Unethically-Charged Federal & State Police Raids Point to Yes-


One would assume Sharon Palmer runs a marijuana dispensary with the overwhelming police raids she and her family has endured over an 18-month span. Palmer, however, owns a farm where she produces goat’s milk, as well as grass-fed cattle, pig and chicken products. She distributes under Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) which supports local farmers who sell fruits, vegetables, dairy products and meat to consumers, often using organic or biodynamic farming methods. According to the police, the previous two raids were due to mislabeling her goat cheese. This time, she couldn’t even get an answer as to why 20 agents from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Ventura County Sheriff, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture showed up at her door for a five-hour plus search to once again confiscate her family’s brand-new computer, as well as the milk she feeds her chickens and pigs. Palmer believes the multiple raids and confiscations on her property are because she allowed a raw dairy farmer to park in her driveway so that he could distribute raw milk to local residents who had ordered it. Surprisingly enough, government raids of producers, distributors, and even consumers of nutrition-dense foods are on the rise. Sometimes the raids are meant to frustrate raw dairy production due to alleged health concerns, other times to challenge private food organizations over whether they should be licensed as food retailers. The same day Sharon Palmer’s farm was ransacked, there was a raid on Rawsome Foods in Venice, CA – a private food club ran by nutritionist and raw-food advocate Aajonus Vonderplanitz. For a membership fee of $25, consumers may purchase unpasteurized dairy products, organic as well as unwashed eggs, a wide variety of fermented vegetables and other products. Vonderplanitz was also visited by the FBI and the FDA, who made off with several thousand dollars worth of raw honey and raw dairy products. Not to mention, they also shut down the company for failure to post a public health permit. The extent of the raid, however, indicates that government officials may have had another agenda.

Earlier in June, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, along with police officials carrying search warrants, raided and shut down Traditional Foods Warehouse — a well-known food club in Minneapolis specializing in locally-produced foods. Two farms were also raided in suspicion of distributing raw milk illegally. Over the last three months, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection have launched three raids on the dairy farm and farm store of Vernon Hershberger. According to the officials, Wisconsin law requires a dairy and retail license with a clause permitting the sale of raw dairy products. The licenses would be astronomically difficult to obtain, however, since Wisconsin prohibits the sale of raw milk. Hershberger maintains that he only sells his raw dairy products to consumers who contract privately for his food. These raids appear to be due to increasing concern among state and federal officials about the spread of private food groups that have been sprouting across the country in recent years — food clubs and buying groups which provide specialized local products that are usually not stocked in grocery stores, like grass-fed meats, pasteurized eggs, fermented foods, and, in certain cases, raw dairy products. In late 2008 and early 2009, the representatives of state agriculture agencies in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin held private meetings with FDA officials to begin targeting raw milk buying clubs in the Midwest. The meetings were made public after Max Kane, the owner of a Wisconsin buying club who was issued a subpoena by Wisconsin authorities for the names of his consumers and suppliers, acquired email accounts of the sessions through a Freedom of Information request to Wisconsin’s Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection Department. Kane has since been prosecuted by Wisconsin authorities for contempt of court for failing to give up the names. His case is under appeal after he was found guilty last December. In December 2008, another raid occurred in Manna Storehouse – an Ohio food club near Cleveland – concerning licensing issues. A mother and eight young children being home-schooled at the time were held at gunpoint for several hours while the officials searched the home and food storage areas. The family filed a complaint challenging the raid, however the motion is still delayed in court. The injustice spreading through CSA-supported farms and food clubs has caught the attention of Pete Kennedy from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. He has expressed concern, not only about the raids, but about the suspicious willingness of judges to hand out search warrants for such farms. Kennedy observes, “I haven’t seen an agency turned down yet” over the last four years in requests for search warrants connected with raw milk and other food production and distribution. While the U.S. Constitution’s fourth amendment seems to be frivolously overlooked in these cases, it offers a dim outlook on the future of American citizen’s [health] rights.