Lambs frolicking

I had never seen anything like it. And it took several days before I realized I ought to make a video of it.

Every evening while I was in Virginia, about the last half hour before the sun went down, the lambs got frisky. They jumped and frolicked, played King of the Hill and butted heads, kicked their heels up and looked, for all the world, like shaggy puppies.

In this clip, I didn't quite capture everything I would have liked to. But you at least get the idea.

In the background, you can hear the tractor running and little Joe commenting on the lambs' behavior.

Praying for rain

I thought I would continue some of my meditations on the 12 days I spent in Virginia.

I thought it was interesting: during the time I was there, I experienced just about every form of weather imaginable. Snow, rain, hail, sunshine, clouds, wind (including very high wind), cold, warm, cool . . . even almost hot (mid-80s).

And in the midst of all that diverse weather, I came to appreciate how important . . . and almost hair-raising . . . weather can be to farmers.

A couple of days after I arrived, with temperatures below freezing, I woke up to find that a ninth lamb had been born on the farm this spring. The momma ewe, Ewok, seemed less than concerned to take care of her lamb, so Phil and Amy discussed what should be done. Would the baby would make it? Should they dispatch her?

"I will not shoot it," said Phil. "Let's let nature take its course. If she lives, she lives. If she doesn't, then that's fine, too."

Four-year-old Abraham took it upon himself to pray that baby Chestnut would survive.

At the end of the week, she was still tiny; her right front leg seemed slightly lame; but she looked as if she was very much going to make it in this world.

I'm going to leave this part of the story here for the moment. But I wanted to mention it to you because of where my post will end up.

*******

On Thursday evening, March 24th (the day I arrived), as we discussed what I might do on Friday, Phil said I might not be able to work in our fields because the soil was too wet. It might dry out enough before I was ready the next day, but if it was as wet as he expected it to be, he would be unable to run the tractor over our land to pull the subsoiler through the dirt. The surface of the soil would be too slick; he would lack the necessary traction.

As it turned out, the land was dry enough by the next morning that Phil was able to cut swales and subsoil a couple of rows for me to plant.

It turned out I was able to plant trees every day I was on the farm, though several times we wondered. There were a couple of days when the soil came close to becoming unworkable--usually due to too much moisture, though a couple of times I wondered whether it would be too dry.

One day, I began work and the soil was just "perfect": not too moist, not too dry. But a mist began to fall. Very gentle mist. I was somewhat concerned, at the beginning, that it might soak through my water-resistant shell, but it never happened.

Then, sometime about an hour or two into the mist, the soil suddenly--I mean, in the space of maybe a minute--completely changed character.

Up to that point, it had been easy to work. I was grateful for the moisture. It made the soil pliable. But then, all of a sudden, in the space of about a minute, as I said, it suddenly turned gooey, sticky, nasty to work with. I was able to finish the rows Phil had already subsoiled, though it became almost twice as hard to open a hole as it had before the soil changed character.

At the end of the workday, about an hour or two later, I was unable to drive the heavy-duty, "dually" farm truck out of the field where I was working. Phil and Amy's neighbor, Butch, towed me out with his Caterpillar tractor.

So you get an idea of just how gooey the soil is on the farm, here are a couple of pictures of what I looked like at the end of one of that day. An overall picture . . .

From Drop Box

And a close-up of my boots!

From Drop Box

Anyway.

The next day, I was able to observe the opposite effect. When I first began work, the soil continued mucky, sticky, nasty; and then, an hour or two after I began, in the space of one minute . . . I experienced almost exactly the opposite of what had happened the day before: suddenly the soil went from gooey mush to friable. Amazing!

I titled this post "Praying for rain."

That's because, over the course of the 12 days I was on the farm, I became very much more aware of the weather and how it impacts a farmer.

I don't recall what day it was that Amy decided she had to move some of the young plants out of the green house into the outdoor soil, but that day came.

With great joy, she set the vegetables into their final places in the field.

