He’ll take his proposal to Troy Town Board
By Jen Bradley
Correspondent
When a judge ruled that “plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice,” natural health care provider Brandon LaGreca did not agree.
He is lobbying the Town of Troy to approve a resolution and ordinance intended to protect the remaining freedoms its residents have in terms of access to raw foods from local farms.
LaGreca, owner of East Troy Acupuncture, said the ability to choose foods with which to nourish yourself is a fundamental human right, and wonders why food freedom extends to fast food and donuts, but not raw milk and other natural foods?
That is why he is bringing the proposal to the Town Board at its June 12 monthly meeting. He understands that the current state laws in place cannot be changed by the town’s actions, and he isn’t asking the town to put itself in a legal battle.
“It think it has a lot of value and is worth passing and here’s why: By coming together as a town and passing this ordinance and making it part of the resolution, accessible for the state to see, we are making a movement,” he explained. “If the Town of Troy and several other towns in this area pass a similar ordinance, that has a lot of political weight.”
Resolution for freedom
LaGreca said that his mission has three fundamental objectives:
1. Protect and increase access to local unprocessed foods;
2. Strengthen community relationships and reinstate trust as an effective means of self-governance; and
3. Revitalize rural economies by providing small business opportunities to family farms and artisan producers.
He said the ordinance, which stems from a similar one in Eldorado County, Calif., acts as both an ordinance and a resolution. That ordinance said the town supports the current laws, and kept them intact, protecting them for the way they are. However, the resolution rejects further regulation.
“Part of the reason is to set a precedent,” he said. “If another statewide regulation is passed, would those family farms be protected by grandfathering into it? Potentially.”
He gives the example of raw cider, which is still permissible for direct sale. If a year down the road, that is under attack, he said, a town ordinance may be enough to protect it in the township. And if it isn’t, it still sends a statement to Madison, saying the Town of Troy is against further regulations.
As far as those things which are currently regulated – such as raw milk, “the short answer is no,” LaGreca added. “The ordinance will not suddenly make those things legal.”
He said there are still people lobbying at the state level to revoke the raw milk ban, and the Town of Troy passing this ordinance will only strengthen those efforts by sending a clear message to legislators.
While the Town of Troy can’t change state law, it can “stand together and say this is what we’re opposed to and what we’d like to see happen,” LaGreca said. He adds that the larger goal is for several communities take his lead and follow suit.
Food rules
As an alternative health care provider, LaGreca would like to see his patients, his family and the entire community have access to local, natural foods. One example he gives is raw sauerkraut. This is something he regularly recommends to patients for its strong probiotic content, but cannot be bought anywhere. (A more comprehensive list he compiled of the currently regulated and unregulated foods is available in a sidebar to this story).
Salad is one of the “iffy” things as well. A person can sell lettuce from their garden, as it’s a vegetable, but if it’s washed and combined with other types of lettuce and sold as a salad mix, that’s a grey area, according to LaGreca, and one he wants to protect.
Meat is a big one too. Right now a person can process up to 1,000 chickens on a farm and sell them legally. LaGreca said this summer he was considering raising rabbits for meat. “Whatever I don’t use, I can’t sell. The same thing goes with lambs.”
An interesting meat angle is in sausage. A friend of LaGreca’s raises pigs, which do get processed at a state-licensed facility, but the person then likes to bring the pork back to his home to make prosciutto, Italian cured pork. This is a product cannot be sold, and the same goes for pork or beef sausages.
While most people know the cow’s milk story, goat milk is in the same category. LaGreca enjoys making his own kefir, but cannot go down the road and buy goat’s milk from a neighbor. When the cow milk regulation was passed, he and the farm he was obtaining raw milk from tried to organize the business structure so it was his private cow.
The cow was bought by LaGreca, being boarded at the farm, and “we were getting our milk, our rightful property,” he said. The situation went to court, and was denied, which really shook him up.
“You can sell chickens off your farm: for now,” he noted. “I think the raw milk issue is our witness paper for this because we didn’t know it was coming.” He said the cow share program was available for quite some time until the ruling changed. The law didn’t, but the interpretation of it did, which was a “very subtle attempt to take away that food,” he said.
“Does that make me want to prevent that from happening to other things,” he asked. “Yes.”
Keeping rural traditions
LaGreca isn’t the first person to take up this battle, nor will he be the last, which is what he is aiming to do: spread the word.
He has worked with Pete Kennedy at the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund in Falls Church, Va., to draft this ordinance/resolution for the Town of Troy, and weigh which options will work and which ones will not.
In Maine, municipal home rule is being applied in the raw milk debate. LaGreca originally tried to pass that type of ordinance in the Town of Troy, which would have been adverse to state law. “They didn’t want anything to do with it,” he said. “I would love to say let’s really take on this issue and go for self-governance.”
Kennedy told him the clause within Maine’s state constitution has more teeth than in Wisconsin, giving officials there more power to push back against state laws. However, Kennedy explained that he could try to pass a similar law in the town, but if it came to a court case, it would lose.
So, after LaGreca tried that angle in 2012, Kennedy turned him onto the ordinance in Eldorado County, which he is modeling the Town of Troy’s after. It abides by state law, but says the town is not in favor of further regulation.
What LaGreca said is really important to him is maintaining a farmer’s economic stability. Many of the farms affected by current law have been forced to stop operation or deal with the extreme costs of equipment and licensing, LaGreca said.
“A friend can make a pie for another friend and that’s fine, but it becomes sticky when you want to make a business with it,” he said. “I want to be able to support my farmer down the street and buy some cheese in private contract without her feeling she will have regulators on her doorstep.”
While the ordinance/resolution is a new path for the Town of Troy, LaGreca pointed out that it really isn’t. He is proposing the town join together to protect the way things have always been done. “I think this rural way of life is the life blood of a community.”
In doing so, he said, a strong message can be sent. LaGreca is the first person in the state to pursue such a movement, and he hopes others will see the benefit and join him in an effort to protect their community’s farm and food resources.
