Who Will Defend Our Farmers?

These days, our farmers face a growing threat. It’s not drought or colony collapse disorder, either. It’s our government. The very government created to protect their liberty is instead launching lengthy undercover investigations into their practices, raiding family homes at gunpoint in the early morning hours, and passing financially impossible legislation that doesn’t scale down to small, artisanal producers.

Who will defend our farmers? Who will fight their legal battles in court? Make persuasive arguments for their constitutional rights? Give counsel when overly zealous government enforcers want to take liberties with warrants and court orders? The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, that’s who.

The FTCLDF has your farmer’s back. And by default, they’ve got yours.

Listen to these amazing testimonies from members — everyday consumers and producers trying to make it in their local food economies.

“With the tsunami of interest in local foods, farmers’ markets, and pastured meats, many people think Monsanto and Tyson are ready to wave surrender flags and their like-minded government food police will actually want to give Americans the choice to buy traditional foods. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but ’tain’t so. Instead, the Church of Industrial Mechanical Food has further codified its orthodoxy in the 2010 FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which for the first time in human civilization creates a “science based” litmus test for legal food. Since the administrator of the program is Michael Taylor, who for a decade spearheaded Monsanto’s gift of transgenic modification to the world, you can be sure that the science will not be what you see in the pages of Wise Traditions.

To stop this cultural madness, we need the strength and verve of the Home School Legal Defense Association. The Farmto-Consumer Legal Defense Fund can be that strength. Everyone who values food choice should support with money, membership, and methods this protector and defender of personal digestive integrity.”

– Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms, Virginia

“I wanted to also thank you for the wonderful service when I called last week. I don’t think I can express in words how…comforting it was to have someone, at the ring of the phone, to help us when we were not sure what to do.THANK YOU so much for what you do. WELL worth the cost of membership, I must say.”

– Farmer Member

“The legal cases keep piling up, against producers of raw milk, raw-milk cheese, and other nutrient-dense foods. Who will be next? We can’t know, except to know that there will be more cases in the government’s increasingly aggressive campaign to restrict access to the foods of our choice. The one constant in all the tumult is that the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund seems to be there, ready to help all farmers and consumers who require ideas, advice and even legal representation. Thanks to the FTCLDF’s aggressive legal actions, government prosecutors have been forced to reveal things they might have preferred to keep quiet — for example, that we have no right to the foods of our choice, and that even a mother bringing milk from one state that allows raw milk into another that doesn’t is committing a crime. We are all potential targets of this misguided government campaign. We owe it to each other and ourselves to support FTCLDF to the best of our ability.”

– David Gumpert, TheCompletePatient.com

“Just a note to thank you for all your hard work on the raw milk issue. I’m only one lady out here in Marin County, CA tracking this issue and responding to the alerts and calls for action. This issue has ignited the activist in me and set me out on a course of justice-seeking I never imagined.”

– DJH

“I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to you, Gary and Pete for the quick response, diligent work and support you gave me during the recent Stop Order crisis. When I joined the FTCLDF I never ever thought I could place a call to your emergency line from the farmer’s market ON A WEEKEND. In less than thirty seconds there was Pete Kennedy calling me back. You will be seeing my dues yearly as long as I am in the milk business!!! Thank you.”

– Pam Lunn, Dancing Goat Dairy, Florida

“I’m really enjoying my membership already. In addition to being able to study the sample documents, I’ve had a very rewarding conversation with Pete Kennedy, who was able to offer constructive insights into the options I have going forward. I look forward to caring for cows on the ground soon.”

– Cow Share Operator

“The State case is still going on and the Fund is doing everything in that case, they are doing all the work, and we have not experienced any legal expenses. We pay a nominal fee once a year and that gets us unlimited time with the counsel, and we can call them up virtually anytime. It’s a great organization to be part of. Through the ordeal, they were the best support team, they were able to carry us through, with the light at the end of the tunnel. It was phenomenal — we wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. It was so hard on the family, it drained us. It nearly stole Christmas.”

– Armand and Teddi Bechard, Bechard Family Farm, Missouri

If you want to make a difference for your farmer and others like them, please consider donating to or joining the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

You can give any amount you desire, but if you give a $100 donation during their annual fundraising drive, you can get a free gift of either Joel Salatin’s latest book, titled Folks, This Ain’t Normal or your own DVD of Farmageddon, the new documentary film that everyone’s been buzzing about.

So, check out their appeal. See what they’re about. And do yourself and your local farms a favor. Give.

Every little bit helps.