And that night the temperature dropped below freezing.

Not a lot, but enough to cause consternation.

And there was the morning when Chestnut was born: Colder than we would have preferred for a lamb to be born outdoors.

And then there was my experience the last night I was in Virginia (Monday night/Tuesday morning this past week--April 4th/5th).

Monday was warm. Hot, even. And windy. Really windy. I'd pull out a shovelful of moist soil, and a minute later, after inserting a tree into the hole, as I went to put the soil back where it came from, it had turned dry and either crumbly or hard (depending on how much clay was present).

As I kept planting trees throughout the day, I began to worry.

Whew! It's hot! I'm adding a quart or two of water to the soil around each tree after planting. But what if it doesn't rain? These trees will die! . . . There is no irrigation, no artificial source of water. They are totally dependent on natural rainfall. When will the next rainfall be? Will they survive?

It's funny: I worked with Phil & Amy's neighbor, Butch, early in the day and he had made some offhand comment about rain coming that evening, but we looked it up: none of the weather services predicted any rain for the foreseeable future, anyway, and there were absolutely no signs of rain coming: the sky was clear, cloudless and warm. . . .

When we went to bed, it was still in the high 70s. I left the windows in the RV wide open. About an hour later, the winds came up strong enough that I closed one set of windows on the windward side. An hour after that, I closed the windows on the other side. And then, shortly after 3 am, I heard a tremendous clattering sound come from outside the RV and begin pounding on the roof: "Hail?!?"

My thoughts immediately turned to baby Chestnut and the other sheep and lambs out in the yard . . . and the cattle down the hillside . . . not to mention the chicks up the hill. . . . I was snug, warm and dry. But they weren't protected.

I looked outside and soon realized that the clatter had nothing to do with hail. It was simply raining hard. --Good news for the chestnut trees! Still potentially dangerous for a baby animal that is unprotected. But nowhere near as dangerous as hail.

Moments later, as I continued to look outside, I saw a figure with a flashlight in hand and/or a headlamp on its head steal across the front of the RV. Phil had come to check to make sure everything was all right in the rain.

It got me thinking: A farmer's life is almost like that of the mother of a newborn infant . . . virtually all the time. No deep, sound sleep; no solid rest; just a constant wonderment about what is happening with the animals and the crops: Is it too hot? Too cold? Too dry? Too wet? When will the next rain come? The wind? Is everything all right?

Amy's post, If not one thing, it's another, expresses well what struck me: A farmer's work is never done. And he or she is totally dependent on the mercies of God in terms of weather.

The Dirty Life

I read a beautiful book recently. The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love by Kristin Kimball.

Kimball, a 30-something Harvard grad living and working in New York City, finds herself strangely attracted to a rugged, opinionated, almost antisocial farmer from Western Pennsylvania whom she visits on assignment for the magazine for which she was writing at the time.

Something about his lifestyle; something about his convictions; something about the work involved: she seems unable to resist the siren song of the farm (and Mark, the guy who will eventually become her husband).

Kimball tells us how they form their relationship and how, eventually, they came to start the farm that they now run, Essex Farm near Lake Champlain, in Essex, New York.


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There are a few points where I wonder whether and to what extent Kimball embellishes the truth just for the sake of beauty. For example, very early in the book, on p. 13, she says,

I wasn't much of a cook back then. I appreciated good food, but I didn't have a steady relationship with it. Food was more like a series of one-night stands, set in front of me at a restaurant or delivered in little white cardboard containers by a guy on a bicycle. I wasn't sure the oven in my apartment was functional, since in the seven years I lived there, I never used it. The refrigerator work, but in my small studio it was more valuable to me as storage space than as a kitchen appliance.

