I first met Mark and Jill Baker at the Speakers’ Dinner at the 2012 Wise Traditions Conference in Santa Clara, California. Mark, Jill and I sat at the same table that evening and the three of us along with several other folks stayed up long after dinner had finished talking about a wide range of topics related to the growing local food movement in America.
Mark and Jill are the kind of family you would want living next door. Honest and hardworking with 8 beautiful children, the family works together to run Baker’s Green Acres, a small, peaceful, local farm in Marion, Michigan – a jewel of their community.
Baker’s Green Acres is a sustainable farm where, among other bio-diverse activities, the family raises a heritage breed of hogs called Mangalitsa, a special breed that produces a gourmet quality meat prized by high-end restaurants as well as health conscious consumers seeking nutrient dense, locally produced meat.
Mark and Jill started Baker’s Green Acres 10 years ago after Mark retired after 20 years serving his country in the US Air Force. Unfortunately, the country he put his life on the line to protect has not afforded him the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness he thought he was defending.
Any Pig Living in the Open Air Deemed “Feral” and “Illegal”
The problems all started back in 2010 when the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued the Invasive Species Order, approved by the governor, which banned all heritage pigs.
The DNR order is intentionally ambiguous in its description of what it calls “feral” pigs.
Ambiguity renders power, essentially allowing the DNR to shut down any hog farmer it chooses.
According to Mark, “They’re saying any pig with a curly tail or a straight tail is an illegal pig … any pig with floppy ears or erect ears is an illegal pig.”
In essence, any pigs were deemed illegal if not living within a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), those huge, abhorrent industrialized farms run by Big Ag where unspeakable acts of animal cruelty, filth and negligence take place behind closed doors and beyond the prying eyes of the public.
Unbelievably, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources arrogantly labeled any pig living outside in the open air as “feral” and ordered owners of such pigs to destroy them.
Yes, this is what is happening today – right NOW – in the United States of America. Sounds more like the Soviet Russia we learned about in history class where people could be locked up for having a backyard garden!
Baker’s Green Acres Refuses to Comply With Pig Destruction Order
In what no doubt took an incredible amount of courage, Mark and Jill decided to defy the DNR order.
They have sued the state of Michigan seeking to prove in court that the Michigan Pork Producers Association is the initiator of the law classifying all non-CAFO pigs as a “feral” invasive species.
Mark’s belief is that the growing popularity of heritage-breed meat and poultry threatens the factory farming, industrial confinement model. Big Ag will stop at nothing to eliminate the competition while still in its infancy stage but growing rapidly.
According to a recent interview with Food Riot Radio, Mark said:
“If they can issue a declaratory ruling that says anything with a straight tail or curly tail is an illegal pig, and neither the governor, the legislature or the courts say ‘hey wait a minute,’ then what’s to stop them from issuing a declaratory ruling that says any cow that is brown is feral and must be disposed of, or any chicken that is not raised in a hen house is a feral chicken?”
“Industrial agriculture wants all the market share. They want all the small farmers off the land, and they want to own the entire food production model.”
“Our little pig thing is a microcosm of what’s going on nationally. If we let Big Ag win, it will be a grim future for our children and grandchildren. We’re all in this together.”
Through his courageous stand for Food Freedom, it seems that Mark Baker is helping to secure the continued right of Americans to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as they see fit more as a farmer than he ever did as a soldier.
Mark and Jill Need Our Help Now!
Mark and Jill’s case against the state of Michigan to overturn this order has cost their family dearly.
This family is at the end of its rope financially – the state is seeking fines of $700,000 and has impaired their ability to sell food from the farm – literally trying to starve them out and put them on the street with continued delay tactics. The last I heard, even their power had been cut off.
Mark’s plea:
“There are plenty of us [farmers] that are fighters, perpetual warriors, but we don’t have ammunition to put this fight on. So we’re looking to other Americans and saying please give us some ammunition, and that’s money, U.S. dollars. You can pray for me and pat me on the back and that’s great, but if I can’t pay lawyers to do their job, it doesn’t happen. And I’m at the end of my rope right now, and I need help. There it is — I need help.”
Can you please help them? Donations of any size would be a blessing. It is farms like Baker’s Green Acres that must be saved for a future to exist where our children and grandchildren have the right to choose food to nourish themselves from the local farms of their choosing – free from an industrially produced model.
