Recent articles in national and
regional newspapers illustrate how one of our clients, Yuma-based Sarah Farms,
is challenging the system, and how dairy giants and state and federal regulators
are responding.
Favorable Ruling in
U.S. Court of Appeals In an April 2009 ruling, the U.S. Court of
Appeals reverses the dismissal of Sarah Farms' regulatory challenge in
Hettinga v. U.S.
Cartel 1, Fairness 0 San Diego Union-Tribune, December
15, 2006
Dairy
Industry Crushed Innovator Who Bested Price-Control System
The Washington Post, December 10,
2006
Sarah
Farms' Lawsuit: MREA Violated U.S. Constitution
The Milkweed, October 2006
Local
Dairyman Sues the Federal Government - Again Yuma Sun, October 15, 2006
Hettinga
Milk Reveries Magazine, March 2006
Got
Competition? Chicago Tribune, February 25, 2006
He
Sells Milk for Half the Price You Pay. The Feds Want to Stop Him. Why?
Chicago Tribune, February 19, 2006
Dairyman
Biding Time with USDA Decision Yuma Sun, February 11, 2006
Small
Dairyman Shakes Up Milk Industry Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2006
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Dairy Regulation
We represent independent dairies and consumers against federal
protection of large dairy interests
Alfred W. Ricciardi
At
most dairy farms in this country, raw milk is shipped to manufacturers to be
processed into bottled milk, ice cream, cheese and other dairy products. At the
same time, true to the spirit of free enterprise, a few dozen independent,
entrepreneurial U.S. "producer-distributors" have the ingenuity and
resources to skip the middleman. They make the plastic bottles, milk the cows, bottle the milk, and truck the product to grocery stores. The results: a
quality product, and lower costs to American families.
Understandably,
that arrangement does not please the huge dairy companies and cooperatives that process and sell
90%
of the dairy products that are available in Arizona stores. But hard to understand is
why the U.S. Department of Agriculture and influential members of Congress
choose to turn their backs on small business and the American consumer, siding
instead with Big Dairy.
Aiken
Schenk is one of two U.S. law firms leading the fight for independent
producer-distributors against needless and harmful regulation of small dairies.
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