“We are going to oppose [SB47] with every political tool we have. Trust me.” — Big Ag to the raw milk team in a meeting in Frankfort yesterday.

According to my Take Back Kentucky update, the Farm Food Freedom Bill SB47 is expected to come up for a vote Thursday 2pm!

The Senate hotline is open till 11pm tonight and reopens at 7am: please call 800-372-7181 again! This is an historic opportunity for KY and our country. Let it not be said we didn’t do enough!

1) Thank Senator Schickel for his sponsorship of SB 47 and Cow-Shares;

2) Thank Senator Givens for his leadership on SB 47 and Cow-shares;

3) Thank Senate President David Williams for wanting to listen to citizens regarding SB 47 and the issue of Cow-Shares;

4) Tell your Senator to vote YES on SB 47;

5) Tell all Senate Leadership to do the same!!!

Find your State Senator here: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/?&lvl=L.

Find the bill here: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/12RS/SB47.htm.

The Buzz

The www is udderly alive with passion and urgency regarding our right to grow and consume the foods of our choice!

Fighting Us As Hard As Possible

In the same meeting in Frankfort yesterday, Mike Chandler, president of Southern Belle Dairy, threatened that he would “use every political power under his belt to stop what we are doing.”

The president of a Kentucky dairy has political power?

Please tell Mr. Chandler and his company (POLITELY, if you can) that they cannot control what foods you eat, and that you will boycott their products if they continue to use their profits to squelch our freedom. Call them in Somerset at (606)-679-1131. Or contact them on their website: www.southernbelledairy.com.

If you and I don’t speak up, corporate interests will continue to control our public policy!

Where is the KDDC on SB47?

The KDDC’s Facebook page WAS actively targeting raw milk and SB47. However, they have had a change of heart and have stated they will not work against us.

Why aren’t they working FOR us? KDDC has been receiving MILLIONS in our tax money over the past 6 years. In that time, Kentucky has gone from around 2000-2500 dairy farms down to less than 900. Is this good use of our tax money?

Why is Kentucky giving tax dollars to an organization that refuses to support new markets for the very taxpayers it claims to be supporting?

While the KDDC says it will not work against us, it’s site still has some pretty damning and factually incorrect letters and information about raw milk. Please contact KDDC and request they take down the misinformation about raw milk! Does the KDDC support dairy farmers or corporate interests?

Christy from the raw milk team reported:

No one from the Kentucky Dairy Development Council (KDDC) was expecting Senate Bill 47 to be heard in the Senate Agriculture Committee, much less have it pass through with a 9-2 vote, but it did.  With enough Senators on board to pass it, we are close to making history with the first herdshare friendly bill that provides protection from regulatory agencies!

The Kentucky Dairy Development Council (KDDC) requested to meet with a few of us working on Senate Bill 47 to discuss some concerns they had with the bill.  So early this afternoon, KDDC, the president of a large dairy producer, and part of our team sat down in a meeting.   Within the first ten minutes of the meeting they were threatening to leave the room, pointing fingers in some of our faces, and actual threats were made to “use every political power under my belt to stop what you are doing”.

Why?  Because you are not allowed to operate outside of a corporate-controlled commodity market like the dairy industry.   And they are afraid of our mooovement.

The KDDC’s mission is:
“To educate, promote and represent dairy producers and foster an environment for growth of the Kentucky Dairy Industry.”

And represent the producers they did, and you should know that they are using your tax dollars to do it.   Over the past two years, KDDC has received 1.9 million dollars of our tax dollars and is now using it to work against small family farms that contract with their neighbors privately. Meanwhile, Kentucky dairies are dwindling.  In the early 1980’s Kentucky had over 20,000 dairies, in 2011, we only had 870.  These numbers are a disgrace to Kentucky agriculture, and KDDC should be embarrassed.

We have an opportunity to turn this around by making shared ownership of livestock protected in Kentucky.  Senate Bill 47 will protect small family farming, and allow the farmers to keep most of their hard earned money for themselves!

