While Mrs. Obama plants an organic garden on the White House lawn and tours around the country promoting her pet project of adding salad bars to public school cafeterias to fight childhood obesity, Mr. Obama’s out of control and power crazed Executive Branch – namely the FDA, USDA, and CDC are sponsoring terrorist raids against organic health food store operators and small farms all over the nation.
The latest raid took place yesterday at Rawesome Foods, a private club in Venice CA.  The armed raid was the culmination of a year long investigation in which undercover government operatives purchased unpasteurized goat milk, cheese, yogurt and kefir at farmer’s markets and at Rawesome Foods, a private organic food club.
While this raid and the subsequent arrest of three innocent citizens was clearly outrageous and illegal in every sense of the word, my biggest concern is how the private contracts between Rawesome, its primary farm supplier Healthy Family Farms and its customers are being completely ignored and swept under the rug by government authorities.
The contract, after all, is a primary vehicle in the exercise of this economic system we call Capitalism. When the contract falls upon shaky ground and is not recognized by the governing authorities as the binding and legal agreement that it is, the entire economic system becomes seriously at risk.
In the case of Rawesome, the issue appears to be the use of herdshare or boarding agreements for its dairy goats. Other goat farmers in California have experienced similar problems. Mike Hulme of Evergreen Acres in San Jose received a cease and desist letter from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Mr. Hulme along with several owners of the goats boarded at his farm are suing the State and County for denying their fundamental right to enter into an agreement to board livestock.
Since when are citizens of the United States of America denied the right to enter into private contractual agreements with each other?
This shocking development has occurred in tandem with the escalation of the Federal government’s efforts to destroy private food organizations whose intent is to obtain nutrient dense foods directly from small family farms. Clearly the government will stop at nothing – including denial of fundamental rights – to prevent consumers from circumventing the disastrous and recall plagued food distribution system monopolistically controlled by Big Ag and Big Food.
Protests are about more than Rawesome, although getting these three innocent citizens released as quickly as possible is certainly of paramount importance.  This protest is about the sanctity of the contract, freedom of food choice and the right to conduct private business without the interference of government authorities.
If you are not in the Los Angeles area and want to help, please consider donating to the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund which assists business owners, consumers, and farmers with legal advice and representation during times of harassment such as this.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
And like Sarah mentioned, consider donating to the farm-to-consumer legal defense fund. We need to back and support our farmers.
I already give to FTCLDF and have been a WAPF supporter for several years. But my money can and will only go so far, too.
Do something! sign this petition,
Congressman Ron Paul has once again introduced a bill that would allow the interstate shipment of raw milk and raw milk products for human consumption. This comes straight from the farm-to-consumer legal defense website.
Love Ron Paul and what he’s trying to accomplish!!! Fantastic man, fantastic visions for Liberty!
Signing petitions, especially online petitions, really doesn’t help anything. But it does serve to make the people who signed it feel good – as if they’ve actually done something to help the cause. Sometimes those petitions actually do more harm than good. They also call attention to a problem which might just go away on its own if left alone.
Hey, short of a gun-toting revolution, this country is going nowhere but down in the history books as being the most successful country at breaking its own laws. Our Constitution calls for basic freedoms. Which freedoms do we actually have which aren’t eroding away or being taken away on a daily basis?
I don’t agree. I signed an online petition just a few weeks ago to stop development on the beach down the road from where I was raised here in FL (Honeymoon Island).
The force of the petition stopped the development project preserving this gorgeous beach!
A local issue, Sarah. These others are national issues and much bigger than just signing an online petition. But as I said, sign them if you wish, but most of them don’t do much. It used to be most helpful to start at a city level and work up. Well, that idea is totally useless now. Even at the State level it’s pretty much a non-starter. I’m personal friends with one of our local house reps (we go to the same church on are on a few committees together) and she was helpful with some of the raw milk issues in my state a few years ago, but now that’s back to being an issue here again, too. It seems these “laws” only help for a short period of time, to gloss over the issue and sooth the headache temporarily.
I’ll call my raw milk pet food if that’s what the gov’t wants, but if they know we’re consuming it ourselves what’s the point? It’s going to become an issue again all over the US just like it has in my state.
Nothing is forever in the world of polidicks, I guess. ;->
Again, I don’t agree. Petitions sent to our congressmen and women in DC do cause them to consider the political ramifications of their votes. I have seen petitions do good work over the years in stopping destructive legislation and forcing the addition of amendments to others.
I think the relevant issue is our personal freedoms which disappear more everyday. Thanks for sharing this info Sarah.
And that’s not going to stop as long as we have a congress more interested in corporations than in the people of the USA. We long ago lost a bunch of our rights and we’ll continue to lose more, as about four large corporations hold most of the power, and the banking industry holds the rest. Get ready for less rights, not more rights. That’s the reality headed our way and it doesn’t matter much who’s in control. Obama is a mere marionette whose strings are pulled by corporate lobbyists.
Well said, D.!
The winged monkeys at our government agencies don’t have the intelligence or the ambition to do this on their own initiative. It might make more sense to take the battle to their corporate sugar daddies. I wonder if the protest rallies wouldn’t be more affective if they were held at the busier grocery stores. Let the patrons realize that they are the real victims when they purchase and consume knock-off foods. Our founding fathers might approve of a little civil disobedience.
Ciao, Pavil
Let us all do whatever we can to protect our food supply from complete corporate takeover and protect farmers and consumers from the misguided harassment they now face. Clearly, the target here is unprocessed dairy and the farmer/consumer right to enter into a private contract. The raids and enforcement actions are always promulgated under the pretense of “food safety” — but when raw dairy is 35,000 times LESS likely than other foods to make you sick, and industrial food is routinely contaminated with pathogens, one can see industrial food is running scared and doesn’t want to lose market share to small-scale producers, so they enlist government agencies to do their bidding. It’s the status quo protecting the status quo, but it’s time to stand up for what’s right.
