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Why Are the Feds Closing Amos Miller’s Farm—and Trying To Put Him in Jail?

By Walter Donway

January 23, 2023

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Why write about a disturbing misfortune when to all appearances nothing can be done?

It supplies organic foods to a private food club of 4,000 members who pay top dollar for high-quality whole food.

In the Amish village of Bird-in-Hand in a remote area of Pennsylvania, Miller’s Organic Farm has been in business for a century. Today, it supplies organic foods—grass-fed beef, raw milk and eggs, dairy from grass-fed water buffalo, and all types of produce—to a private food club of 4,000 members who pay top dollar for high-quality whole food.

Members want food from a farmer who doesn’t process his meat and dairy products at U.S. Department of Agriculture facilities. Aaron Miller, the owner, chooses to defend his preparation of food as the way God intended it. He himself has run the farm for a quarter of a century with no electricity, no fertilizer, and no gasoline. Observers are impressed with crop yields he achieves by the oldest, and 100 percent, organic methods.

The farm’s website says: “We are proud to be entirely chemical, cruelty, and GMO-free.”

The farm’s website says: “We are proud to be entirely chemical, cruelty, and GMO-free. The animals are born and raised without antibiotics or hormones, and they spend their entire lives naturally and stress-free out on the pasture. All the farm’s food is traceable, pure, and grown on nutrient-dense soil, under traditional time-honored methods.”

Sounds to me like the consolidated dream about a dozen environmentalist organizations: opposing animal cruelty, GMO, and use of chemical fertilizers—not to mention eliminating fossil fuels (no gas, no electricity).

Armed federal agents sent by the USDA demanded that Miller cease operations.

Last summer, armed federal agents sent by the USDA demanded that Miller cease operations and prepared to hit him with more than $300,000 in fines. That would shut Amos Miller down.

They demanded that he stop selling meat until he comes under federal agencies that regulate it. Miller responds that such regulation “hurts the nutrition of the food…you wash it in these things, you’re given these vaccines, and the cows get all types of medicine, I don’t do any of that…your regulatory process will actually hurt the quality of my food and that’s what I’m being paid top dollar for…”

Federal agents camped at the farm to take an inventory of his meat, dairy, and other food to make sure he is not selling anything and not increasing his production.

Miller took the case to the U.S. District Court of Eastern Pennsylvania, which ruled in favor of the USDA. The USDA dictated the following text required to be posted on the farm’s website:

“To the Members of Miller’s Organic Farm:

“Please be advised…Miller’s Organic Farm violated the Court’s Injunction Order and Consent Decree. Accordingly, we will not provide fresh or newly slaughtered amenable meat, meat food products, poultry, and poultry products for sale or purchase unless and until Miller’s Organic Farm liquidates its existing…frozen meat and poultry inventory and complies with other requirements of this Order and other orders of the Court….

“We are working diligently with the government to find some long-term solutions….”

But what “long-term” (or even short-term) solution? Miller’s farm is in violation of what might be called “bedrock” USDA regulations. The court order listing violations is an outline of the USDA’s Food and Inspection Service regimen. Farmer Miller’s own judgment of how to produce the highest quality food is a flat-out rejection of regulation. A decision of the court suggests the government’s position on Miller’s methods.

On July 21, 2021, Federal Judge Edward G. Smith signed a 39-page order imposing sanctions on Miller and the farm, including a $250,000 fine and other penalties “to effect defendants’ future compliance, by making them aware of the seriousness of their violations and the consequences of future violations….”

The farm was ordered to pay the fine within 30 days or face further penalties “including imprisonment of Amos Miller.”

The farm is ordered not to slaughter any animals in violation of the order or face a $25,000 a day penalty. Miller is ordered to cease and desist all meat and poultry retail operations, except to get rid of inventory.

In the summer of 2022, Amos Miller, continuing his six-year legal battle with the USDA (represented by the U.S. Justice Department), filed papers with the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania. Miller also has taken some of the decision-making to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, including an appeal to change attorneys (which has been denied).

The laissez faire position on government regulation is that by overriding the judgment of individuals about production, trade, purchases, professional practice—virtually any and every facet of economic life—regulation violates the right to liberty and property. Because the individual’s judgments, choices, and actions—and the value he obtains thereby–equate with the process of living, regulation in the end violates our right to life.

Regulation substitutes the judgment of government, imposed by threat of fines and imprisonment, for that of individuals. It overrides the judgment of those directly involved in and responsible for every phase of economic life (and many other areas, of course), substituting government bureaucracy.

Translated into practice that means curtailment of invention, imagination, experimentation, innovation, initiative, and value preferences. Most regulation is imposed on the grounds of protecting us. But the most powerful incentive for business to offer consumers safety, quality, convenience, fair treatment, and honesty is the profit motive—as all of us know when we must sell what we produce or buy what we need.

