If the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) gets its way, Lake View Natural Dairy Farm, owned and operated by David and Heidi Berglund and their daughter Lyndsay, will be fined $500 per day until they submit to an unconstitutional inspection of their farm.
When the farm briefly explored the possibility of selling milk for processing, this triggered a call to the MDA by the processor, and the MDA realized they had no record or control over this farm.
On October 14, 2014 the MDA demanded to do an inspection of the farm, which the family refused on the grounds that the Minnesota Constitution acknowledges their right to peddle the products of their farm. Now, the MDA hopes to fine the small operation a crippling $500 per day after the March 9, 2015 hearing if they are found to be in contempt.
Lake View Natural Dairy Farm, in the quaint town of Grand Marais, MN, has been a staple in the community for the past 100 years that it has been in the Berglund family. Currently, they provide raw milk and locally produced meats to their neighbors, visitors and tourists. The locals adore the farm, the family, and the products.
Many who vacation in Grand Marais for the summer months make the farm their first stop when they arrive in the town with a population of 1,300. Some customers drive over 200 miles from the twin cities for the products from Lake View Natural Dairy Farm.
In the spirit of a family farm operation, the senior Berglunds gave their daughter, Lyndsay, milking privileges 7 years ago, which she has wholeheartedly embraced. The farm boasts a herd of 85-100 dairy cows and beef cattle, laying hens, and pork products. Heidi Berglund makes the coveted yogurt and butter from the milk and provides baked goodies to round out the farm’s offerings.
True to its name, the farm sits on an ecologically stable piece of land overlooking Lake Superior. As a century-old staple in the community, the family is well respected and liked as providers of food to their neighbors. It is a disconnect that they are now being held in contempt of court for operating a farm and providing locally produced foods to their neighbors.
Customers of the farm are accustomed to conducting business completely on the honor system. A small cash box in the milking house is available for the community to leave cash for a gallon or two of milk true to the Minnesota Constitution saying that farmers have a right to peddle their products directly to the consumer.
What is this Really About?
For about two years now, the MDA has requested to do an inspection on the farm citing that the farm must pasteurize the milk prior to selling it. (For the full legal background on this, see David Gumpert’s excellent coverage.)
This raises the question, yet again, whether or not humans have the right to engage in peaceful, voluntary exchanges for the foods of their choice.
What the Berglunds are doing in providing food to their community is historically what built this country and continues to build communities. They are cultivating land for the purpose of feeding their neighbors. They are adding to the aesthetics of their region by keeping land in production. The Berglund family is lovingly growing community and nurturing bonds between community members.
Now, people who work for the MDA are assuming authority, deciding that they have the right to lord over this peaceful family and demand that the family conduct business in a new way that would, quite literally, put them out of business and steal a wonderful resource from the region.
Although the language of the state constitution is on the side of the farmers, the question here is one of justice.
- When is it okay to excessively fine a family for feeding their community?
- Who gets to decide what foods a farm can provide to their neighbors who are enthusiastic participants in the exchange?
- How does the MDA get to demand to inspect a family’s farming operation and demand that they change it?
- Why does the state agency have the assumed authority to interfere between a small farm and those eager to purchase from the farm?
If there is a law that has David Berglund in contempt of court for not allowing aggressive, subversive agents on his property, that law has no place in a peaceful American community.
This is NOT, and never has been, a safety issue. The farm under scrutiny has been providing their community with raw milk and other wholesome farm products including chickens, eggs, pork and beef without ever so much as a suspected illness since inception. The MDA’s demands, excessive fines and now its attempt to hold the family in contempt of court, take its authority out of context.
While the family and community suffer—as beautifully articulated by customer Greg Gentz—from not knowing how this will play out, the MDA continues its gratuitous approach of “compliance for the sake of compliance.”
How You Can Help the Berglunds
What does this farm family need? They need support at their hearing for contempt of court on March 9, 2015 with warm bodies in the courtroom. They need the support of their community by continuing to purchase their products.
The Berglunds need us to stand in unity with them nationally and recognize that it is not the place of government to interfere with the direct farmer-to-consumer relationship in peaceful, voluntary exchange for food.
If you are anywhere near Cook County Minnesota on March 9, please show up in quiet support of David and Heidi Berglund, and their daughter, Lyndsay, who have spent countless days lovingly caring for their animals and their community.
It is through your support that, as individuals, we can renormalize the relationship between food producer and food consumer understanding that there is nothing wrong, or even illegal, with a farmer feeding his community.
Ultimately, this case isn’t about milk or this particular farm; it is about whether strangers working for a state agency will control peaceful exchanges for food between happy neighbors or if the community members have the prerogative to make their own choices.