I don't find any of that description hard to believe. But then, suddenly, with that kind of background, she says she was on Mark's farm, unable to contribute effectively to the manual labor out-of-doors, so she volunteers to cook a meal:

I . . . grabbed a basket and a knife and went back out to the field. . . . I looked at all the food that there was for the picking. New potatoes, broccoli, lettuce, herbs, teas, beats, and blackberries. . . . I filled my basket with tomatoes and kale and onions and basil, . . . and went back inside hoping to do them justice. . . .

I set to work, cutting ribs out of the kale and chopping tomatoes and onions without knowing exactly where the meal was going. . . . I heated the skillet on two burners and sautéed onion in butter, adding some diced carrots and the tomatoes and a bit of water to steam the kale. . . . [W]hen the kale was soft I dug shallow divots in it and cracked a dozen eggs into the holes to poach. Then I minced some garlic and basil together and mashed it into a knob of butter and spread that on slices of bread I'd found in the cupboard. I put the garlicky bread under the broiler, and just as the crew walked in from the field I pulled the tray of fragrant toasts out of the oven with a flourish, dealt pieces onto plates, topped them with the kale and poached eggs, and crowned each with a spoonful of cottage cheese and a grind of black pepper.

I'm sorry, I find it hard to imagine someone with so little practice could create such a culinary extravaganza with such relatively abnormal or unfamiliar ingredients! And it is even more unbelievable to imagine someone with so little experience being able even to know the names of the foods that went into making the meal, much less being able to recall all the fine details.

But suspending my disbelief at moments like these (and I must admit, the primary points at which I find myself questioning the narrative all have to do with her detailed (and scrumptious!) descriptions of meals that she and Mark create), the book is an absolute delight: at turns romantic, lighthearted and funny; elsewhere brooding and philosophical, thought-provoking and able to bring you to tears; almost everywhere, fully engaging and gorgeously written. I recommend it highly.

It is definitely an adult book written to and for adults. (For example, though there are no graphic sex scenes, she does make several obvious and unabashed references to sex outside of and prior to marriage. Just for example.) But if you enjoy looking into the soul of another person, I can't imagine you'll find better.

I thought I would quote two passages from the book that give you a strong flavor of how Kimball writes. I quote them partially because they spoke to me; partially because I want to illustrate the unflinching honesty with which she writes (and, yes, I mean real, honest-to-goodness, thoughtful honesty, despite my questions about whether she makes up some of her "memories" of details about certain meals she and Mark cooked!).

So: A passage about relationships and conflict. From pp. 158-159:

[W]hy, oh, why, does passion always spawn conflict? As the farm began to take form, Mark and I argued fiercely over everything. We discovered that we had different desires, different fears, different visions for the farm. We are both way too stubborn.

We lost whole precious daylight hours fighting over how to build a pig fence or whether the horses should spend the night inside or out. "But farming is my art," he would say finally, when we were both thoroughly frustrated and close to tears.

That seemed ridiculously pretentious to me at first. How much further from art could we be, sweating it wallowing in the dirt like this?

Later, after I'd been on many different farms and met many different farmers, I had to concede this point. A farm is a form of expression, a physical manifestation of the inner life of its farmers. The farm will reveal who you are, whether you like it or not. That's art. As a trump card, though, it was still junk. If this farm was art, then it was going to have to be a collaboration between equals.

I am a passive aggressive disputant, happy to avoid the direct confrontation and tenderly nurse its grudge instead. Mark is a plain old tenacious arguer. He will grab hold of a disagreement and worry it, shaking it back and forth and back and forth until the crux of it drops out. That's why I know that those arguments were always about our two different basic fears.

I was chiefly afraid of money--of poverty, of debt. It looked like our profit margin would be slim at best, and I thought that paying interest could enslave us. And if this thing failed, I did not want to be left to shovel out from under a pile of old bills. I had some experience with that, and I had a deep fear of going back there.

Mark, by contrast, had a friendly and lighthearted relationship with money, based in part on the fact that he has very little attachment to the having or not having of it. He could be happy living on a park bench, I told him. He did not disagree. But his history with money was actually much healthier than mine. He'd taken out a loan to start his farm in Pennsylvania, and he paid it back early. He had even saved enough from his poultry farm salaries to bail me out of the last part of my debt when I left the city for New Paltz.