Those of us who have been working on this bill are asking that you would please call the message line again at 1-800-372-7181 and ask your Senator to vote in favor of the bill.  Anyone else that you can recruit from other districts to call in would be very helpful as well.  With your help, we can make history!

These calls can help push our bill to the floor for a vote before Big Dairy has time to use their “political power” against us!

On Facebook, S. told us:

Raw milk… not a single death for the past 38 years… unlike Cantaloupe (30 or more in 2011 alone), turkey (at least one in 2011 alone), pasteurized milk (PASTEURIZED milk over the past few decades has caused 239,884 cases and 620 deaths, including three in 2007 from Whittier Farms milk), peanuts (9 dead and 22000 plus sickened in 2009 ALONE), celery (4 deaths in 2010), lunch meat, and dozens of other foods.

In 2010, Wright County Egg and Hilldale Farm’s salmonella contaminated eggs caused over 2,000 reported illnesses in just two months.

Raw milk, based on the CDC’s own data, and the admission of Dr. Keith Warriner, distinguished professor of food safety at …. is at least as safe as many other foods and activities that people engage in or foods they eat on a regular or even daily basis.

The key figure that permits a calculation of raw milk illnesses on a per-person basis comes from a 2007 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) FoodNet survey, which found that at least 3.04 percent of the population consumes raw milk, or over 9.4 million people. Raw milk consumption is growing at a rate of around 25% per year.

Dr. Ted Beals, board certified pathologist and physician, has compiled published reports of illness attributed to raw milk from 1999 to 2010. During the eleven-year period, illnesses attributed to raw milk averaged 42 per year.

Using the government’s data for foodborne illness for the entire population, Dr. Ted Beals has shown that the average American is about thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than from raw milk.

Even further, Dr. Beals showed that by restricting real milk to on farm sales only, people would be more likely to be die driving to a farm to obtain fresh milk than by drinking it.

1997-2008, there were a total of 4638 outbreaks and 117,000 + illnesses from 1998-2007. This number is agreed on by almost all agencies and health organizations to represent only a fraction of the total number of food borne illnesses.

For instance, The CDC estimated in a 1999 paper that there are 5,000 deaths, 325,000 hospitalizations and 76 million food borne illnesses within the US per year.

Thus, the claim that raw milk is at best a minor threat to public health is supported by the CDC and other organizations own data.

K. also had facts to share on Facebook:

PASTEURIZED milk has been the source of many widespread outbreaks. A total for some of the documented outbreaks due to PASTEURIZED milk over the past few decades is 239,884 cases and 620 deaths.The nation’s largest recorded outbreak of Salmonella was due to PASTEURIZED milk contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Salmonella typhimurium. The outbreak, which occurred between June 1984 and April 1985 sickened over 200,000 and caused 18 deaths. Disturbingly, the CDC did not issue a specific Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for this outbreak; information must be gleaned from other reports published in the FDA Consumer and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Call 800-372-7181 right now to keep your freedom to grow and consume the foods of your choice!

What is SB47 again?

• Guarantees your right to access meat, fresh milk and other products through shared ownership agreements with farmers for farm livestock;
• Removes the cloud of uncertainty hanging over the heads of many Kentucky farmers engaged in such arrangements;
• Provides another opportunity for young and beginning farmers across the Commonwealth to make a living from a small livestock operation;
• Makes healthy, locally produced food more accessible in rural food deserts.

Without Your Efforts, This Could Not Happen!

Please also thank Senators Perry Clark, Robin Webb, and Mike Wilson!

Keep your dialing fingers warmed up for when we get to the House.

If you know a State Representative who will co-sponsor this bill in the House, please let us know asap!

Please share this with anyone you know who is interested in Farm Food Freedom in KY! The more numbers we have behind us, the smaller big ag and big dairy will seem! Thank you!