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Liz Reitzig
Wherever you are in your personal journey toward clean living and local food, thank you for joining me in mine. I look forward to sharing it with you.
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How dare the government push them around. They promote community, health, and natural methods we all used before a Monsanto Dupont and others took that choice and made it a consumer bait & switch with boxed everything. We need more farmers like this family!
As a Vegan i have great compassion for the family farm, i love family farms, i respect hard work and growing on the land.
After that the business choices made by these folks bet on people wanting their “meat and dairy” instead of the “big polluted companies stuff”, hats off to them.
But both views skirt the true issue, raising slaughtering and chopping animals to bits, capturing another species milk and using it for god knows.
This is not “farming” and i for one have to stand back and hope all dairy takes it on the chin.
Your bias is duly noted. Still, you miss the true issue which is this: who is in charge of your food choices? The government or you? Would you like to be in charge of our food choices? What if you lose that vote (which you will these days, vegetarians are in the minority)? Will you submit to eating meat if everyone is required to? I hope not. I hope you will join the push back against government decreeing what we will eat and how we will eat it. Keep speaking out about what you believe, just leave the gov out… Read more »
predator and prey, fix that in nature and then come talk to us. my first advice is go to the lions or grizzlies first, ok. be safe, I hear they like vegans…
Are there legislators that I can write?
I just learned about your farm to Facebook.
I believe in raw milk, and exchanging raw products, for our health.
Kevin Demsky
This would be the same legislators that just caved to obamas illegal alien scheme that you’re paying for?? You really think they care about people? Are we really that dumb??
This is no longer America. Think you’re free? Make a mistake on your taxes. Think you worked for and own your home? Can you not see all the foreclosures brought on by insane property taxes? Think you’re safe? Look at the people being bullied and killed by the police state we’re becoming. Better to spend the time reading about Hitler and see where we’re really going…
Don’t turn this into a red/blue food fight. Show respect for this family. And what do the democrats (or rebublicans for that matter) have to do with this? But since you brought up you should know that the leaders of Agribusiness, Monsanto, and the big junk food chains are almost all rebublicans as a matter of fact. Grow up.
Here you go! http://politicalblindspot.com/yes-monsanto-actually-did-buy-the-blackwater-mercenary-group/
Stories like this one of Lake View Natural Dairy make me so enraged: Policing Milk: A Cop’s Take on the Lake View Natural Dairy Case by GREG GENTZ on February 18, 2015 http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/news_wp/?p=17861 Our government entities, whether state or federal, such as the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA), referred to in this article, or the United Stated Department of Agriculture (USDA), have no right to trespass on small farms in an attempt to inspect and enforce unlawful restrictions such as pasteurization. They have to right to prevent farmers from selling directly to the consumer. They have no right to tell… Read more »
Liz, Nice article. A time comes when a farmer must leave his farm, leave his cows, leave the peace and quiet….and go fight a battle. This is one of those times. This is about more than freedom, this is about who owns America! It is time that this farmer gathers the moms and families and marches on his State Capitol. It is time to grab the media and start making speeches. Passionately. No time to be timid….it is a time to live a dream…not just have one. The oppression of the MDA will come back to bite them severely…but only… Read more »
Thank you Mark!
I agree. This is a great opportunity for the community to rally with their food provider and for all of us to understand the importance of supporting our producers.
David, Heidi and Lyndsay have a great opportunity to bring people together.
Thank you for your continued dedication to food production and access.
This is about our government wanting to have their hands in all facets of our way of life.
Also, fining this small family farm 500 a day should show you it really comes down to the taxes the government expects from any successful small businesses.
We need to come together as a nation to fight for this families rights and our own. We are truly in this together and if you think otherwise, you are part of the problem.
This is enough of big brother shit. Leave the people alone. To share what nature provide . This is a veery clean farm . And safty is there priority. So back of goverment.
I support you 110% all the way from Australia, Noone has the right to stop people farming and providing food for other human beings, this stinks of big brother wanting to control everything, and i hope to god you are successful as we need toturn back this clock on our backward societies and get back to nature and living simple and being self sufficient.
God Bless
Thank you for your support!
i was wondering are they requesting a jury trial? No court hearing can be held without the option of a jury even if they try to deny you one I would be damn.. Anyways good luck
Liz great job on the article my son Spencer the 9 year old boy on the tractor after reading the said that was spot on
I love that picture! Blessings to you all.
David,
I am so honored that I could tell your story. Thank you for your perseverance and dedication to food production and feeding your community!
