WINGINA, Va. — To some, Richard Bean is a folk hero: the small farmer who dared to sell local, naturally raised pork chops, ribs, sausages and bacon. To the government, Bean looks like a felon.
Since 2001, Bean has sold his pork to restaurants and at farmers markets in the Charlottesville area, where he also offers chicken, vegetables and homemade bread. In many ways, his Double H Farm is exactly what the burgeoning eat-local movement wants: a diversified, family-run farm that sells to nearby customers.
But to make farming sustainable, Bean said, he has evaded government requirements that producers have animals slaughtered and processed in inspected facilities. His defiance led to his arrest Sept. 21 when state police officers, armed and dressed in flak jackets, arrived at the Double H with a search warrant and arrested Bean and his partner, Jean Rinaldi.
Charged with a felony
The officers handcuffed Bean, confiscated the couple’s computer and charged them with felony intent to defraud, which carries the possibility of three years in jail for a conviction. The couple are accused of selling meat improperly labeled “certified organic.” They also face seven misdemeanor charges. No hearing date has been set.
“We were trying to skirt the system. A small farm, making it work,” Bean, 62, said over sandwiches of home-produced ham at his kitchen table. “We were able to earn a significant amount more per animal, and that’s how we are able to compete with corporate agriculture.”
Eat-local proponents, or locavores, say foods grown by nearby, small farms are fresher and better for the environment and local communities than government-certified organic foods, which can come from as far away as New Zealand. Bean is one of a number of small farmers whose stand against state and federal regulations has landed him in legal trouble.
This month, a county sheriff served Michigan cattle farmer Greg Niewendorp with a warrant before he would allow state agriculture officials to test his herd as part of a program to eradicate tuberculosis. In Pennsylvania, dairy farmer Mark Nolt refused to obtain a permit to sell unpasteurized milk, prompting officials to raid his farm and confiscate raw milk, cheese and yogurt as well as equipment and sales records.
Giving cheese away
And in Charlottesville, John Coles and Christine Solem of Satyrfield Farms have dodged state regulations for nearly three years by giving away their raw-milk goat cheese, which is illegal to sell in Virginia. They have been soliciting donations for, as a sign in front of their market stand says, “legislative and court efforts to allow the sales of raw milk, cheese and other farm products.”
Federal and state rules are designed to protect consumers from unsafe foods and provide a level playing field for producers. The Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association declined to comment on Bean and Rinaldi’s case. But spokeswoman Elaine Lidholm said: “Our goal is to bring people into compliance, not to punish them. It is in the best interest of everyone if we can bring these farmers and animal owners into compliance because the law is designed to create a safe food supply.”
For the past three years, no illnesses from meat or poultry in state-inspected plants have been reported. Outbreaks of food-borne illness, however, are difficult to track because most go unreported, she said.
The growing defiance from small farmers illustrates their increasing frustration with rules that they say penalize them and favor industrial producers, who were the source of headline-grabbing disease outbreaks such as the E. coli-infected spinach that killed three people last year and last month’s recall of 21.7 million pounds of ground beef infected with E. coli.
“People are dying of recalled spinach,” Bean said. “It’s not happening here, because you know what happens when it’s a small sale with interaction between farmer and customer? You’re face to face. You have to be a really bad guy to screw your customer.”
Local farm exemption
Bean and other farmers advocate unregulated direct sales of locally grown foods. “What we would like to see is an exemption from government intrusion in direct farmer-to-consumer food transactions,” said Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farm in nearby Swoope, a pioneer of the local food movement and author of “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front.” “In other words, if you want to come to my farm, look and smell around, and make an informed decision to opt out of Wal-Mart, you should have the freedom to do so.”
Bean and Rinaldi’s case has divided Charlottesville’s farmers markets. Lynne Bair had never bought from the Double H until she heard about the case. The next week, she purchased pork chops, spareribs and sausages.
“It infuriates me that I can go buy a factory-farmed pound of hamburger that’s been trucked all over and I can’t buy a steak that I know was raised well 10 miles away,” she said.
Others disagreed, saying that Bean and Rinaldi’s alleged actions gave them an unfair advantage. “I encourage Richard Bean to challenge the law. … But until it changes, he and all the vendors must comply,” said Amy Childs, manager of the Nelson Farmers Market, who has been called to testify in the case. “When someone comes in and doesn’t comply, he is cheating.”
Some farmers are trying to change the rules. The Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, of which Bean and Rinaldi are members, is working to loosen — if not end — regulation of direct farmer-to-consumer sales. The group is working with Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds on a bill that would permit growers to sell to individuals for personal consumption, provided the product is labeled “not for resale, processed and prepared without state inspection.”
The group’s work has also led to new state chapters.
But most are pessimistic about their chances of changing the law. “I’ve been at the General Assembly. You don’t have a chance down there,” said Satyrfield Farm’s Solem. “Jean called us and said: ‘I’ve never been in trouble with the law. I’m going to be a criminal.’ And I said: ‘Well, join the club. We’re all criminals.’ “
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