“We’re gonna storm the gates. They just don’t know it yet.” – Joel Salatin
How do you circumvent the centralized food system and government and achieve food independence for yourself and your community? Several hundred food and health freedom enthusiasts travelled from across the US to gather at the Rogue Food Conference at the world renowned regenerative Polyface Farm on August 14 to find out. These rogues and apprentice rogues believe they have the right to grow, eat and sell food without interference from the government. Speakers – many of whom have found themselves behind bars due to challenging bureaucrats and politicians – talked about how there is strength in numbers; how to use creative circumvention and tactics; how banding together and supporting each other as a community is the key to victory; and the community building constructs including food churches, buying clubs, and other local food approaches. And any Polyface gathering is going to include delicious nutrient-dense food grown on the farm – fresh fruit, eggs, sausage links and coffee for breakfast and BBQ chicken and salad for lunch – which energized everyone to listen, learn, network and soak in the beautiful landscape of the mountains and the Shenandoah Valley.
Polyface co-owner Joel Salatin kicked off the gathering with a reading of Milton Mayer’s somber “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45,” Chapter 13 “But Then It Was Too Late.” Attentive listeners recognized the unmistakable eerie historical comparison with today’s threatening Covid/Great Reset technocrats attempting to tyrannize America – indeed the world.
Those passionate about food freedom and health independence are a growing grassroots community who are disengaging families, livelihoods, and money from the system. They oppose the planned global technocratic tyrannical agenda of multiple forced toxic shots. These freedom lovers do not want their movement to be tracked and traced where every element of a sovereign free life is rewarded or punished, denied or granted based on a social credit score. “We are here early to defend personal responsibility,” said Salatin. “There is so much talent and heart in this movement. We are creating an alternate universe. This is the remnant. This is our tribe.” He announced plans to take future rogue food events on the road and offered Polyface as a venue for future gatherings for like-minded groups if they find themselves shut out of other locations.
Joel Salatin and his son Daniel who manages the day to day operations of Polyface Farm.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and his childhood sweetheart wife Rhonda were “two hillbillies at MIT” inventing virtual reality devices and building super conductors when they decided they missed Kentucky and bought her parents’ farm. “When my farm grows up, it wants to be Polyface,” he said. The local government kept passing laws telling farmers what to do their land. Massie ignored this for a while and then wrote a letter to the editor which resulted in a public hearing that stopped the proposed raising of taxes. The Planning Commission turned into a Zoning Commission and was planning to require farmers to ask the local government for permission as to what they could do with their property. Thirty people showed up at the meeting and everyone gave Massie their five minutes to speak. The county now has no zoning. Massie needed a new water heater and was told it would cost $12,000 to pass inspection. The county only had one licensed plumber, and he was aware that inmates were being housed to profit off their human capital, so he enlisted the convicts to help him install the heater. He got it done for $5,500. The parts of the old heater had been stripped off, but Massie noticed the inspection sticker and told the inmates to put it on the new heater. The judge told him he would go to jail; Massie said at least he would have a hot shower. He ran for Lewis County Judge Executive and won. Then he decided to return to AI and virtual reality and ran for Congress. When Massie insisted on getting a roll call vote on the $2 trillion Covid relief bill in 2020, warning it was a massive wealth transfer from the middle class to the rich, he received a lot of pressure, and not only from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He noticed a call coming from the White House and let it go into voicemail, and then another. When he finally talked with the president, Trump threatened to go after him to keep him from winning reelection. When Massie introduced a bill to prohibit federal interference with the interstate traffic of raw milk and milk products packaged for human consumption, the milk lobby went after him: “I didn’t know the lactose lobby was so tolerant.” Massie introduced the PRIME Act to give states the freedom to permit the intrastate distribution of custom-slaughtered meat to consumers, restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, and boarding houses. He introduced the Industrial Hemp Act as an amendment to the Farm Bill. Massie sits on powerful the House Rules Committee and assured its passage. The act excludes hemp from the definition of marijuana. He is supporting a bill that would block the Pentagon from forcing Covid shots on servicemen. He is asking questions on Twitter rather than making declarations, a tactic he says, that thus far bypasses censorship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18_yXt1s2yc
Congressman Thomas Massie
Many longtime sufferers from chronic illnesses are motivated to join the food/health freedom movement. That is true of John Moody, who runs a family farm with his wife and three children in Kentucky and is founder and director of Steader.com, an online platform for homesteaders and farmers. Moody started the Whole Food Buyer’s Club (WFBC) which works with local and regional farmers, artisans and companies to source the best items working for a sustainable food and farming future. Rule #1: Don’t sell anything. “People give us their money and we get the food for them.” #2: Farmers get 80% on the dollar. One reason why conservative libertarians lose is that while they are principled, they don’t understand how to win. Meanwhile the bad guys, the side they are fighting, are “tactically brilliant.” In 2011 the Kentucky county and state health departments served his club with a quarantine and cease and desist order. He got the Farm-to-Consumer-Legal Defense Fund on the line and an ally from the Kentucky Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy was on hand. “What do you do when the ones charged with protecting your rights violate them?” He studied the Kentucky Constitution and learned his rights and that of the WFBC members. His members broke the quarantine and got their products. He organized an email and call-in campaign into the health department who backed off claiming it was all a mistake. “People are waiting to stand up,” he said. “They will fall in line behind you.”
