The Rawesome Raw Food Buying Club in Venice Beach, California, was raided today for the second time.  The club organizer, James Stewart, was arrested and is in jail with a $125,000 bond set.  At least two others were also arrested, including a Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader and a farmer.  The three were charged with Conspiracy to Commit a Crime.  The raid was conducted by local, state, and federal public health officials.

In California it is legal to sell raw milk in retail stores.  According to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, the  “issue seems to be the club’s use of a herdshare or boarding agreement for its dairy goats.”  Recently, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has issued cease-and-desist orders to at least two farmers who have share arrangements.  The state says that the farmers need to have dairy licenses to have herd share programs.  Since acquiring a dairy license can be costly and time-consuming, farmers with only a few animals cannot justify the cost.  It appears that requiring a license is just another attempt to put small farms out of business.

Pete Kennedy, Esq., president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, says, “It is apparent that there is an orchestrated effort on the part of public health officials to curb raw dairy access in California, and around the nation.”

A protest rally is planned for tomorrow when those arrested will be arraigned in the Superior Court of Los Angeles.

Could this happen here?  In Texas as well as California, applying too many expensive and labor-intensive requirements on small farms is a good method to close them down.  The target is often raw milk dairies.

Press release on the raid from The Weston A. Price Foundation.

Update 8/7/11: for the latest information about the Rawesome food raid, go to Cheeseslave.com.

Update 8/10/11: I found a good informative article about the raid and raw milk on TheUnion.com and online news site from Nevada County, California.

Update 8/11/11: Links to other interesting articles & viewpoints on the Rawesome raid:
Huffington Post, The War on Food Freedom
Southern California Public Radio, The Rawesome controversy and the raw food rabbit hole
Ventura County Star, Prosecution of Santa Paula farmer seen by some as raw milk test case
Business & Health, Timeline of FDA raids on Raw Milk Farmers, Dietary Supplement Makers, Natural Medicine Practitioners
OpEdNews.com, Food safety false flag? USDA waited for people to die before recalling ground turkey it knew was contaminated
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Police Raid Raw Milk Producers
Grist, Moms rally to defend raw food club after federal raid

Related post, 9/6/11: Santa Cruz Family Farmers Will Stage a “Milk-In” Downtown Wednesday, this appears to be a reaction to the Rawsome raid as well as to the California Food and Drug Administration attempts to limit consumption of raw milk through cow and herd shares.