by Rand Paul
No, Daniel Allgyer was selling fresh raw milk to hundreds of buyers throughout the Northeast. Amish dairy farms operate under the guidelines of Ordnung, a set of rules long accepted and obeyed by the Amish community. The guidelines include certain limitations on everyday living and prohibit or limit the use of power-line electricity, telephones, automobiles, and modern dress. The Amish live their daily lives without many of the modern technological conveniences most Americans have come to rely on. Due to these simple standards of living, it should be no surprise that the dairy products produced by Rainbow Acres Farm were not pasteurized or treated with modern production methods. Their milk was raw.
The raw milk market is a significant one—there are over ten million raw milk consumers in our country. Mr. Allgyer was a very well-known and well-respected dairy farmer throughout the Northeast. Countless people depended on his farm for their dairy. Liz Reitzig began buying raw milk from Allgyer when her daughter was having a hard time digesting pasteurized milk. She became a regular customer of Rainbow Acres Farm, saying, “We like the way they farm, we love their product. It is super-high-quality and they are wonderful. It is just a wonderful arrangement.”
But the Food and Drug Administration disagrees—the agency does not think the sale of raw milk is wonderful. In fact, this federal agency has gone to extreme measures to make acquiring this product incredibly difficult.
In 1987, the FDA banned the interstate sale of raw milk. Since then, the agency has vowed to do everything it can to regulate this business. If it was within the FDA’s jurisdiction, the agency would ban the sale of raw milk altogether. “It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA.
There are potential problems if a corporation wanted to distribute raw milk nationally, but these problems don’t necessarily apply to family businesses, farms, and co-ops that distribute and share at local, state, and regional levels. No one is saying we should mass-produce raw milk commercially. The FDA fails to recognize this important distinction.
The agency insists on taking a strong stance opposing the sale of raw milk. A stance so strong that the FDA saw fit to spend taxpayer dollars to fund a yearlong sting operation to prosecute an Amish dairy farmer. The food freedom blog hartkeisonline.com described Allgyer’s operation:
Federal regulators often cite food safety concerns to justify their actions that shut down private enterprises. Let’s look at Dan Allgyer’s track record. At the time of his farm’s closure, he was farming around 100 acres. He provided an impressive range of nutrient dense foods to his club members: raw milk, grass-fed meats, soy-free chickens/eggs to nearly 500 families. Never, in 6 years, did a club member report a food borne illness from trading directly with Dan [emphasis added].
According to the ten-page complaint that was filed against Allgyer, the FDA began to investigate Rainbow Acres Farm in late 2009. An investigator located in Baltimore used aliases to sign up for a Yahoo! user group for Rainbow Acres’ customers. The investigator began placing orders for raw milk and would have these orders delivered to a private residence in Maryland.
Because the orders were being sent from the Pennsylvania farm to a residence in Maryland, it became a federal violation and thus—you guessed it—under the jurisdiction of the FDA. This was the plan from the beginning of this sting operation—that by crossing state lines, the distribution of the milk would come under the interstate commerce clause, thus making Daniel Allgyer a lawbreaker. After months of surveillance, investigators visited Rainbow Acres Farm. Allgyer turned them away, telling them they did not have the proper documentation to search his property. This angered the FDA, so they returned two months later, at the crack of dawn, with a warrant and weapons in tow to startle and arrest Mr. Allgyer. Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense, tells us that “[undercover sting operations] happen quite a bit. It is almost like they treat raw milk as crack. It has happened in a number of states and at the federal level.”
During the raid of Rainbow Acres Farm, investigators found coolers labeled “to be delivered” to various towns in Maryland. This raid led to a cease-and-desist order from the FDA. The agency demanded that Allgyer stop selling his dairy products across state lines. But instead of ceasing all business, Allgyer formed a club of sorts. He made customers sign an agreement stating that they supported and understood the operations of his farm and were not trying to entrap the owners, and he qualified all members to become shareholders in the farm’s produce, paying only for the farmer’s labor. Raw milk advocates hoped this agreement would allow Rainbow Acres to evade the FDA’s definition of “commerce,” thus taking the matter out of the federal government’s purview altogether. You cannot have commerce with yourself. If you are a part owner in the cow in question, then the commerce clause doesn’t apply—you are simply receiving what is already yours.
Not surprisingly, this tactic didn’t save Allgyer from the FDA’s wrath. The agency filed suit against Rainbow Acres Farm. Judge Lawrence F. Stengel ruled that Allgyer could no longer ship raw milk to other states. Most of Allgyer’s customers reside outside Pennsylvania, so due to this court ruling he was required to shut down his farm. Putting Rainbow Acres Farm out of business was the FDA’s ultimate goal throughout this entire saga.
