I was angered to read about the sting operation executed by the Michigan Department of Agriculture on the Family Farms Cooperative. Although it is illegal to purchase raw milk in Michigan (unlike in 28 other states), it is perfectly legal for Michigan cow owners to drink the milk from their own cows. My family and other members of the cooperative own shares of the cows so that we can have access to fresh, unprocessed milk. The cows are pasture grazed and are not exposed to pesticides or treated with growth hormones or antibiotics. Raw milk is an important source of nutrients, including beneficial bacteria, vitamins and enzymes, which would otherwise be destroyed by conventional pasteurization.

Although it is possible to become sick from drinking contaminated raw milk, it is also possible to become sick from almost any food source, as we have recently seen with the spinach scare. Yet it was reported that the MDA tested the milk from Family Farms Coop, and it was found to be fine. If raw milk is so dangerous, it seems like the MDA would have intervened long ago. I can only conclude that our government and larger corporate interests are attempting to put family farms out of business.

We have the right to an informed choice in our food supply. Small farmers fill an increasing demand in our community for locally grown, healthy and unprocessed foods. The efforts of the state against farmer Richard Hebron and Family Farms Cooperative are destructive, unnecessary and just plain wrong.

Susan E. Cybulski
Chelsea

Referring to the Michigan Department of Agriculture's treatment of Richard Hebron as a "sting'' paints a picture of government agents infiltrating dangerous organizations to champion public safety. This couldn't be further from the truth. The MDA's treatment of Family Farms Cooperative is nothing more than harassment. It is designed to undermine a citizens' movement for healthy, sustainable, small-farm-produced food, which, it so happens, is just beginning to threaten the profits of big agribusiness.

Consider that the family whose illness prompted the "sting'' had drunk both raw milk and pasteurized milk. Did the MDA run an operation on the corporate dairy that produced that pasteurized milk? Did the MDA confiscate its product and disrupt its distribution system? Did the MDA steal the CEO of that dairy's personal home computer and ransack his house? Of course not. (No corporate spinach farm has been shut down as a result of the recent spinach-related E.coli outbreak, either, and that outbreak killed people!) In Hebron's case, the MDA unsuccessfully tested the milk for pathogens multiple times. Finally they gave up and went after it as an "unlabeled product'' instead.

The guiding motive in the MDA's recent action has less to do with raw milk than with raw power. We can all rest easy that the chemical-laden food on our grocery shelves has once again been courageously protected from competition by any real alternatives. Our tax dollars at work.

Ian S. and Nancy G. Reed Twiss
Ann Arbor

This is what Libertarians mean when we say there is too much government: The Michigan Department of Agriculture's sting on the Family Farms Co-op, as reported in The Ann Arbor News on Oct. 18. It was like a drug bust the way the MDA swooped down on farmer Richard Hebron, seizing his dairy products, supplies, cell phone and computer. All this for raw milk and unlabeled butter? If Ann Arbor families want to eat farm-fresh dairy products, it's their diet, their health and their and Hebron's business. The government should butt out.
This sting operation was an outrageous waste of taxpayer resources and an assault on our right to make choices for ourselves. We should stand up to such foolish overreaching by state agencies.

Emily H. Salvette
Ann Arbor

As a member of the Family Farms Cooperative, and as a citizen, I am outraged over the Michigan Department of Agriculture's harassment of Richard Hebron and the seizure of the raw milk products that he was delivering to Ann Arbor on October 13.

The food laws of this state are ludicrous. It's legal to sell food laden with chemicals, hormones and drugs, but illegal to sell real food that human beings have thrived on for thousands of years? This kind of thinking is insane. There have been many studies done on the safety of raw milk, dating back to the early 20th century, and no legitimate study has ever found raw milk products to be harmful in any way. On the contrary, numerous studies have proven raw milk, properly handled and distributed, to be a very healthful food source. And there is no question that Richard takes great care in the distribution of raw milk products.
Until I bought a cow share in the Family Farms Cooperative this past summer, I was unable to consume dairy products without having an adverse reaction, usually in the form of excess mucous and/or intestinal discomfort. I can drink raw milk without any symptoms of milk allergies.
Please join me in urging our lawmakers to remedy this oppressive police-state-like situation by overturning the laws banning the sale of raw milk products. And call on the MDA to stop harassing people like Richard Hebron, who are delivering whole, real food to people like me.

