Brave Minnesota mother risks going to prison for continuing to facilitate raw milk distribution
A Minnesota mother has decided that her state’s health department is completely out of line in demanding that she stop distributing raw milk to members of her buying club, and has chosen instead to continue helping these families in her area access this highly medicinal food even if it means going to jail.
Charlene Chan-Muehlbauer of St. Anthony Park near St. Paul, Minn., is one of several mothers involved in a local cooperative that take turns picking up raw milk from a farm 90 miles away, and hauling it back to the Twin Cities for distribution. Since Minnesota law allows for raw milk sales only on the farm (http://farmtoconsumer.org/raw_milk_map.htm), Charlene has offered to have her garage serve as a legal drop point for the milk.
In accordance with state law, members of Charlene’s buying club each pay the farm directly for their milk, and later pick it up from Charlene’s drop point. The setup is a convenient, practical way for raw milk buyers in the Twin Cities area to access their milk without having to each drive separately to the farm to pick it up.
But when officials from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) got wind of what Charlene and the others were doing, they quickly swooped in and tried to shut the whole thing down. MDA claims that the drop point violates state law, even though it clearly does not.
Harold
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