This case goes far beyond the debate about the health factors that come with consuming raw milk. This prosecution by the FDA and ruling by Judge Lawrence completely disregards individual liberties. This scenario acts as proof that the FDA now has jurisdiction over private property use. A Rainbow Acres Farm customer describes this outrageous situation, stating his disbelief: “I cannot believe in 2012 our federal government is raiding Amish farmers at gunpoint all over a basic human right to eat natural food. In Maryland they force taxpayers to fund abortions, but God forbid we want to drink the same raw milk that our grandparents and great-grandparents drank.”
19
State and Local Bullies
“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
—AYN RAND
Last fall, a constituent of mine from Louisville traveled all the way to Maryland to have his voice heard. John Moody was going to be part of a raw milk rally that was being held in Silver Spring outside the Food and Drug Administration’s headquarters.
We’ve spent a lot of time in this book talking about the federal government. As the stories attest, these criticisms are just and necessary. It should be obvious by now that an overwhelming amount of the trouble caused by government is caused by the federal agencies—unelected and uncontrollable bureaucrats who’ve bestowed upon themselves the power to dictate the most intimate details of our daily lives.
But state and local governments are certainly not blameless. They are not immune to the government trend of stated agency missions suddenly changing, with power always growing, and the arrogance of that power taking them further down the path toward authoritarianism and unaccountability.
My constituent, John Moody, came to D.C. to fight for others. Luckily, he was not under any federal investigation or prosecution. But he did have a story to tell about Kentucky.
In 2004, with several other families, John founded Louisville Whole Life, a buying club, in which the participants worked together with small local farms to distribute raw milk, fresh eggs, and other natural products to their members.
Harmless enough, right? Not according to the FDA.
The FDA first started going after raw milk producers by stopping them from selling directly to consumers across state lines. The agency was able to successfully stretch its logic to claim jurisdiction in regulating such commerce.
But farm freedom advocates figured out a way around this. Absolutely nothing in federal law can or would stop a person from receiving milk from a cow he or she owns, or eggs from a chic
ken that belongs to them. So these enterprising folks set up partial ownership of the animal itself. The farmer sold a “share” in the cow. Each person owned part of it, and was therefore entitled to a certain amount of milk from that cow. The milk was technically not being sold at all. For members who wanted raw milk, it was “their” cow. The practice is popular not only back home in Kentucky, but in and around Washington, D.C., and many other places across the country.
Louisville Whole Life grew, creating twenty good-paying jobs and reaching about a thousand people each week with fresh farm-to-home products. Members of the buying club sign private contracts. They pay an annual fee that gives them a share in the livestock and access to other products from the farms. They are then able to take delivery of these products legally, which is their own property under the law.
Mr. Moody was very clear in his discussion of his business in Kentucky, telling everyone at the rally that he faced a “hostile regulatory environment” for farmers and consumers. The outright sale of raw milk is illegal, except for goat’s milk for some reason. However, specific language in the Kentucky constitution dealing with property rights and private contracts appears to apply to cow and herd shares.
It should surprise no one that federal laws that are vague and nonsensical are mirrored at the state level.
On May 27, 2011, without any prior contact or warning, Louisville Whole Life was slapped with a cease-and-desist order from the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness and, at the same time, a separate quarantine order from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Note that it took two separate government agencies working in conjunction with one another—and no doubt with months of bureaucratic coordination—to stop just one small raw milk dealer. Fifty gallons of raw milk were promptly seized and labeled as “quarantined.”
Mr. Moody spoke with the members and administrators of the club and drafted a response citing Articles 1, 2, 4, 10, 19, and 26 of the Kentucky constitution as the legal defense for their club.
When members came to pick up their milk—which they did in violation of the government orders—they signed the document, declaring the milk to be their property, as part of the agreement. By the end of this process, more than a hundred Kentucky citizens had signed the document, stood up to their government, and left proudly, liberty intact, with their “quarantined” milk.
There was a good deal of local media attention following the incident, and the government took notice. State and local governments received a barrage of calls from Kentuckians in support of these farm freedom advocates.
In this case, public pressure worked. Both the local and state offices withdrew their complaints, removed their quarantines, and disposed of their cease-and-desist orders.
Mr. Moody was kind enough to cite my election as a galvanizing event for foes of obtrusive government. He noted the activism that began in the Tea Party, continued in my 2010 antiestablishment campaign, and marched forward through those who took up just causes in their fight against regulatory absurdity. In Kentucky, food freedom was unquestionably one of those causes.
So popular was this cause with Kentuckians that Moody was contacted by both 2011 Republican candidates for governor, who after reading his story wanted to offer their help. One of those candidates, David Williams, is now Kentucky’s state senate president and has plans to push a raw milk freedom bill through my state’s legislature.
But such victories are rare concerning food freedom across the nation, and they are virtually unheard of concerning our out-of-control FDA.
In fact, Mr. Moody told me he had no idea that the publicity he helped generate might have an unintended consequence, as he wondered aloud to me whether he would find himself under federal investigation as Dan Allgyer had been.