Michael J. Richard
Ypsilanti

Thank you for Jo Mathis' objective report on the Michigan Department of Agriculture's attack on Family Farms Cooperative (The Ann Arbor News, Oct. 18). As an FFC member, I am distressed by this situation. It appears to be based on the MDA's misguided belief that raw milk was publicly sold by a retail establishment, which never happened. FFC is a private organization whose members lease shares of a dairy herd, pay farmers to board the herd and receive shares of our cows' milk. It is legal in Michigan for owners of livestock to consume their raw milk products, and numerous cow-share programs operate in Michigan. Morgan & York graciously provided a back room as a co-op pickup location. Raw dairy products were never sold to the public and never entered the retail store, which did not gain financially from the arrangement.

The MDA is overstepping its jurisdiction. Family Farms Co-op has not violated any laws. There is no public health issue as no raw dairy sales were ever made to the public. This is government interference in private citizens' handling of their own property. Some states legalize the sale of raw milk and mandate stringent testing, which is safest for everyone involved. Without such regulation, there are cow-share programs like FFC. Some of us believe that high quality raw milk from pastured cows is healthier than pasteurized factory-farmed milk. If cow-shares are shut down, determined people will continue to find access to raw milk, but the farther it goes underground, the less safe it will be.

Andrea Klooster
Ann Arbor

Michigan Department of Agriculture
Director Mitch Irwin
524 West Allegan
Lansing, MI 48933
517-335-1423 (Fax)

Mr. Irwin,

I am writing in response to the MDA’S hostile seizure of all products from Family Farm Cooperative’s owner, Richard Hebron. The MDA’s explanation is one of “investigating” or “testing” Michigan’s law regulating cow shares and whether family owned cooperatives can distribute raw milk products to its co-owners. Your action, however, seems to be in putting this farm out of business!

There is no law prohibiting the sale of hens, noodles, eggs, cheese beef and many of the other products that your agents also seized. It’s my understanding that there were no formal complaints lodged against Mr. Hebron or his products, and there have been no charges filed. Therefore, the heavy handed way in which all products, records, computers and cell phones were seized seems more like a police-state action than an action befitting a democracy. In my opinion, your agency’s abuse of power is un-American, disgusting, and most likely, unconstitutional.

Until this case is resolved in the courts, I request that you immediately return all non milk products and business items not relevant to this controversial “law-testing” so that Mr. Hebron can continue to support his family. I also request that you provide him with a guarantee in writing that his return to providing non milk items to his co-owners will not result in further harassment from your agency.

Laura MacKimmie
Ypsilanti

Michigan Department of Agriculture
Director Mitch Irwin
524 West Allegan
Lansing, MI 48933
517-335-1423 (Fax)

Dear Mr. Irwin,

Please take a moment to read this letter, as it is coming to you from a very heartfelt place, and I imagine you have been receiving quite a lot of angry mail. Anger is not my intention here. However, when the MDA and the police mischievously devised and implemented it's sting operation on the Family Farms Cooperative, it took away my rights as a citizen of this free country.

I made an informed decision to drink and feed my family health-giving raw milk and it's natural byproducts. The same kind of milk that I was fed as a child. I grew up on a soybean and corn farm in Wisconsin, and we would go each week to my uncle's dairy farm. We would dip milk from his sterile tank into the glass jars that my mother washed and dried by hand. In the 20 or more years that we were nourished by this amazing food, never once did I, my seven siblings, my parents, or my uncles family ever get sick from raw milk.

Unfortunately, my uncle was forced to sell out to the government and began shipping his milk to the big conglomerate milk distributors in order to keep his little farm in operation. Very little has changed in 20 some years. Now his son, my cousin, struggles as his father did, to keep afloat. They had to sell their cows as they couldn't afford to provide milk to the processing plants.

Is it not fair to ask you, what is wrong with this picture? When the farmer who puts in all the work and expense to provide milk to the citizens of our country looses money and goes out of business, while the Pasteurizing and Homogenizing Milk Tampering Megamart continues to grow, thrive, and even make laws that cripple small farmers, wouldn't you agree there is something terribly wrong? Please take even one moment to think about what these kinds of actions do to folks who are just trying to live simple lives, making sacrifices for their families, and taking care of our earth.

In my humble opinion, our world would be a better place if more of us chose to eat and live simply. We would be ensuring for all people, including your children and your children's children, an opportunity to continue to live on this earth, and enjoy the miraculous benefits that have been provided by this amazing spinning planet. Factories and processing plants will not save our planet, but careful land use practices like those used by the farmers and the members of the Family Farms Cooperative will keep us healthy for many years to come.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter Mr. Irwin. I would like to believe that because you are working on behalf of the tax-paying citizens of Michigan, it is important to you to hear all of our voices, not just those who pay the majority of your salary. My best wishes to you as you work on the issues that have arisen since your sting operation on the Family Farms Coopertive.

Nancy Biehn
Ann Arbor