Coming out...

Hello everyone, I am CSA-Farmer Girl and I drink raw milk.

I fact I LOVE raw milk. The difference is like that between grocery store eggs and farm fresh ones, or between a mid December red pseudo-tomato and one you just plucked from your garden.

In my state it is illegal for my farmer to sell me a product he can give his children or sell to a big co-op for them to pasteurize. So we bought the cow! Well, legally we bought a part of his herd which he milks for us and lots of other families who pick it up at other herdshare owner's homes.

We are jumping through legal hoops in order to have the right to purchase a product. Well, you may say, raw milk is DANGEROUS! You are putting your life in jeopardy! Lets assume you are right, is that not a risk I have a right to take? What business is it of anyone's if I get sick? If you want to make me aware of the danger then require me to sign a disclaimer.

People do things everyday that are dangerous. They jump out of airplanes, climb mountains, get in their cars, and eat medium rare hamburgers. Will we make all of these illegal as well?

The requirement of HR875 for a "food safety plan" compiling with new regulations for the new food safety regulations is so open ended it scares me. But I can see regulations requiring full blown processing and packing facilities within a few years. After all we have to be kept safe.

But the fact is that I wash my veggies (when they get washed at all) one at a time using the same water I, and everyone else in my city, drinks. They are then delivered, sold, or picked up within a day. But will regulations force us, eventually, reorganize from a "CSA" to a "farm share," and will that even be legal?

Who knows because the rules are not written. I know that laws do not write regulations, but they can limit them, if they choose.

So many people think this does not effect them, and it may not, or it may not for years, but ask yourself should we give the government control over the small farmer, the historical backbone this country? Thomas Jefferson is be rolling over in his grave...

"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it's liberty and interests by the most lasting bands." (TJ to John Jay, B.8.426)

Lets not take the independence of our small farmers away to protect ourselves from hazards caused by industrialized agriculture. Lets not give the government the right to regulate "growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packing, temperature controls, animal encroachments, and water," or in otherwords the right to reglate ever single bite we put in our mouths.