His fear was not of that but of ruining ourselves with overwork. He'd seen it happen to other people, the farm gaining mass and speed until it ran over the farmer and squashed him. He worried that we would become so overwhelmed by work it would not be any fun anymore, or that his freedom to farm the way he wanted to would be limited. That freedom was worth more to him, he said, than so-called security.

He was fond of quoting a farmer under whom he had apprenticed, who said that organic farms most commonly failed not from bankruptcy but from burnout or divorce. I wasn't sure about the former, but if we kept fighting like this, we were well on our way to the latter, and the wedding hadn't even happened yet.

And then this one about the positive and negative aspects of buying from a farm like theirs, a CSA--Community Supported Agriculture--enterprise. From pp. 160-161 where she describes the marketing problems they faced as they began their farm:

We were pitching a radical all-or-nothing, year-round membership model that was untried, even in the most agriculturally progressive pockets of the country. We were asking people to fork over thousands of dollars for the promise of a return that was by no means guaranteed.

At the price we were charging, most people in our community couldn't afford to use our food as a supplement to their usual grocery store bill. They had to give up, like I had, that familiar and comforting experience of pushing a cart down the aisle. The central question in the kitchen would have to change from What do I want? to What is available?

The time spent in the kitchen--in planning, in preparing, in cooking--would jump exponentially. Moreover, our frost-free growing season is only about a hundred days. To eat perishable food out of season, you have to make the time to can or freeze it while it is fresh and abundant. Those projects are fun and satisfying if you have the time for them, but if you're working a full-time job while trying to satisfy the needs of your children, they begin to seem sweaty and tedious.

Maybe most important, farm food itself is totally different from what most people now think of as food: none of those colorful boxed and bagged products, precut, parboiled, ready-to-eat, and engineered to appeal to our basest desires. We were selling the opposite: naked, unprocessed food, two steps from the dirt.

I knew, from what I was experiencing in our kitchen, that if we could get people to take a taste, some things we were producing would sell themselves. You could not have a pork chop from one of our pastured pigs and ever want to go back to the factory-raised kind. Same with our eggs, with their bright orange yolks standing at attention in the pan. But other things would be a harder sell.

Our grass-fed beef was tastier but much tougher than the corn-fattened beef Americans are used to. We experimented with hanging the sides in the cooler for three, four, or even five weeks before butchering. This gave the meat a buttery texture but also a high flavor that I absolutely relished but some people found unpleasant.

Also, we were talking about whole animals, and for reasons both ethical and economic, we needed to make use of every part, from tongue to testicles. We'd be asking people to eat things they couldn't identify and didn't know how to cook.

We found, from giving away samples, that the rich, flavorful Jersey milk I loved so much was just too different from the store-bought kind for some palates to accept, especially if they were used to drinking low-fat or skim.

Moreover, we couldn't offer the kind of consistency that consumers have come to expect from grocery store food.

Could we really expect people to change their habits so radically, and pay good money for it?

I encourage you to read the book for the pleasant and not-so-pleasant realities of life on a modern, tractorless (yes, horsepower only!), organic farm.

It might actually change your view of the world!

"Virginia is for Lykoshes"

Perhaps one of the best-kept secrets of the internet. (Not really. But I really do enjoy it.)

Our daughter Amy and her husband woke up one morning a couple of years ago and both said they had a dream--the same dream: They believed they should start a farm.

Now, of all our kids, Amy had always been the most . . . ummmm . . . literate, . . . or highbrow . . . or into books and art and music and all the finer things of cultured, urban life. She and Phil are the ones who made a point of going to Italy to visit all the cultural sites. She is the one who did all the research to enable our family to pack in as much cultural wealth as we could on a visit to Florence, Italy, in November 2007. She is the one who professes (or professed) a love for opera and such things.

