It costs money, lots of money, to defend these lives and livelihoods and the right of food choice.difference—
- in the life of a farm family at the end of their rope, dealing with the government officials hassling them about minutiae, while farm chores can’t wait.
- in the life of a suburban mom forced to endure a criminal search warrant of her home because she let her farmer use her driveway for raw milk deliveries.
- in the life of a farmstead cheesemaker, forced back on the road to provide for his family when his farm and creamery was put in jeopardy, by an unjust embargo of his cheese.
Why do your donations make a difference? Because we must fight back using the law and qualified, hard-to-find attorneys specialized in a little known area of the law dealing with raw milk and direct-to-consumer distribution. You can’t just let your fingers do the walking in the phone book to find a raw milk attorney!
That’s where you come in.
The Fund’s attorneys help level the playing field to give these farmers, artisan food producers, co-ops and consumers a fighting chance.Â
Our attorneys also eat nutrient dense foods, are 100% committed to their work and provide the Fund with deep discounts for their services.Â
But there are many, many members in need of help, and the Centers for Disease Control is in fact, stepping up their efforts to squash raw milk sales.
Our attorneys can often just provide proactive legal help in the form of contracts and start-up consultations. But, in some cases, they must take the challenge to the Health Department door or even the Food and Drug Administration on behalf of our members.
And, in numerous cases so far, where negotiations haven’t made a difference in entrenched thinking, our lawyers have taken the problems in front of the judge.
In each of these cases, the Fund pays the attorney fees, expert witness fees, court costs and more. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal assistance. If one farmer had to pay that on his or her own, well, history tells us that a small sustainable farm cannot take that kind of a financial hit.
None of us have deep pockets these days, but when we exercise the power of community, the burden doesn’t rest on the individual anymore. The financial pain and emotional drain is carried on thousands and thousands of shoulders.
Let’s make sure the Fund has the FUND$ it needs, to take care of problems as they arise.
If you haven’t donated, please do, and if you have, thank you!
Cathy Raymond
Cathy Raymond is the Administrator and FundRAISER for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and the Outreach and Special Projects Manager for the Weston A. Price Foundation.
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