The hopeful news is that a court hearing is finally coming this month with a celebration of the farm to follow. If you live anywhere in Michigan and can support them at the court hearing or farm event, here are the details:
July 12-13, 2013
2:00pm
Missaukee County Courthouse
111 Canal Street Lake City MI
Food Freedom is the civil rights movement of our time. Let’s all stand together as modern day Patriots to support Mark and Jill and help them set an important precedent against the bureaucratic food terror being wreaked against local farms producing the type of food we need and our children deserve to live a long, healthy life.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources:
I would like to come and show my support on Friday but I live in Toledo, OH. I see it says “anyone living in Michigan” can come show support – I’m wondering is that a general invitation for anyone in the area or do you have to live in Michigan to come?
I think it would be FANTASTIC for you to attend and it would send a strong message that this issue affects everyone and that people everywhere are intensely interested in the outcome of this debacle. You could bring some friends from Ohio and let the organizers know you are coming so they can spread the word.
These folks need to understand the nature of the courts these days. Most of us assume that there is justice if we present the facts; we are innocent and that will win the day. Not so! Facts are on the moon. We are no longer dealing with Common Law, but Statutory Law. If we don’t begin to grasp this, we will lose every time. This time it’s pigs; tomorrow it may be the children.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/sui_juris/uccconnection.html
Legal term of feral,
Is a domesticated animal returned to the wild. They are allowed to roam but not returned to the wild.
Put collars on all the pigs and call them pets!
Could they possibly put something on change.org?
Here is an official document from the Michigan DNR that illustrates exactly which type of pig is prohibited:
It looks like the type of pig the Bakers are raising does not fall under that category. Hopefully they show this to their lawyer and are successful at their court hearing.
Vote out everyone of those government officials, all of them and start over.
We have a local restaurant here called 8 Twelve…it is owned by Ryan Braun (from the Milwaukee Brewers) and Aaron Rogers of the Green Bay Packers). They actually raise Mangalitsa pork for the restaurant. I posted it there…maybe it will get some more press because of the celebrity factor. Here’s praying!!
The only reason you get away with calling this the “civil rights” issue of our time is because all of your readers must be white. Civil rights were just violated with the Supreme Court over ruling parts of the Voting Rights Act. I hope Sarah that you claim some responsibility for acts by unhinged people who read your blog and get so incensed against “the government” that they go the way of Timothy McVeigh. You up your readership with inflammatory language and then you – like other provacateurs – claim no responsibility for how people act as a result. The government is people we elected, and the people who work for the government are us as well – just like the farmer in the story who worked for the government military. Yes, we need to support this family with dollars. We also need to stop the anti-government rhetoric. Enough already! There are just so many other ways to have written this story. How did my desire for good food land me in the middle of the right wing crazies? After all Sarah, you seem to be one of the smartest and best educated of the real food bloggers I have found – so disappointing.
You, obviously, don’t have a handle yet on what the gov’t is doing. Actually, the gov’t is the puppet of the gigantic corporations that run the world, and there are only a few of them. THEY run “our” government; we, the people, don’t.
MsJob…
Unfortunately it is the government that is shutting down your only resource for “good food” as you call it. If it were not true then there would be no need for the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund or any others like it.
Under our constitution the only people who should be able to bring suit against this farmer are his clients… as they are the only one’s who can seek damages, under true constitutional law anyway…. So your perfect “run by us” government is at fault for trying to put this man out of his right to liberty and his pursuit of happiness…. and until we actually do control this monster you will continue to hear about stories like this one as this is happening all around you… and if your government succeeds in being able to sue the small farm for some stupid reason (even though they have not been damaged in any way) then you will no longer have access to your “good food” anymore.
MsJob, this is a very important issue, and one that needs to be addressed. I am not a right wing crazie, as you put it. I am a farmer and I’ll be damned if my elected officials take away my right to farm… or anyone else’s right to farm! This is the reason for the post.
IMO you should be po’d at yourself for letting your government do these types of things to us… not the “right wing crazies”… they are the one’s trying to fix the crap you guys and your government let through the cracks.
And yes, I vote, and yes my husband is a war veteran, and yes I am a farmer! And yes I am mad as hell at what is going on around me!
The ironic thing is that this is happening in a state run by those “right wing crazies”, from Governor Snyder on down. Michigan is a hot mess. This is the state with Snyder’s “Emergency Manager” law (against the people’s wishes), where he can literally go into an area of the state, oust the officials elected by the people, and place an “emergency manager” to take over. CRIMINALS… all of them! Snyder could have stopped this ridiculous, illegal, unconstitutional “feral pig” law.
The big question is what will the people of Michigan do at the polls in 2014? Will they re-elect these criminals?
This is all part of Regional Planning and Agenda 21. By using environmental issues planners control private property owners’ rights.