Among the worst effects of regulation, as Alan Greenspan argued in “The Assault on Integrity,” is that it pretends to guarantee all those things—ensuring us government is taking care of us—and so lessens the competitive edge that companies can achieve by earning a reputation for safety, quality, cleanliness, integrity, and much more. Consumers come to assume all companies provide those protections only because regulations require it. Consequently, companies have an economic incentive to do no more than comply with the minimum requirements of regulations. This regulation tends to achieve the lowest common denominator: uniform compliance with regulations.

What good will this argument do Amos Miller? It is an argument in principle against regulation. If Miller’s case involved “fringe regulations”—the latest bright idea for extending government control—those regulations might be rolled back.

Unfortunately, regulations had their birth in America in the realm of food safety and purity.

Unfortunately, regulations had their birth in America in the realm of food safety and purity. Amos Miller’s concept of how to produce the highest quality food flies in the face of the entire regime of regulation. He cannot be treated as an exception because he stands against regulation in principle.

An August 11, 2022, report said federal attorneys want Amos Miller jailed for failing to pay $105,065 in fines and court costs….“The United States submits that Mr. Miller’s continuing recalcitrance and flouting of the court’s orders requires…him to be incarcerated….”

And so, to return to the beginning of this article: What is the point of describing a problem that cannot be remedied? The only answer I see is that the case of Amos Miller drives us back to consideration of the fundamental clash of liberty with regulation—a clash in principle. And back to what is at stake for human productivity.

William L. Anderson, writing for the Mises Institute, traces the origins and growth of regulation, especially during the Progressive Era in the United States, and rightly concludes:

“This…out-of-control system cannot be ‘fixed’ by politicians. Furthermore, no U.S. president is going to voluntarily surrender his powers….Yet, the modern regulatory apparatus is as much a threat to the freedom and well-being of us all as was the destructive system of rules imposed by [French comptroller, 1665-1683, Jean-Baptiste] Colbert upon the hapless French populace.

“It is not becoming a law unto itself; it already has reached that stage. The only thing that can be done to end this reign of terror by bureaucrats is to abolish the entire U.S. regulatory system and return to the common law system that served this country so well for so long.”

Yes, there is an alternative to regulation, one completely consistent with freedom. Any business can be sued for harm caused by its products, services, financial dealings, fraudulent claims, and misrepresentations—to take but a few examples.

(Necessary note: Today, traditional liability law has been captured and corrupted by lawyers chasing huge “contingency fees,” often 30 or 40 percent of a settlement, which they collect if they win a case. That does not negate liability law; it is an abuse, a separate problem with separate solutions for another discussion.)

Common law in fields such as liability and negligence operates on the same principle as criminal law. A person is free to act without intervention of the authorities until charged with a violation of the law—in other words, a violation of another’s rights. If the alleged violation involves (broadly speaking) some variant on fraud, the recourse is to civil law with due process and other protections.

The fundamental distinction between regulation and remedy at common law is the crucial distinction between preventive law and remedial law.

The fundamental distinction between regulation and remedy at common law is the crucial distinction between preventive law and remedial law. No evidence has been adduced and no one has charged that Amos Miller has harmed anyone—quite the contrary. But regulations have made him a criminal facing ruinous fines and jail.

Of course, businesses like Amos’s can always voluntarily form, or join, privately-owned industry bodies that certify products as safe, organic, locally produced etc.—certifications, if uncorrupted, consumers may come to rely on and pay extra for. Such industry bodies, too, are subject to remedies at law if corruption or negligence occurs, and would be no less upright than government regulators.

Of course, businesses like Amos’s can always voluntarily form, or join, privately-owned industry bodies that certify products.

Among many private organizations of organic farmers, setting standards and defending their independence, is Organic Valley, America’s largest farmer-owned organic cooperative. It serves almost 1,800 organic family farms and its member-farms make up more than 10% of all U.S. certified organic farms, producing more than 30% of the organic milk sold in the United States. Other member farm families are in England, Canada, and Australia. The farms get some of the world’s highest dairy prices—and all have access to veterinary, agronomy and financial tools designed especially for organic sustainability and profit. Included are organic egg, meats, produce, and livestock feed producers. Government regulations—and threats of fines and jail—are not the only way to organize and systematize quality.

Legal update: A story updating Miller’s case appeared December 20, 2022, reporting that Miller had reached another agreement with the federal government to avoid jail and pay reduced fines and costs spread out over time. He can use or sell the meat government agents seized in May, 2021, when they raided the farm. Miller’s attorney said: ““It is a good first step to hopefully a global resolution that keeps Amos’ farm operating, gets people the food they need and want, and satisfies any legitimate governmental concerns.” Apparently, the settlement made reference to protecting “faith-based practices” because Miller is Amish. The court appointed an “independent expert” to work with Miller on “compliance issues.”

 

 

This was first published by EconLib of Liberty Fund, in two parts, on November 6 and 8, 2022, and is reprinted with permission. The article has been updated.

 

 

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