Who knows? Our government operates without rhyme or reason at multiple levels.
John Moody still wonders today, not without reason, if perhaps his battle is not yet over.
20
Cute and Fuzzy Bunnies
“We’re going to make an example of you.”
—USDA SPOKESMAN
What do government programs and rabbits have in common?
If you leave them alone, they breed. Quickly.
In one of the sadder cases I’ve seen in recent years, rabbits and bureaucratic bullies became part of the same government mix—to the grave detriment of taxpayers, the rabbits of concern, and a young family in Missouri.
I wanted to tell this story for an important reason. Sometimes when people hear that someone has run afoul of the EPA or some other government organization, they have one of two immediate reactions:
Those who believe that government is too large and intrusive automatically assume that the agency is out of control and out to hurt the business; or
Those with a more liberal perspective toward government size and power might think, “Well, the person under investigation owns a coal mine, or a shopping center, or a big patch of land they want to develop.” They envision the caricature of a robber baron, assuming that whatever the property owner is accused of, they’re likely guilty and the government is justified in trying to keep big business under control.
But what about when the government interferes with small family businesses and ordinary citizens? That interference becomes bullying in the worst sense: when farms are raided, lemonade stands are shut down—and teenagers selling bunnies are fined $3.9 million.
That’s right, $3.9 million for selling bunnies.
At our “Property Wrongs” Senate hearing in 2011, I met the Dollarhite family, who testified before our committee. They struck me as a close, happy family, probably similar to most of the readers of this book. They never intended to roil or oppose their government. In fact, it isn’t clear they set out with much of a plan at all, certainly no mischievous one.
The Dollarhites live in Nixa, Missouri, on three agriculturally zoned acres. Husband and wife John and Judy have a background in agriculture and wanted to give their teenage son a real life lesson in the family business. In 2006, the couple rescued two rabbits. Soon, as rabbits inevitably and rapidly do, their new rabbits began reproducing. The Dollarhites decided handling these rabbits would be a good first business project for their son. He would raise and care for the rabbits and then sell the meat by the pound, or perhaps sell the rabbits as pets to their neighbors and friends. This was supposed to be the rabbit version of a lemonade stand, something to teach their son the value of hard work, responsibility, and the trials and tribulations of the agriculture business.
Being from an agricultural background, the Dollarhites also knew that there must be some regulatory process monitored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. John Dollarhite went to the USDA office and was told by agency representatives that they only dealt with water and soil issues. After being directed and shuffled around to dozens of various government officials, they were advised to call the USDA regional office in Colorado Springs. The regional office told the Dollarhites that they did not need a USDA license because the government classified rabbits as poultry and thus did not regulate them. They were surprised by this information and wanted to be extra sure they were following the proper rules and procedures, so they continued to seek answers. They attended church with a USDA meat inspector, who confirmed that the USDA did not regulate poultry.
So, finally, the Dollarhites began their business of selling rabbits.
The Dollarhites’ rabbits became quickly widely known and sold by the dozen. They were praised by experts for their superior quality and condition. The Dollarhites launched a business website and put a sign in their yard advertising rabbits for sale. Still, the overwhelming majority of their customers came due to word of mouth. “We started becoming the go-to people for rabbits in the Springfield area,” said John Dollarhite. If locals or people from across the state wanted a rabbit, they would go to the “Dollarvalue Rabbitry,” he explained.
The rabbitry became so renowned that in 2009 two very large buyers app
roached the family. Local theme park Silver Dollar City wished to purchase rabbits to sell in their petting zoo. National pet store chain Petland wished to sell the family’s rabbits as well, and also asked the Dollarhites to raise and sell guinea pigs to the pet chain, because they were having difficulty acquiring both animals from their other suppliers.
By the end of 2009, the Dollarhites had sold approximately 440 rabbits and grossed $4,600, with a profit of approximately $200. John said that that profit was enough to provide the family with pocket money, which enabled them to eat out at a restaurant on a couple of occasions. It never entered their minds that they were doing anything wrong, especially since they reported their income and took only their allowed deductions on their tax returns.
In the fall of 2009, the Dollarhites decided to downsize their rabbitry operations. Their son had lost interest and Judy Dollarhite’s father needed to be placed in a nursing home and she would become his guardian. Shortly after the downsizing began, the Dollarhites received a visit from the USDA. An inspector showed up at the family’s home, unannounced, without a warrant, without citation, and without any identification. The official claimed that she was there to conduct a “spot inspection” of the rabbitry. After scouring the premises, she declared that everything seemed to be in order and that their rabbits were some of the healthiest she had inspected. The inspector did say that there were a few minor and insignificant aspects of the facility that were in violation of USDA standards, but the Dollarhites were not certified by the USDA, nor were they required to be. The USDA official asked if the Dollarhites were interested in becoming USDA-certified and they informed the agent that they would look into it. That was the end of the government inspection.