03 Nov · Tue 2009

NAIS - WICFA News & Wisconsin NAIS Court Case Updates

Hello WICFA Friends and Members:

We have some good news and some news that is not so good.

First of all, we have rebuilt the WICFA website. It will be much easier to view the site in its entirety using just about any screen resolution.

If you have any content that would be helpful for others to be able to view, please forward it to cj@wicfa.org and we would be glad to review it and possibly post it to our website.

We are looking for some help in putting information together about the raw milk persecutions that are starting to spread around the state. Can you imagine that, we love to call ourselves the dairy state and our state is now attacking farmers for doing just that, dairying?

Secondly, we have opened a special account, the WICFA Legal Fund, to accept donations for the purpose of helping out farmers and ranchers with the associated cost of defending themselves from Wisconsin's Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection.

The account is going to be used as a war chest so if you make a general donation it could actually be split up amongst several different farmers/ranchers who are in need. For instance, if you want to help Patrick and Melissa Monchilovich with the cost of their appeal and your donations end up being more than they need, the extra amount from the donations will sit in the WICFA Legal Fund until another farmer/rancher needs assistance. WICFA is not a non-profit organization since we would not be allowed to lobby if we were set up as such so your donations are not tax-deductible.

There have been several people who have inquired about how they can donate money to help out Patrick and Melissa Monchilovich so we set up this account. As of right now, the only way that you can make donations is to mail a check or money order to WICFA Legal Fund, P.O. Box 225, Bruce, WI 54819. We are looking into setting up a method for online donations.

Now for the not so good news.

There are more farmers and ranchers who are slated to be taken to court over non-compliance with premises registration. According to this article in the Agri-view, http://www.agriview.com/articles/2009/10/29/livestock_news/livestock01.txt , "currently, DATCP has referred documentation for four more possible cases in Richland, Price and two in Pierce Counties. Gilson says there are another seven that will likely be referred in the near future."

Ladies and gentlemen, here it comes. They have been waiting to see how the first case would go and are pretty sure of themselves now that they have the results of Patrick and Melissa's trial in.

We will know more about the Emanuel Miller, Jr. Outcome by January I believe. The judge in that trial, Judge Counsel, set up a time frame of 30 days plus 30 days and then another 15 days for written arguments and rebuttals to be triggered by the completion of the trial transcript which happened sometime last week.

At this point, there are 3 "other" Wisconsin cases mentioned by Gilson are unknown to us, so if you know who they are, please let them know that we are here to help. Membership is not a requirement for help through the WICFA Legal Fund.

Thanks for being on our mailing list and remember to help others find us on the web. The more our membership grows, the more influence we can have down in Madison. We have had some new members trickling in, thank you Jim Scholz of Rhinelander for joining WICFA.

Don't forget that WICFA has an online WICFA Farmers Market. If you have anything for sale from your home, farm, or ranch, we can help you get rid of it if you have an active WICFA membership. Folks, have a great week and enjoy the upcoming warm trend.

Sincerely,

Clifford J. Cordell II
WICFA - President
cj@wicfa.org
www.wicfa.org
(715) 418-0424