By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

MIDDLEBURY, Ind. — David Hochstetler, the Indiana dairy farmer who has a business distributing raw milk to cooperatives, is continuing to keep a low profile after being warned by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that his activities are illegal.

Hochstetler, who is Amish, has not talked to the press directly, except on one occasion. Last February he spoke with an online columnist, David Gumpert, about his situation, after the FDA published its warning letter to him on its website. The letter is still posted.

Hochstetler refused a recent request for an interview, but in earlier public statements he talked about his family and concern about continuing his farming business. He is in his late forties and has eight children.

His 20-year-old son “is showing a big interest in the farm and taking over when I retire,” he said.

According to the previously published report, Hochstetler is earning about triple his revenue of a few years back, since he markets the milk directly to consumers via a cow-share arrangement. Thus, leaving out the processors has been good for business.

Hochstetler expressed concern that if he has to stop distributing milk via the cow-share arrangement, he may end up having to eventually sell off his land in small chunks to developers. Besides the economic concerns, Hochstetler gets a lot of satisfaction distributing milk directly.

“My son and I, we ride along to the drop-off points in Chicago, and we get to meet these people” who are members of the cooperatives, he said. “A lot of mothers say how their children had asthma and allergies and they tried everything the medical profession had to offer, and nothing worked ‘til they tried raw milk.”

After Hochstetler received FDA’s warning letter in February, he met with agency representatives in Detroit, Mich., in March, where he told them that he believed FDA didn’t have jurisdiction over his activities. The FDA told him during the meeting that the agency needed a response from him in writing, and Hochstetler complied. Since that time, seemingly nothing has happened with the case.

According to Pete Kennedy, one of the lawyers who’s been helping Hochstetler deal with FDA, the agency doesn’t have jurisdiction over Hochstetler’s activities because a cow-share arrangement is a lease, and a sale is not a lease under the relevant state laws.
“Even if the federal regulation did apply, it is unconstitutional as applied to his case because his farm is so clean,” Kennedy said.
But just because Hochstetler believes FDA doesn’t have jurisdiction over his activities doesn’t mean FDA will leave him alone. According to the agency’s warning letter, “You should take prompt action to correct this deviation and prevent any future recurrence. Failure to make prompt corrections could result in regulatory action without further notice.”

According to Kennedy, this could mean, among other things, that agents could suddenly show up at Hochstetler’s farm and seize his equipment and supplies.

A spokesman for FDA said the case is still open, so he couldn’t talk about it, but he offered some general observations. If FDA and the recipient of the letter cannot reach an agreement, FDA could take enforcement action against the business. Such action could include “seizure of the violative product or an injunction to prevent them from continuing to produce the product until the violations have been corrected.”

This farm news was published in the Aug. 29, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.