https://louisvillewholelife.org
Family farmer John Moody
Small business owner Andrew Cooperrider lost his Dean’s Diner in Kentucky in June 2020 during the first Covid shutdown. He defied county and state orders to close indoor dining in his coffee shop Brewed. His license was suspended but he stayed open. “Come and take it,” he said. “I have more to gain by resisting than to comply.” He had asked Gov. Andy Beshear for a pause on rent and other bills so he wouldn’t lose his business. He received so much support from customers who waited in line for an hour that he ran out of food. The county health department sued Cooperrider, but the case was dismissed. He cited the assistance of the Kentucky Restaurant Rescue Coalition. “They gave me back my food license to make me go away.” In January along with three other citizens he filed a petition calling for the impeachment of Gov. Beshear on the grounds that he violated the Kentucky Constitution. In April Cooperrider led a protest at the Kentucky State Capitol to oppose Covid restrictions and shot mandates. “When I first stood up I didn’t know who would stand up with me. There are times when I’m working for nothing (not being paid), but I’m working for the future. We are strong and they have convinced many we are weak. They are weak. We can organize to eat what we want to eat and live the way we want to live.” He is now a candidate for Kentucky Senate District 12.
Feisty Niti Bali founded the Farm to Fork Meat Riot organization as a counter strategy to reestablish the small family regenerative farm food system while circumventing the government. She discussed the concept of food churches where growers and eaters get together without the involvement of bureaucrats and operate with integrity and transparency under the law of nature. “I haven’t been complying for 12 years,” she said. “It’s been lonely.” She advocates individuals take money out of the centralized food system and invest it in their backyards to grow their own food or into regenerative food churches. For a while she was on a mission trying to save people but she realized each individual needs to take responsibility for themselves for what they eat and their health. Now she wears (and sells) T-shirts bearing the sentiment “I don’t care.”
https://www.farmtoforkmeatriot.org
Derrick and Paige Jackson’s 60-acre Grass Grazed Farm in North Durham, North Carolina is based on the principles of sustainable agriculture. The couple who have five children explained how they made the transition “from combat boots to muck boots,” from a 14 year military career to regenerative farming. While deployed, Derrick noticed families with chickens who would eat what they raised. In the US “I didn’t know why people would farm when they were putting locks on their freezers because they were getting raided.” They found out. They wanted to create a subdivision. “Legally we couldn’t do it but we did it anyway,” Derrick said. “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” Paige retorted, “That’s why I bought chickens without telling him.” Their noncompliance was a departure from the military culture where Derrick was taught to follow orders. They ran into obstacles while trying to build their farm business. “During Covid people went crazy and bought everything,” Derrick said. They pursued selling their farm products in grocery stores but found the stores were only interested in sales of a larger volume than the Jacksons could sell. The level of security you have and true freedom are important, they said. The government sent three cars filled with agents. Lesson: Keep your gates closed. “If we had listened to them, we wouldn’t be in business. If we comply we don’t have security.” He encouraged everyone to start a farm or homestead. “There are things you can do that won’t throw you in jail” pointing out that Polyface has resources.