And now, all of a sudden, she said, she wanted to give it all up and homestead a farm. Find some bare land somewhere and live off the land . . . and, if possible, off the grid. I.e., beholden to no one, disconnected from all the trappings of modern life.

Something like that.

Well, it took a couple of years. She and Phil did a lot of research. They took the time, at least, to try their hand at gardening while they still had a "regular" suburban home in Boulder, Colorado.

But back in the late summer/early fall of 2008, they took a trip across the country and looked at a number of potential areas in which to find their Shangri-La. Eventually they settled on a plot of close to 40 acres in north-central Virginia--about 20 miles south of Charlottesville, officially in a town called Esmont, but, if you look on Google Maps, halfway between Megan's Meadows and Turkey Run.


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Amy started a blog that recounts their adventures--and misadventures--beginning last July when they first moved to their undeveloped property.

It's been non-stop excitement ever since.

Want to read a modern-day Little House on the Prairie-style story? Go to Virginia is for Lykoshes. You will not be disappointed.

I have few doubts that one day what you read and see there (yes, there are photos!) will become a book most definitely worth reading. But you can read it in raw form today at no charge!

Enjoy!

HR875--How freedoms are lost in the United States

Fascinating and distressing all at the same time.

Check out House Resolution 875 currently working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives.

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut introduced the legislation. We ought not to ignore the fact that she is wife of Stan Greenberg, a lobbyist and one of Monsanto Corporation's chief political strategists.

First, and most onerous: HR875 requires all food producers to pre-register with the federal government, even if the food is produced for local (in-state) consumption (and not for interstate commerce . . . which is the sole function permitted to the federal government by the constitution). [See the definition of "Food Establishment" (subsection (13) and the definitions of the five different categories of "Food Establishment" in Sec. 3 (subsections (5) through (9) titled "Category __ Food Establishment"; also, subsections (14) and (19) in the same Section 3. Finally, then, Sec. 202(a) and (b), and, most tellingly, section 406: "In any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce required for jurisdiction shall be presumed to exist." --Emphasis added--JAH --In other words, all states' rights are conveniently swept away.

Does this matter? I hope to return to this in a subsequent post having to do with Raw Milk.]

But ignore the states' rights issue. Notice what this means to the small farmer, the family farm, and the family gardener.

You would think we would all be left off the hook by subsection (19), wouldn't you? "The term ‘process’ or ‘processing’ means the commercial slaughter, packing, preparation, or manufacture of food." --That has nothing to do with private, small-scale farms or personal gardens that produce food for our own consumption.

Or does it?

Check out the Supreme Court case of Wickard v Filburn (1942). According to Wikipedia,

In July 1940, pursuant to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, Filburn's 1941 allotment was established at 11.1 acres (45,000 m2) and a normal yield of 20.1 bushels of wheat per acre. Filburn was given notice of the allotment in July 1940 before the Fall planting of his 1941 crop of wheat, and again in July 1941, before it was harvested. Despite these notices Filburn planted 23 acres (93,000 m2) and harvested 239 bushels from his 11.9 acres (48,000 m2) of excess area.

Filburn was hauled into court for violation of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, even though Filburn produced the "excess" corn solely for home consumption; it was not part of the federal government's jurisdiction.

Oh, really? said the Supreme Court. And they rejected his argument,

reasoning that if Filburn had not used home-grown wheat he would have had to buy wheat on the open market. This effect on interstate commerce, the Court reasoned, may not be substantial from the actions of Filburn alone but through the cumulative actions of thousands of other farmers just like Filburn its effect would certainly become substantial. Therefore Congress could regulate wholly intrastate, non-commercial activity if such activity, viewed in the aggregate, would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, even if the individual effects are trivial.

Oh. And you'd think this 60-some year-old decision might be overturned, wouldn't you?

