, is likely being put into an unnecessary and potentially dangerous file.

Are there any heroes?

Indeed there are.

You. And you. And you.

Is there a real solution?

Indeed there is.

We need to quit talking about the government and how bad the government is, and look at the people. Look at YOUR community members for solutions. Wherever you live.

Our “government” is made of people. Real people with families and stories and convictions.

Some of the people within the government are actually great.

And, as with people in general, a few are terrible.

At a hyper local level, we need to interact with the people in our spheres and develop those relationships. We need to build sturdy bridges for generations to come.

Not amplify or gather around large business owners breaking laws for profit while undermining the very people–true small farmers–who are creating food freedom and food security.

Like America in general, the “Raw Milk Movement,” or “food freedom movement” if we can call it that, seems to be at a crossroads.

At question is this:

Will we be guided by reason, or ruined by foolishness?

The answer is up to you.

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Building Bridges For Food Security

22 real ways to build bridges and a new food system:

$1-50 range

1. Buy seeds and plant them in your yard, a friend's yard, anywhere you have access to. Just start. Don’t worry about being perfect.

2. Support apps like SAGE that help people come together to grow food.

3. Buy locally produced food from a farmer near you (you have no idea how much that purchase means to them!)

4. Take a gardening workshop or class.

5. Donate to a local non profit that provides support to farmers.

6. Donate to the FOR FARMERS movement that provides private mini grants to farmers.

7. Get involved politically to change your state and local regs.

8. If you’re part of an HOA, work to change those policies to allow for chickens, goats, bees or whatever else you want to grow.

$50-300 range

1. Take a permaculture course and learn more about the ecosystem where you live and eat.

2. Host your next event at a local farm (you have no idea how much that means to them!)

3. Donate to or help build garden beds for a local urban farm/garden.

4. Learn about food forests and apply what you learn locally.

5. Start to stock your freezer by sourcing from a meat farm near you.

6. Buy a bunch of books about gardening and farming so that if our communication networks go down, you still have the information.

7. Purchase (or graft) 1 or more fruit or nut trees and plant them.

$300-1000 range

1. Help fund a local organization’s campaign to change state or local regulations around food production.

2. Support a case that has a chance of winning.

3. Invest in shared infrastructure or land with others who have the same goals.

4. Support legitimate small farms kickstarters.

5. Donate more appreciably to movements like “For Farmers” or other private grant opportunities for farmers.

6. Spend more of your budget locally.

7. Invest in a permaculture design for your land and learn how to create year-round, edible crops.

$1000+

1. Get creative!

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About Raw Milk Mama: I believe that we can reclaim our food systems through direct action. But it takes your participation whether you’re growing food, processing, or willing to support those who are. And sometimes, it takes taking direct action or calling on your state or federal elected officials.

I’m dedicated to helping people understand our food system and how we each fit into it.