On Friday, Townhall posted an article about an Amish farmer in Virginia who has personally experienced government overreach.
The article reports:
The firestorm of Big Government saber-rattling ignited in mid-June when an inspector with the Virginia Department of Agriculture (VDAC), without warning, paid the Fisher family a visit. To date, Fisher has no idea what could’ve prompted VDAC’s impromptu inspection on June 14, except “maybe they just finally found us through word of mouth,” the farmer speculated.
What was clear: The state sought to penalize Fisher for selling meat that was not processed by a USDA-inspected facility (U.S. Department of Agriculture). Fisher processes—an industry euphemism for butchering—his farm-raised meat on-site and sells it directly to his customers, feeding about 500 consumers and their families, who are part of a buying club. As members enrolled in the Golden Valley Farms program, they’re buying into the herd of 100% grass-fed golden Guernsey cows.
“They own part of the business. They own some of the herd,” Fisher explained. “My thinking was […] We can butcher their cows, process it, and sell it to them. I told the state all of this, but they said, ‘No, there’s no way around that. You can’t do that.’ They asked permission to get in here” to search the farm, which Fisher denied. “And, they told me, ‘We’ll be back,’ and left.”
The next day, on June 15, the VDAC inspector did, in fact, return, this time with a Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy to serve Fisher a search warrant. “They went through everything, house, every building, in the barn. They just raided through everything, put their nose in everything, and wanted to know every detail of everything. They went out back, trying to find all the failure they can find on a farm, which, of course, some of their stuff, which they think is wrong, is just normal stuff on a farm,” Fisher stated.
The article also notes:
“Anybody can go and raise animals for their own family to eat. That’s where I got to the point: He [the VDAC inspector] crossed the line, so I’m going to cross the line,” Fisher stated. “He crossed the line by telling me I cannot feed my own family with this meat. So, I decided I’m going to cross the line, I’m going to sell it. And that’s why I didn’t honor the state.”
This makes me wonder why the state did not even want his own family eating the animals they raised. Is the state going to start inspecting people’s vegetable gardens and taking their produce? This is ridiculous.