(Excerpts from Amish America)
“A Lancaster County Amish farmer faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and potential jail time for repeated violations of food safety laws. Miller’s Organic Farm, owned by an Amos Miller in Bird-in-Hand, has been described as “tangling with federal authorities for several years over its food handling practices” in this report…..
U.S. District Judge Edward G. Smith, Jr. found Amos Miller in contempt of court for violating a 2020 consent decree and ordered him to pay $250,000 in fines, plus an additional $14,436 to cover enforcement costs.”
“However, Miller “believes many federal regulations lead to food being more unhealthy” and I would gather there’s little chance he would switch his operation to a conventional one which adheres with conventional regulations:
Miller’s Organic Farm’s practices are organic, non-GMO, chemical free, hormone-free and antibiotic-free, according to its website. https://www.millersorganicfarm.com/
“[The cows] get sunshine, they get green grass. If the animals eat good then we can eat good as well,” Miller said. “They use it as their medicine.”
“Also on the pro-Amos Miller side, another defender argues that Miller’s products are in high demand and profitable for him, and that the government doesn’t like that.
Miller seems to be presenting the issue as one of keeping his people on the farm rather than out in other occupations, which is a classic argument that resonates with Amish and no doubt with sympathetic observers:
“[I’ll] do do whatever it takes to keep our children on the farm rather than going out into the world looking for jobs, which can not be good in our culture,” said Miller, who is Amish. “If we have to pay it all ourselves, very likely we will not be able to move forward.”
Note: Although not really proven that the milk that sickened two people in other states back in 2015 from Listeria, no recall was made despite the alleged claims made by the FDA.
(Excerpts from “The Guardian”)
Land is power, land is wealth, and, more importantly, land is about race and class....Gates claimed “It is not connected to climate [change].” The decision, he said, came from his “investment group.” Cascade Investment, the firm making these acquisitions, is controlled by Gates. And the firm said it’s “very supportive of sustainable farming”. It also is a shareholder in the plant-based protein companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods as well as the farming equipment manufacturer John Deere.
The principal danger of private farmland owners like Bill Gates is not their professed support of sustainable agriculture often found in philanthropic work – it’s the monopolistic role they play in determining our food systems and land use patterns.
Like wealth, land ownership is becoming concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, resulting in a greater push for mono cultures and more intensive industrial farming techniques to generate greater returns. One per cent of the world’s farms control 70% of the world’s farmlands, one report found the biggest shift in recent years from small to big farms was in the US.
Note: Plant-based protein companies are the ones making the artificially tasting products that taste like meat but are made out of plants. Bill Gates is once again setting himself up to make even more multi million dollars than he already has, at the expense of the everyday person’s budget and health. Like the rest of the “Greeners”, they blame cattle flatulence as bad for the climate, or do they? Perhaps that is just one of their many excuses to become monopolies.
Another elitist, Ted Turner owns two million acres of land, and has the world’s largest privately owned buffalo herd. Those animals, which are sacred to my people and were nearly hunted to extinction by settlers, are preserved today on nearly 200,000 acres of Turner’s ranch within the boundaries of South Dakota.
This FDA problem with the Amish isn’t about small farmers breaking any rules, as they live by laws determined by their religious beliefs and legalities allowing them from exemption from FDA rules by having “buyer’s clubs”. A buyer’s club is a way to get around some restrictions on selling raw farm products in some places, allowing product providers to avoid licensing and inspection. This is just another way for the government and wealthy to take away the rights of people so they can gain more land, power, and money.
Downriver Activism & Empathy 