Bring the government to their knees, farmers should go on strike
I have said this 1 million times and will say it again and again if needed. I was raised on a huge beef farm of which my grandparents had a Grade A dairy farm just down the road from us. For years they sold milk from the bulk tank and for years I rode my bike down to get a gallon of fresh milk on a daily bases. My parents sold Fresh Chicken, Fresh Pork and Fresh Beef straight off the farm. NOT ONCE did they ever have a complaint nor did they EVER have to recall a single product… Read more »
It’s time the gov’t back off. With Cancer on the rise because our gov’t says it’s okay to spray chemicals on our food I support this family farm. Yeah I had cancer and now have to submit to tests to make sure it doesn’t come back. I am raising my own food now so I won’t have to buy the crap the gov’t feeds us. It’s time for Americans to wake up and make a stand against what this gov’t is trying to do.
[…] Republished with permission from NourishingLiberty.com. […]
Good luck. Gov’t is trying to control everything in our life, it is a power trip. Give’em hell.
[…] Republished with permission from NourishingLiberty.com. […]
I am nearly 60 years old. I grew up on a family farm. We had dairy cows, beef cattle, and 6500 laying hens. It was literally our bread and butter. We sold the mild commercially, as well as the eggs, but we also sold to many neighbors as far away as 10-15 miles away, the egg and milk money from those small sales was used for 4-H trips, and the other extra’s beyond the day to day livng. We also had a huge garden and we were totally self sufficent farm. Many garden things were sold/traded with neighbors. It was… Read more »
We will try to come and support you. This just sickening that our government- that is supposed to working for us- is trying to infringe on your rights! I am not sure how the laws are with all of the road side farmers markets works but I cannot imagine how they can try to control your farm. My only confusion is with why they refused the inspection- if they are not doing anything wrong why not let the mda look around? I would really appreciate an answer to my last question. My e-mail doesn’t work so could you contact me… Read more »
We are free people engaging in the right to choose our foods from whomever we like.
The Berglunds aren’t refusing inspection because they are afraid. They are refusing inspection because the state has no authority here.
Would you let the state search your house simply because it believed doing so would help protect your neighbors?
Are you being supported by The Farmers to Consumers Legal Defense Fund via the Weston A Price Foundation? If not please google it. I am a member and contribute to causes like yours.
http://Www.westonaprice.org
Yes, they are!
[…] Republished with permission from NourishingLiberty.com. […]
As a licensed and inspected Grade A Dairy farmer in Mn, I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s so terrible about being inspected. You would think with the high quality products the Berglund family claims to produce they would have no problem with an outsider with a Dairy background looking over their operation twice a year and also submitting monthly milk samples to verify the quality of the product they produce (like my operation is subject to). Then again I’ve seen pictures from inside their barn and I’m pretty sure it would take a little bit of… Read more »
We are free people engaging in the right to choose our foods from whomever we like. As the consumer, I don’t care if state agencies have a say in my choices or not — I don’t rely on the state because I don’t trust the state. It has given me no reason to trust it: it uses force to “protect me” and abuses that privilege constantly. Farmageddon, Baker’s Green Acres, Michigan’s rights to farm being withdrawn… the state is not working for the little guy. The state is working for the BIG guy and that is an inconvenient truth. The… Read more »
You said, “As far as the raw milk debate, The Minnesota Milk Producers Association has told the state legislature repeatedly that they are against loosening the restrictions on raw milk sales. MMPA is made up of dairy farmers from the state of Mn.”
Exactly: big dairy wanting to control little dairy. Why? For consumer safety? Ha! In 100 years, no one has ever been harmed by Berglund milk and no complaints have ever been lodged by a customer. Consumers are perfectly safe.
So why else would big dairy want to control little dairy?
I always believe that US are “… the land of the free…”
I hope that people will support this farmers family.
Sally Oh Minnesota milk producers is made up of both large and small farms alike, members milk anywhere from a few cows all the way up to thousands. When it comes to deciding policy issues, the guy with 10 cows has one vote, just like the guy with 10,000. Also, If you wanted to look at the size of dairy farms in Mn, the “small” farms outnumber the “Large” ones. This issue doesn’t have a thing to do with size, the size issue is only a cop-out for those who seem to think production agriculture should stay stuck in 1950.… Read more »
You managed to dwell on the unimportant points and miss the main point entirely.
The state has no authority here.
Why doesn’t the state have no authority up there?? Cook county become annexed into Canada?? Or are berglunds just special because they are the only farm within a hundred miles? The Berglunds are producing milk for sale/human comsumption, Hence the Pastuerized milk ordinance applies. If it weren’t for people selling poor quality milk that made people sick, there’d of never been the need for the PMO in the first place. What measures are the Berglunds taking on their own to insure that the milk that they are selling doesn’t have any issues? How often are they sampling their milk? If… Read more »
[…] Nourishing Liberty, for example: […]
[…] Nourishing Liberty, for example: […]
It has been proven throughout history, that when you are in power and have a small penis and tiny balls, you have to make up for that and rule people around.
