Saturday I did my first Zoom conference.  If you watch my speaking itinerary, you would know that I was scheduled to be in  West Virginia for a Food Freedom Rally sponsored by Roy Ramey, who is running this year for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture.

             It does my heart good to know that people like this still exist.  Here is his agenda:

 1.  Legalize raw milk.  "Let's get rid of prohibitions on products."  He's also fine with moonshiners.  How cool is that?

 2.  Remove restrictions on industrial hemp.  Eliminate the unnatural and ridiculous .3 THC rule and let it grow at whatever level it wants.

 3.  Decriminalize cannabis altogether.  That would help people get off opiods and empty jails.  "I see no reason to send someone to jail because he consumed a plant."  How refreshing is that?

 4.  Establish more farmers' markets.

 5.  Facilitate and encourage more community-based slaughter houses.

 6.  Actions at the federal level:

             a.  Defend food freedom against federal rules, including the Food Safety Modernization Act.  "Stand up to the feds and say 'we're just not going to do that.'"

 I like this one:  "I'm not here to enforce federal law; I'm here to empower our own people."

             b.  Push for the adoption of the Prime Act (if you missed that, look at yesterday's blog post for the whole scoop on that delightful bill).

             c.  Farm Fresh Dairy Act changes to keep the federal agencies out of the dairy business.

 7.  Training and education:  use state farms as demonstration farms for permaculture and pastured livestock.  Do workshops on marketing, selling, pastured livestock, how to build soil and successful cold calls.

             "Let's be a beachhead for other states."

 8.  Change the department of agriculture substantially.  "Lots of bureaucrats are socialists and favor industrial agriculture systems.  My first day in office I'll give out lots of pink slips."

             "Instead of being in the way, I'll lead the way.  It all comes to freedom of choice.  If a law is unconstitutional I won't enforce it."

             For anyone not sure about his position on other things, he summed it up this way:  "You can do what you think you need to do as long as you're not imposing your will on me."

             He said the governor did not have the power to shut down private citizens and businesses:  "I've called out the governor for this unconstitutional action."

             Whew!  You might not agree with everything, but you've got to admit, a guy like that as Commissioner of Agriculture would sure make a more secure and resilient food and farm system.  Sounds good to me.

             Can you imagine permaculture demonstrations on state agriculture experiment farms?   As you went through his list, what do you think he missed?