Not likely. Not when "[t]he Supreme Court majority that decided the 2005 case Gonzales v. Raich relied heavily on Filburn in upholding the power of the federal government to prosecute individuals who grow their own medicinal marijuana pursuant to state law."

Moreover, consider that if you give some food away or try to sell a small quantity in a local farmer's market (as many small-scale and organic farmers do today): you (and they) may very readily fall afoul of this law.

And if you're not sure?

Check out Section 405 ("Civil and Criminal Penalties") . . . which notes, in subsection (a)(1)(A), that "Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law (including a regulation promulgated or order issued under the food safety law) may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act." --Oh. But notice how they define "each such act." Go on to subsection (a)(1)(B): "Each act described in subparagraph (A) and each day during which that act continues shall be considered a separate offense." [Emphasis added--JAH]

So notice what that means! "Guilty until proven innocent." --You'd better stop doing whatever-it-is you're doing or you'll face the possibility of a multi-million-dollar fine . . . unless and until you can get this new agency off of your back.

Ah! And then notice how these kinds of fines can be used! --Like the confiscation laws that police departments are using to enrich themselves at the expense of innocent people who are illegitimately charged with drugs infractions, take a look at Section 405(e): The Administrator of this leviathan "may use the funds in the account, without further appropriation or fiscal year limitation . . . to carry out enforcement activities under the food safety law."

Oh. And guess who will be given the right to certify any foreign "food establishment" as legally permitted to grow or process whatever food it is that they would like to grow and/or process and sell into the United States? Check out Section 208(k)! "Entities eligible for accreditation as a certifying agent . . . may include . . . a foreign or domestic cooperative that aggregates the products of growers or processors for importation." Is this an invitation to conflicts-of-interest, or what?

Oh, but the proposed law has a response to this concern, doesn't it? The very next section, 208(l) is very explicit: "To be eligible for accreditation . . . , a certifying agent shall--

(A) not be owned, managed, or controlled by any person that owns or operates an establishment whose products are to be certified by such agent;

(B) have procedures to ensure against the use, in carrying out audits of food establishments under this section, of any officer or employee of such agent that has a financial conflict of interest regarding an establishment whose products are to be certified by such agent; and

(C) annually make available to the Secretary, disclosures of the extent to which such agent, and the officers and employees of such agent, have maintained compliance with subparagraphs (A) and (B) relating to financial conflicts of interest.

Sounds pretty airtight, doesn't it?

Except, . . . even I, a non-lawyer, (but a business owner) know that section (B) includes a huge hole in it. My company has a number of employees; it also has a large number of independent contractors. They do what we want and need them to do in our behalf. We pay them for their services. They "just" don't happen to meet the legal requirements of being full-blown employees.

Interesting that nothing is said about such contract labor in behalf of an agent with a financial conflict of interest.

Oh. And the law is very explicit about this being a financial conflict of interest. How about other forms of conflict-of-interest?

And one last section that has small farmers and organic food advocates up in arms: the entire set of regulations, the law says, is intended "to establish science-based minimum standards for the safe production of food" (see Section 206(c)). "Science-based." Get that?

Pay attention, now!

That means this new agency, "Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act . . . shall promulgate regulations." And "Such regulations shall . . .

(2) require each food production facility to have a written food safety plan that describes the likely hazards and preventive controls implemented to address those hazards;
(3) include, with respect to growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water;
(4) include, with respect to animals raised for food, minimum standards related to the animal’s health, feed, and environment which bear on the safety of food for human consumption . . .

. . . And so forth.

Again, imagine being a small farmer and having to produce a "written food safety plan." --A "mere" few hundred dollars several years from now when some entrepreneurial lawyer creates a set of standardized electronic documents. But in the meantime?

And when it comes to "science," who knows better than a great big company like Monsanto (the world's largest producer and marketer of genetically engineered seed, bovine growth hormone, and that wonderful sugar substitute known as aspartame) [please understand that I was just speaking with huge tongue in cheek], right? Talk about "science"! They have it in spades.