What is the right of the consumer? Doesn’t the consumer have the right to consume “unprocessed” food of any kind? We can’t all keep a cow in our backyard! I’m sure that’s against the law in a lot of places!
Don’t use detergents on cow teats. Rinse and rub iodine. It’s an anti-microbial nutrient for cow and consumer. Farmers: try offensive lateral moves. Get lab tests of supermarket milk vs. milk off your farm. Do the same nutrient and microbe panel on both. Keep the chain of custody and double-blind, randomness parameters tight. Regulators will back off when overpriced supermarket crud shows a bad profile on lab tests. If they attack your farm, that means they must also attack Safeway. In other words, become your own self-inspector. If your lab results are good, there is no objective need for inspection… Read more »
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The family is listed as “Tenants” on their land on the “Administrative Record”! Change that to “Land Owners”! When this is done the Corporate Governance will not be able to bother them any longer! That’s what C. Bundy the Nevada rancher did to get the criminals to leave him alone!
[…] Liz Reitzig Nourishing […]
James W. is flat out wrong in his historical information. David Berglund’s grandfather milked, his dad and uncle milked, David milks and so does Lyndsay. They are my neighbors and friends. James W. seems to get stuck on how people should be milking, rather than what our liberties are and the rights we have. I respect his views and his training. He has the right the say them. Hopefully he can respect others and others rights to disagree with him and do things he would never consider. That is why our country is so extraordinary, we both have those rights.… Read more »
Greg Gentz, Your one hell of a stand up guy! I remember when all cops in Mpls. were like you. I read your article and was deeply moved. I got to ask, I think I know you. Did you use to play poker in Gophers (G.A) basement by Armatage? Gopher, Mack, You, and me, and others?? Either way, glad your in the fight. Plus I can use my other hand to count cops I have respect for. Another question I have to ask, if the state rules supreme, does that mean mothers milk must be pasteurized before she gives it… Read more »
“MDA realized they had no record or CONTROL over this farm” “On October 14, 2014 the MDA DEMANDED to do an inspection of the farm” Democracy in action. Yes I’m one of those idiots that always point out WE ARE A REPUBLIC, not a democracy! They have our consent to govern us. THEY WORK FOR US! The one cow one vote, 1000 cows one vote is hogwash! THE MAINSTREAM PRESSTITUTES ARE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. THEM GOVERNING WHORES IN DC & STP ARE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. The globalists have “WE THE PEOPLE” IN THERE END GAME! Look at the… Read more »
Why do they single out raw milk? What about raw meat and eggs, and even vegetables? There have been so many meat and egg recalls in this country. Next thing they’ll do is require all meat to be precooked and canned before it’s offered for sale. Soon your only Sunday morning breakfast choice will be precooked eggs and brown-n-serve sausage.
Hmmmmmm here is a thought,, Don’t we all honor THANKSGIVING ? Now shoot me down if I’m wrong but wasn’t that sharing in a harvest and giving thanks for what was available and helping others ? You can debate this all day long with the USDA and Inspectors and your never going to change their minds on inspections. Maybe MR. Inspector can tell us all how 1000’s of turkeys in Minnesota were killed and buried due to the bird flu ? Don’t hear about these things do we ? Leave these people alone to live there life and do what’s… Read more »
Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) should be fined $500 per day for feeding on the taxpayers. It is my suspicion that the MDA does not actually farm itself but just harasses real farmers.
[…] excessive fines by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) because the family is refusing an unconstitutional inspection of their […]
[…] is yet another story of a small farm, owned by the Berglund family, which has been selling produce, dairy and meats to […]
I just found this article. My prayers to Family Farmers!! I wish i had found this article days ago! I would have been in the courtroom standing by this Family who has every God Given Right to farm for US! Shame on MN government leaders…Shame..Shame..Shame on You!
[…] Republished with permission from NourishingLiberty.com. […]
WHERE’S the petition to sign? WHOM do we contact within the Minnesota state government? HOW can a state office commit harassment and force their constituents to starve?
I am writing in support of the family and suggesting that the MDA back down. The government is getting out of hand. If there is such a law, it should be upheld and not changed because the MDA says so. Leave the little people alone and worry more about what your corporate friends are doing.
Thank you!
[…] In the story of David and Heidi Berglund from last week, was a glimpse into the over regulatory nature of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA). The MDA threatened a peaceful family with $500 per day fines for feeding their community. […]
[…] the Berglund case, see the web site by supporter Greg Gentz, a former law enforcement member and a post by Liz Reitzig at the Nourishing Liberty […]
Has there been any updates on this??