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http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/12854934.htm


Red tape has farmer fuming
Posted on Sun, Oct. 09, 2005


Government tells grower not to sell agriculture products

By Nancy Cook Lauer

DEMOCRAT CAPITOL BUREAU CHIEF


LIVE OAK - Most folks, when they suddenly discover they need a pound of
hamburger for the evening meal, can simply pop over to their freezer and
grab a package.

Not Dennis Stoltzfoos. If he wants something from his own freezer, the
organic farmer must fill out a form, detailing what he needs and why. Then,
an inspector from the state Department of Agriculture must make the 60-mile
round trip from Lake City, snip the official tape holding the freezer shut
and document everything Stoltzfoos removes for his personal use. The
freezer
is then retaped shut.

The tape's actually white, but it's government-red as far as Stoltzfoos is
concerned.

"They're harassing us," Stoltzfoos said. "This is not an isolated case.
It's
happening all over the country."

Stoltzfoos' predicament illustrates what happens when what some call a New
Age return to a simpler life bumps up against government regulations drawn
in an era of agribusiness.

Stoltzfoos, raised Amish on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, is trying to
maintain a simple lifestyle for himself, his wife and their two young
daughters on a self-sufficient family farm.

But his 60-acre Full Circle Farm, where he raises 12 cows, two bulls, two
pigs, 25 beef cattle and assorted chickens and turkeys, has been, for all
intents and purposes, shut down by the state since July.

The white tape and bright orange signs depict a Stop Sale Order, forbidding
Stoltzfoos from selling milk, cream, butter, eggs, meat or any of his other
agricultural products to the neighbors who want them. The organic farm was
shut down after the state discovered Stoltzfoos was selling unpasteurized
milk and dairy products as well as beef and processed vegetables.

John Fruin, chief of the Bureau of Food and Meat Inspection at the
Agriculture Department, said the process allows the farmer's family to
continue consuming the products it cannot sell, but the state monitors it.
Thus, the inspector has to be there for the farmer to retrieve his own
hamburger.

The state contends it's well within its regulatory authority.

"Raw dairy products contain pathogens that are extremely dangerous to
people," Fruin said. "He is putting his own family and the public at risk."

Stoltzfoos has applied for and received a "pet food" permit that would let
him continue selling some of the products his small customer base has come
to rely upon.

Florida is one of 36 states that allow the sale of unpasteurized milk, at
least through cow-share programs or what is known as the "pet food"
loophole, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Weston A. Price
Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting raw dairy products.

Stoltzfoos also advertises his product as "Cleopatra's bath milk," which he
sells for $12 a gallon to customers who he acknowledges are more likely
drinking it than bathing in it.

There's a growing national underground of raw-milk aficionados who quietly
trade names of suppliers like so many junkies passing along names of dope
dealers. Stoltzfoos said he tried to arrange a meeting between the state
and
the roughly dozen Florida farmers who sell raw milk to try to work out an
agreement, but the farmers were afraid to come.

Julie Campbell, cancer-registry manager at Tallahassee Memorial Cancer
Program, contacted the Tallahassee Democrat about Stoltzfoos' situation.
Another dozen or so raw-milk aficionados also contacted the newspaper after
they learned about the story, and all characterized the situation as
government intrusion. Several spoke of the need for "food freedom."

Campbell said she initially was "horrified" to find out her sister was
drinking raw milk, but further research convinced her of the health value
of
drinking milk that has not had its beneficial ingredients neutralized
through pasteurization.

"I am not one to run after the latest fad and snake oil, as I am a
health-care professional," Campbell said in an e-mail. "I don't mind
drinking and eating healthy food labeled as 'pet food' at all! ... I can't
tell you how different the cream and butter taste!"

Other callers, who included university professors, lawyers and other
professionals, said, as thinking adults in a free country, they shouldn't
be
forbidden by the government from eating what they want. They said as long
as
they know the source of the product, they're wiling to take the risk, and
the government has no right to stop them.

But Stoltzfoos' freezers will remain taped shut until he shows the state
that he has labels to clearly mark that his product is pet food and not
intended for human consumption. And even then, he may not be able to sell
his complete product line.

"Let's be serious here," Fruin said. "I do not think sauerkraut and pickled
beets are something that's a pet food."

Fruin said it's the state's responsibility to ensure the public has a safe
food supply. He said Stoltzfoos' dairy operation, conducted out of a
concrete-floor open shed where milking machine hoses rest on the ground and
cows' udders aren't washed prior to milking, doesn't meet state standards
for cleanliness.

But Stoltzfoos points to the way he beds his cattle on clean pasture grass
every night before milking the next morning, the way his poultry is rotated
on the field after the cows are moved to keep fly larvae down and the
uncrowded conditions that enable his brown jersey cows to produce safer and
better-tasting high-fat milk than is produced in the large commercial
dairies.

Hosing down filthy cattle that sleep in their own feces in tightly jammed
barns is much less sanitary, Stoltzfoos said, because the dirty water drips
onto the udders and into the milk. He said the crowded conditions also lead
to the spread of disease. Besides, he said, grass-fed cows produce superior
milk to those raised on pesticide-, hormone- and chemical-laden commercial
food.

"For thousands of years, people have been drinking raw milk. This is not a
new phenomenon," Stoltzfoos said. "On the one hand, we have people wanting
it and on the other, the state doesn't want us to do this."

Stoltzfoos has asked for a hearing to work out the state's case against
him.
That could take another three months.

In the meantime, Stoltzfoos' brown Jersey cows will continue to produce 15
to 18 gallons of rich, cream-laden milk a day, which he is not allowed to
sell.

And every time Stoltzfoos needs his food, state inspectors will be making
that 60-mile round trip.