Jeffrey Quick's Blog

Amish farmer victim of raw milk sting

From Cleveland's Journal of Bourgeois Marxist Culture:

Meet Millersburg farmer Arlie Stutzman, who's had a Grade B dairy license for 12 years, allowing him to sell milk to local cheese factories. On September 20, an undercover ag agent visited his farm and asked to buy a gallon of milk.

It's a no-no for a farmer to sell milk directly, so Stutzman offered to just give it to the man if he were truly in need. But the guy insisted on leaving two bucks. The agent then fetched an unmarked container from his car and had Stutzman's son fill it with milk.

For the sin of selling in an unlabeled container, Stutzman had his license yanked. At an administrative hearing, he argued that the Amish faith taught him to share food with anybody in need, and asked that his penalty be reduced to a 60-day license suspension. His plea was rejected by department director Fred Dailey, who's also mean to baby deer and people in wheelchairs. Stutzman now faces additional fines if convicted at an April 17 hearing.

"I never realized that being generous and sharing food is a crime in Ohio," says Stutzman.

I met Arlie last year, at a meeting on free-range poultry sponsored by Geauga Family Farmers. He didn't seem "quite there", though that might have been his soft-spokenness. (How do you know when an Amish man is losing his temper? He's not whispering.) Certainly, he should have seen this sting. "Well, sir, since you have $2, I suggest you go to the store if you need milk." If he had $2, he wasn't in need, and nobody "needs" raw milk; just ask the State of Ohio.

But...as abuse of government power, this one takes the cake. Let's start at the beginning: it's Arlie's cow, and the consumer's body. If somebody wants raw milk, by what right does the State of Ohio tell them they can't trade? A lot of consumers are figuring this out, and a brisk trade is developing in "brucellosis, listeria etc."...except we aren't seeing a lot of sick people. I don't know if Arlie was suspected of being part of that trade; possibly he was singled out for being Amish, a group known for low tolerance for bullshit laws, and for being, let's face it, a little naive. "We gotta show those damn Weston Pricers and other granola-munching hippie types who's boss." So they had A STING. Yes, a non-law-enforcement agency tempted somebody to break the law. And to top it off "an administrative hearing" yanked his licence. So here's this guy who is probably going to have to sell his herd and take a loss, maybe lose the farm, and his fate is being decided by a bunch of bureaucrats, ALL of whom work for the D of A. What happened to his right to a trial by jury?

Fred Dailey (another lovely Taft appointee) might need a wake-up call.

Ohio Department of Agriculture
8995 East Main Street, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068-3399
Main Line: (614) 728-6200
Toll Free: 1-800-282-1955

Administration (614) 466-2732
Fax 614-466-6124
administration@mail.agri.state.oh.us
(This is Fred's office number, but there's an "administrative assistant" who in 8/04 was Connie Ellis.)

Dairy Division (614) 466-5550
dairy@mail.agri.state.oh.us

Enforcement (614) 728-6240
enforcement@mail.agri.state.oh.us