But, then, what happens when the government--under the encouragement of a Monsanto--determines that something is "scientific" but simply ignores--because Monsanto itself won't provide such negative data--that speaks to the other side? For example,

MON863 [a Monsanto product] is a variety of maize genetically engineered to be resistant to corn rootworm and intended for human consumption. The MON863 grain is approved for human consumption in Japan, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States and the European Union.

Both Monsanto experts, and independent toxicology experts attached to research institutions and food safety authorities internationally did not indicate statistically significant adverse effects. The European Food Safety Authority has found that "the placing on the market of MON863 is unlikely to have an adverse effect on human and animal health or the environment in the context of its proposed use."

However, a statistical analysis conducted on results of a Monsanto 90-day feeding study by Gilles-Eric Seralini, Dominique Cellier, and Joel Spiroux de Vendomois found it increased triglycerides in female rats by 20-40%, caused increased weight gain in female rats of 3.7%, a decrease in male rat weight of 3.3%, and increased certain indicators associated with liver and kidney toxicity.

Or consider Monsanto's Bovine somatotropin, abbreviated as rBST and commonly known as rBGH, a synthetic hormone injected into cows to increase milk production.

IGF-1 is a hormone stimulated by rBGH in the cow's blood stream, which is directly responsible for the increase in milk production. IGF-1 is a natural hormone found in the milk of both humans and cows causing the quick growth of infants. Though this hormone is naturally found in mothers[' milk] to be fed to their infants, it produces adverse effects in non-infants. IGF-1 behaves as a [breast, prostate, lung and colon] cancer accelerator in adults and non-infants. . . .

However, a large Monsanto-sponsored survey of milk showed no significant difference in rBST levels in milk labeled as "rBST-Free" or "Organic" vs milk not labeled as such.

According to the New York Times Monsanto's brand of rBST, Posilac, has . . . ([as of] March 2008) been the focus for a pro-rBST advocacy group called AFACT, made up of large dairy business conglomerates and closely affiliated with Monsanto itself. This group, whose acronym stands for American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, has engaged in large-scale lobbying efforts at the state level to prevent milk which is rBST-free from being labeled as such.

As milk labeled as hormone-free has proved enormously popular with consumers, the primary justification by Afact for their efforts has been that rBST is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and that the popularity of milk sold without it is damaging what they claim to be the right of dairy producers to use a technology that maximizes their profits.

Monsanto claims that labeling of hormone-free milk takes advantage of consumers by allowing higher prices for the milk by suggesting that it is "better" or "safer" than BST milk, when in fact, there is no difference. Monsanto is requesting that companies that advertise their milk as "rBST-free" be required to add the FDA label claiming that rBST has been found safe for human consumption and no differences exist between hormone and hormone-free milk.

Thus far, a large-scale negative consumer response to Afact's legislative and regulatory efforts has kept state regulators from pushing through strictures that would ban hormone-free milk labels, though several politicians have tried, including Pennsylvania's agriculture secretary Dennis Wolff, who tried to ban rBST-free milk labeling on the grounds that "consumers are confused".

Hey! If it's proven "scientifically" that hormone-laced milk is "best"--do you have any grounds to object? . . .

Sorry! Out of luck!

******
So what can you do about this monstrous bill?

Contact your US Representative and Senators and ask your representative to vote "NO" on HR875 and your senators to vote "NO" on SB425the Senate version of very similar legislation.

You can help yourself do that by going to Representatives on the Web and Senators on the Web, respectively.

Or contact your Representative via https:/writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml and your Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=WI

If you happen to see that one of your Representatives or Senators is a co-sponsor of either of these bills, you might want to write and requesst that they remove themselves as a co-sponsor to the bill and want them to vote NO on it too!

Further coverage:

The 2009 Food 'Safety' Bills Harmonize Agribusiness Practices in Service of Corporate Global Governance

and

A Solemn Walk Through HR 875

. . . just to get you going.