@ Debbie we’ve been “playing” the for animal consumption only game in FL for years. Have to get a Pet food liscence if you want to sell and then many get hassled. I’m fortunate to have my own goats and a friend with cows. I have not felt comfortable to even give milk to anyone for 3-4 years after USDA harrassed some friends. Its a sad state when we lose our freedom to chose quality food or to share.
You can buy it for now Renee. I thought I could buy it in Illinois with no problem but all of a sudden the Amish farmer are telling me that they can only sell it for animal consumption. Sure I’ll buy it “for my animals” , but when did that happen? The only regulation we used to have was bring our own containers and go to the farm.
Yes, that “for pets only” thing is being seen more often in various states. Ridiculous!
Wow! That’s an eye opener!
Is this really an Obama/federal issue? We can buy raw milk in Washington.
We can buy it in PA but only 5 or 6 hours away! We can buy it only from the farmer in New York but I still drive 45 an hour and a half to get there.
Raw milk sales are not legal in Maryland or DC.
Seriously? Using this as an excuse to slam the President? It’s so hard to take your writing seriously when you do that. What a shame. This issue deserves much better, more thoughtful coverage than you seem to be capable of providing. For the record, these dangerous, troubled, and troubling agencies have been a problem since long before Obama took office. Why not just stick to facts without slanting everything with your own personal bias that detracts from the issue at hand?
I support the President and I did not take what Sarah said to be a slam against him. The “slam” was against the agencies within the executive branch which continue to unlawfully act out against the rights of the American people. I think the irony of the First Lady’s healthy living agenda during a time in which farms are being raided for supporting their communities with healthy food was one worth mentioning, but not necessarily a dig at the President himself. Personally, I think the problem is that President Obama has what he would consider to be bigger fish to fry right now and that is partially why the FDA and USDA are gaining so much control. Sadly, that’s leading to quite dangerous and frightening consequences such as today’s events. I wish that food freedom rights were a bigger priority to those who can actually do something about it.
I take that back. WE THE PEOPLE can and will do something about this problem. I have faith in that. Vote with your food dollars, don’t obey unconstitutional laws, and stand up for your rights.
Hi Emily,
It is not so easy to vote with your dollars when there are raids on small farmers happening throughout the United States on a regular basis that have never even been reported. How can people use their dollars to buy real, nourishing food if most of our small farmers are eventually driven out of business?
I believe a more powerful revolution needs to take place that involves millions of Americans. We CAN gain our constitutional rights back, including our natural right to eat real food. However, America needs to first wake up to what is really happening to the world around them, and be willing to be involved in the fight for what our country and constitution truly stands for.
Absolutely, Erica. I know for me personally it is becoming exceedingly difficult to buy real, nourishing food in my state (Hawaii). Raw milk is 100% illegal, grassfed meat is not sold in any stores within 30 miles of me, and even at farmers’ markets here, much of the produce is grown unorganically. Monsanto has infiltrated us in ways that are truly sickening.
So, the choices I am left with include raising dairy animals and chickens myself (working on that currently), ordering real meat from other islands via a food buying club through our WAPF chapter leader, and then seeking out whatever sustainable farms are left here locally to purchase as much as I can from.
But you are absolutely right. It needs to go even deeper than that. Awareness is key, and most people haven’t got a clue of what they are allowing themselves to be poisoned with from the mainstream food supply. However, there are literally millions of raw dairy consumers taking up at least 3% of the market share that we know of. We are a powerful bunch — and we need to not only stick together and support one another (just as those in CA have done for Rawesome and HFF), but spread the word as much as we can.
Hi Emily,
Yes, we are a powerful bunch, and I’m so glad that the raw dairy movement is growing! I just hope that this doesn’t give our government the opportunity to try harder with raiding our small farmers and the heath food stores that sell their products.
Emily I am with you! These problems happened many administrations ago, they are just coming to a head on Obama’s watch. Too bad for him. I didn’t vote for him, but it must be extremely difficult to ‘babysit adults’. We the people have to come back to our roots of freedom and take it back one issue at a time. Food sovereignty is the core issue, because once that is taken away, we are truly puppets at the mercy of misinformed government officials, who in the end never really cared about us anyway.
First time commenter here, but I just HAD to respond to this. It isn’t a dig at the President, it’s about the hypocrisy. The First Lady, and by extension, the White House, can’t tell us to eat better while they simultaneously take away our avenues of doing so.
It’d be like Nancy Reagan running the “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign while Ronald Reagan was trying to legalize them.
VERY good analogy!
BTW Just Say No was a huge failure. The amount of drugs out there available to teens and the amount of teens using them is staggering not to mention tragic. Don’t get me started on teen pregnancy after all that’s been taught in the schools; didn’t work either, so I’d be doubtful Mrs. Obama’s program will amount to any good either. Sure sounds good, but so did the others!
The Federal Agencies that are out of control are Mr. Obama’s responsiblity. HE is the head of the Executive Branch. This is Civics 101. The buck stops with him with these raids which are being coordinated and pushed at the Federal level in the case of Rawesome.
Yeah, I’m sorry he has “bigger fish to fry”; it’s still his responsibility. It’s what apparently the majority of the country voted for. It’s what we pay him for.
Well said, Sarah!
I certainly agree and understand that it is the President’s responsibility. Unfortunately, it isn’t being made a priority — and that, I think is shameful. I think it’s going to take a much greater push from the American population to spur the changes that need to occur in the white house to protect our freedoms and stop injustices like these. Now is the time to push!!