Posts Tagged ‘coop’
An Organic Food Bust —Your Tax Dollars at Work!
They came in the late morning, a belligerent gang terrorizing the family with weapons drawn for nearly 6 hours. All of their personal possessions were searched; $10,000 worth of food was taken as were computers and cell phones. Ten of the family members held at gunpoint were children including infants and toddlers.1,2
Did this happen in a backward, lawless Third World country? Were the armed thugs part of a murderous criminal gang cruising the streets for innocent victims? No to both questions. It happened in LaGrange, Ohio in December of 2008. The armed goons were agents from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Loraine County Department of Health, and the local police. They had with them the type of search warrant used to bust drug dealers.3
The family’s crime? There doesn’t seem to be one, unless running a successful food co-op for folks who want to save money on bulk purchases of organic food is now against the law.
The co-op called Manna Storehouse has been run by John and Jacqueline Stowers since 1999. It includes 60 regular members who pool their resources and buy in bulk quantities directly from organic growers across the state of Ohio. This enables them to get a discount on the healthiest foods available — beef, pork, eggs, milk, cheese, produce, poultry, and grains —all produced without man-made chemicals, hormones, pesticides, dyes, and additives.
