FDA Interferes with Fresh Milk Sale

The FDA has won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh, raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington region, after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines, and he told his customers he’ll shut his farm down altogether.

The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer’s supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and who say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children. But the Food and Drug Administration, which launched a full investigation complete with a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and a straw-purchase sting operation against Mr. Allgyer’s Rainbow Acres Farm, near Lancaster, said unpasteurized milk is unsafe and said it was exercising its due authority to stop its sale from one state to another.

Adding to Mr. Allgyer’s troubles, Judge Lawrence F. Stengel said if he is found to violate the law again he will have to pay the FDA’s costs for investigating and prosecuting him.

His customers are wary of talking publicly, fearing the FDA will come after them.

“I can’t believe in 2012 the federal government is raiding Amish farmers at gunpoint all over a basic human right to eat natural food,” said one, who asked not to be named but who got weekly shipments of eggs, milk, honey and butter from Rainbow Acres. “In Maryland, they force taxpayers to pay for abortions, but God forbid we want the same milk our grandparents drank.”

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