Page 72 - Spring2012

RAW MILK UPDATES by Pete Kennedy, Esq.

WISCONSIN – VERNON HERSHBERGER
On December 5, 2011 the state of Wisconsin filed criminal charges against Loganville dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger
on four misdemeanor counts for violations of the state food and dairy code. Hershberger was charged with operating
a retail food establishment without a license, operating a dairy farm as a milk producer without a license, operating a
dairy plant without a license and violating a holding order issued by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade
and Consumer Protection (DATCP). The holding order prohibited anyone from removing food products from refrigera-
tors and freezers that had been taped at Hershberger’s farm store. The farmer broke the tape and sold products in the
refrigerator shortly after the order was issued. The County District Attorney and the State Attorney General’s office are
working together in prosecuting the case which is unusual in Wisconsin; typically, either the state or county would handle
the matter on their own.
Hershberger currently is leasing his cows to the Right to Choose Healthy Food Buyers Club and provides dairy
products and other foods to club members through a private contractual arrangement. The farmer’s position is that these
arrangements are not under DATCP’s jurisdiction. DATCP has taken a broad interpretation of the state dairy code and
views any transaction where milk and milk products leave the farm as being within its jurisdiction.
On January 11 Hershberger was arraigned at the Sauk County courthouse. After appearing before the Judge, he was
booked and fingerprinted and released on $500 bond. The conditions of the bond were that Hershberger could not:
1. Sell food without a retail food establishment license.
2. Manufacture or process dairy products without a dairy plant license.
3. Sell or distribute milk produced on his farm without a milk producer license.
4. Allow anyone else to operate his farm, in violation of any of the above conditions.
5. Impede, obstruct or interfere with any DATCP inspection on Hershberger’s property.
6. Allow any other person to interfere with a DATCP inspection of his property.
Under duress, Hershberger signed a form agreeing to the conditions of the bond. He had immediate regrets about
signing off on the bond’s conditions and in a subsequent hearing on January 27 asked Sauk County Circuit Court Judge
Guy Reynolds to change those conditions stating he could not “in good conscience tell the more than one hundred
families who own the food and depend on it to feed their families, that they can no longer get food to feed their families.
The Almighty God has spoken and I cannot do otherwise.” The Judge did not grant Hershberger’s request. The bond
conditions remained the same.
On February 9 DATCP officials Jackie Owens and Paul Humphrey along with a Sauk County detective attempted
to conduct an inspection of Hershberger’s farm to determine whether he was violating any of the conditions in the
bond. They entered Hershberger’s farm store and, according to Owens, saw someone pay for items purchased at the
store. Owens also said she saw numerous items in the store that were priced for sale. When Owens asked to complete
an inspection of the premises, Hershberger denied her request stating that since he had no licenses with the state he
would not allow her to continue the inspection.
Owens wrote up a summary report on the attempted inspection and sent it on to the attorneys in the state Depart-
ment of Justice prosecuting the Hershberger case. Assistant attorney General Eric Defort forwarded the report to Judge
Reynolds and said, “In view of the apparent violation of the court’s orders, the State respectfully asks this court to address
the issue of bail at the next hearing.”
The next hearing in the Hershberger case was scheduled for March 2. Canadian raw milk farmer and activist Michael
Schmidt called one thousand people to be at the hearing warning that unless there was that show of support there was
a good chance the battle in Wisconsin would be lost with other states to follow.
DATCP is trying to establish an era of raw milk prohibition in Wisconsin where those in the state who don’t own
and board their own cow will have no way to exercise their legal right to consume the product. The tremendous cour-
age shown by Vernon Hershberger is bringing more attention nationwide to the efforts by government to criminalize
food choices that the state doesn’t sanction. When neither the courts, legislatures nor the bureaucracies acknowledge
freedom of food choice, growing numbers of otherwise law-abiding citizens will take part in “illegal transactions” and
commit civil disobedience to obtain the foods they want.

PENNSYLVANIA - DAN ALLGYER
On February 2 Federal District Court Judge Lawrence F. Stengel ordered a permanent injunction against dairy farmer
Dan Allgyer prohibiting Allgyer from distributing raw milk and raw milk products across state lines; under Judge Stengel’s
order, the injunction was to be in place for a minimum of five years (see Wise Traditions Spring and Summer 2010 and

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