Amos Miller
Amos Miller, a simple Amish farmer making food the same way generations before him did and he hopes generations after him will, stands at the forefront of the Food Freedom struggle in America. Do you control what you put into your body, or does the government? Can the family farmer survive against corporatized, industrialized and monopolized Big Ag? Will public health continue to deteriorate as essential foods made in a traditional, organic way vanish from the food supply?
Amos makes and distributes food to fellow members of his Amish community and to private members of his farm association who want and need food made the Amos way, not the government way. Many people need this food for either medical, religious or politically expressive purposes, or all of the above. This liberty interest warrants Constitutional consecration, as the liberty to buy traditional, essential foods directly from the farmer is deeply rooted in American tradition and fundamental to the American way of life. This liberty interest holds medical, religious and politically expressive value to millions of Americans, and as such, warrants protection under the Due Process Clause of the Bill of Rights of the American Constitution.
At our founding, most Americans consumed their food from local farmers they knew and trusted, especially dairy, meat and poultry. Today, barely 2% of all of America's food supply comes from farmers we know and trust. Nearly 90% of all our food comes from a few Big Ag conglomerates in their corporatized, industrialized, anonymized food processing, sterilized with chemicals, additives, and preservatives. It was these kind of chemicals, additives and preservatives Americans considered adulterating their food that led to law regulating the labeling of that food. Yet today, government regulators demand the corporatized standard be the only standard allowed for food production in America. Government regulators standardize the food supply to conform to corporate America's food processing, eliminating the small family farmer using traditional and organic methods to produce essential foods. As Big Ag monopolized our food supply, our public health continues to decline and deteriorate, medically critical methods of food production vanish, religiously important means of food production disappear, and politically expressive support for these traditional American way of life of family farming fade into textbook memory. As Thomas Jefferson warned, a people who cannot even control their own diet are subject to a tyranny that will ruin their souls.
The irony here is that the government regulation of the food supply was never intended for the family farmer selling to his knowing neighbor. For almost all of American history, the liberty to buy food directly from the farmer protected Food Freedom of everyday Americans, while also enabling self-reliance, sustainable food supply, medically supportive food diversity, and religiously compliant methods of food production. In the 20th century, as big corporations took over more of the food supply, concerns arose with the lack of Informed Consent in American diets, as Americans increasingly had no clue about the source of their food. Regulation of the food supply expanded to protect Americans' informed consent in corporatized, industrialized food processing, creating standards that befit those industrialized, corporatized methods of food production. Of note, federal law, and most state laws, continued to expressly and explicitly exempt food directly obtained from a farmer throughout almost all of the 20th century. In the late 1960's, federal law changed, even though a new "custom exception" was intended to continue to protect this farm-to-table liberty interest, but enforcement of the exception grew fallow, as regulators increasingly saw their role as to control what goes into every fridge, regardless of what the consumer wanted or needed. Not coincidentally, this furthered the monopolistic interests of the Big Ag conglomerates, as their share of control of the food supply grew to over 90%, and the farmer-to-consumer, farm-to-table share of the market shrunk by nearly 90%. Many of these regulators have never worked at a family farm, and many of them cash in on their government work with those same corporate conglomerates.
Indeed, Amos Miller shares the product of the Amish way of life, giving Americans an exit ramp from a world increasingly dominated by Big Ag, Big Pharma, and Big Tech. The Amish enjoy a lifestyle free of the dominance of Big Ag, Big Pharma, and Big Tech, and what do we see? By every meaningful objective metric, the Amish are healthier, happier and freer than the average American caught in the corporate grid. They are a control group that presents proof of the benefits of the alternative to the Big Food lifestyle. The government regulators think they know better than family farmers and their neighbors on what's good for them, serving the interests of the big corporations they were supposed to limit.
If Amos Miller loses, and the government succeeds in bankrupting his family farm, then Americans lose their means and liberty to choose for themselves what food they consume, people with medical needs for his food suffer physical harm, an Amish community loses the economic foundation for its continued independent religious community, and the family farming foundation of American life disappears into memory. Imagine a world where the government decides what goes in your fridge or in your body, not you. That is why Amos' struggle is America's struggle. Amos Miller defines America: a family farmer, providing essential foods to his neighbors and members, critical employment to his Amish community of deep faith, making that food in a sustainable, organic, traditional way essential to the medical, religious and politically expressive needs of his community and members, that promotes overall public health in the diversified diets afforded. Stand with America. Stand with Amos. You can still find Amos' food at amosmillerorganicfarm.com
““If you don’t control your own body, you’re little different from chattel.”
““An America without Amos Miller ain’t America anymore.””
“ A Government that controls your diet, controls you, and liberty dies.” ”