Family farmers Paige and Derrick Jackson
Self-educated firecracker Christine Solem’s “heart, savvy and passion” led her to fight the system and she learned how to do it by reading law books. It’s her “old age mission” to circumvent government rules against selling raw goat milk by buying goat herd shares, giving away raw milk and taking donations or buying manure and giving milk away. She’s been in the fight a long time. In 1980 a case involving her attempt to legally provide unpasteurized milk without selling it via a lease a goat program went to the Virginia Supreme Court. She fought the CDC which was opposed to raw milk and lobbied Governor Northam “who does not entertain any alternate opinion.” As a goat cheese producer, she won a circuit court ruling in 2001 barring federal inspectors from searching her home without a warrant. She battled it out with Whole Foods, refusing to wear a mask on the grounds that she had a medical exemption. She was charged with shoplifting – she was found innocent – and trespassing, was arrested and posed for a mug shot. “Don’t give up, don’t comply,” she says. “If you can’t figure out a way to outsmart bureaucrats, you’re in trouble.”
https://law.justia.com/cases/virginia/supreme-court/1983/802031-1.html
For many years, raw milk activist Max Kane’s body was wasting away from Crohn’s disease until he healed himself by drinking unpasteurized goat milk. During this healing process, he felt a strong connection with God. He joined the Raw Milk Freedom Riders for a rally at the FDA national headquarters in Maryland. DHS SUVs and sheriffs showed up and cookies and raw milk were served. He realized the government was criminalizing the right of individuals to preserve their heritage and sovereignty and control the food they put into their bodies. “Moms and dads are being treated like Al Qaeda.” The self-described raw milk criminal risked going to prison because he wouldn’t inform on his fellow buyers and sellers on behalf of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection which answered to the FDA. Government agents in black SUVs showed up at his house where he and his wife home schooled and home birthed their four children, harassing him to show them the birth certificate of their four week old daughter. This was his first confrontation with activism and he was terrified about facing 18 months in jail, but the food freedom community came to his rescue. Mark McAfee, president of Organic Pastures Dairy Company, encouraged him to fight on and Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Westin A. Price Foundation, reassured him he would receive financial support for his legal case. Without the assistance “I probably would have caved in,” Kane admitted. “My sheriff stood up for me,” he said. “The bailiff is the sheriff’s deputy, not the judge’s secret police.” The sheriff told the bailiff to walk Kane to jail and at the jailhouse the sheriff let him go. Lessons learned: 1) Everyone needs to take responsibility to learn and fight for their own rights 2) Be willing to be uncomfortable 3) Be stubborn and 4) Understand the Constitution. The people are sovereign over the government; the states are sovereign over the federal government; and the 9th Amendment under the Bill of Rights states individuals have rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfQT6P4HdS3QQvk6bK45hsQ
Raw milk activist Max Kane
Referring to the speakers, Franklin Sanders, aka The Moneychanger, said to Salatin, “I didn’t know you were going to have all these people here today who had gone to jail.” Sanders is a big advocate of gold and silver; he also likes cryptocurrency. Once upon a time US money was backed by gold but now under the fiat paper money system the Federal Reserve – a private entity – controls credit and prints public money out of thin air, and “it saps the life and profit out of everything you do. We are debt slaves. Don’t use their money.” The Fed has doubled the money supply from 2020-2021 and there is no way they will not destroy the buying power of money. The globalists’ plan is a digital currency and they could flip the switch and deny access to anyone’s account. The only way to avoid that is with gold and silver. “Bad money drives good money out of circulation,” he said. “Disentangle yourself from the system.” Sanders said, “We must rebuild local communities.” Salatin said in 1946 the average mileage for food to travel from the farm to table was 40 miles. Virginia loses $4 million a day importing beef.
Dennis Stoltzfoos and his wife Alicia, the owners of Full Circle Farm in Florida, related the story of how they were charged with one criminal misdemeanor for selling food (raw milk) without a permit. At pretrial hearings, they were sandwiched in between shoplifters and opium and meth users and distributors. Not one customer had complained about getting sick from the food, in fact, the couple introduced the testimony of 100 customers who said the product had benefited their health. After 12 years, Stoltzfoos had let his license lapse, and an undercover agent purchased the raw milk and other products resulting in the filing of criminal and administrative charges against the couple. They are allowed to sell the product if they claim it is pet food. The couple was found guilty, but the massive showing of support in the courtroom and the testimonies influenced the judge’s decision to defer the sentence. The Westin A. Price Foundation played a role in assisting with the couple’s defense.
https://www.realmilk.com/farmer-wife-and-law-on-trial-in-florida/