Mark Baker Asks Americans for HelpBrad Jordan Michigan levies $700,000 in fines against a small farmer and veteran for raising healthy hogs After serving his country for 20 years in the military and ten years as a farmer, Mark Baker is at the end of his rope and is asking Americans for help. Bakers Green Acres is an idyllic, bio-diverse, sustainable farm in Marion, Michigan. Baker, his wife and his six children raise pastured poultry, grass-fed beef, goats and dairy, and a heritage breed of hogs called Mangalitsa. In December of 2011, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources informed Baker that his hogs were an invasive species of wild boar that needed to be exterminated in order to protect wildlife and other farms. The agency said he had until April of 2012 to destroy all of his pigs or else it would destroy them for him. Baker refused and filed a lawsuit asking for relief. He was hoping to get his case heard that spring, but the state attorney general who is acting as a prosecutor on DNRs behalf has been successful in stalling the trial until late this summer. Fortunately the agency did not follow through on its promise to shoot Bakers pigs. Unfortunately, it decided to levy $700,000 in fines against him last week for harboring them on his property. Thats $10,000 per hog or per violation of the states Invasive Species Order. As of Food Riot Radios interview with him last week, Baker had 67 hogs. The state was unaware when it issued the fine that he recently put down four hogs because he couldnt afford to feed them. When the state tried to get Bakers trial pushed back to 2014, Baker wrote a letter to the judge saying hed be out of business and homeless by then. His current trial date of August 27 has been a stretch for him. Hes been feeding the hogs, without being allowed to sell their meat, for a year and a half now, which he says is extremely difficult because these pigs eat a lot everyday. Normally at this time of year hed be breeding the pigs in order to have more to sell, but he cant now, because it would just make more mouths to feed. Add $140,000 spent in legal fees so far to his lack of pork sales, and Baker says his family is on a very tight ship right now. My boys are butchering pigs today so we can get them in the freezer, and so theyre not out on the field, where theyve got to have food, Baker said. The nature of pigs is if they see green grass on the other side of fence and they have nothing to eat on their side of the fence, theyre going to figure out a way to get through. We cant allow a bunch of pigs to get out and get in our garden because thats our food. Bakers resorted to scrounging scrap food for them at local restaurants, but says theyre not getting what they need nutritionally. Im not being fair to the animals he paused, voice cracking, but I didnt think it would take this long. Had Baker known hed have to wait a year and a half for a court hearing, he mightve just killed the hogs in the beginning. But what Im up against now is, if I kill all these pigs, number one, Im doing what they wanted me to do, and number two, Id lose my standing in court because I dont have the animals. Why the states stalling Baker believes the reason the state has tried so hard to stall his hearing is because it doesnt have a good defense for what its doing to him. Baker argues that DNR wrote an intentionally ambiguous description of feral pigs in its Invasive Species Order, so it could use the law against any hog farmer it wanted to shut down. Theyre saying any pig with a curly tail or a straight tail is an illegal pig any pig with floppy ears or erect ears is an illegal pig, he said. I think theyre going to have a rough time with that testimony in court. Thats why they dont want the case to move forward. They want to starve us out. Basically theyre saying any type of pig outside of these confinement-style operations is illegal to have, added Radio Host Brad the Butcher Jordan. If you have a pig outside, you cant have it. Exactly, Baker said. Baker seeks to prove in court that it is Big Ag especially the Michigan Pork Producers Association that initiated the law classifying all non-CAFO pigs as a feral invasive species. He believes big agribusiness sees the growing popularity of heritage-breed meat and poultry as a threat to their factory-farming model, and will stop at no end to eliminate the competition. If they can issue a declaratory ruling that says anything with a straight tail or curly tail is an illegal pig, and neither the governor, the legislature or the courts say hey wait a minute, then whats to stop them from issuing a declaratory ruling that says any cow that is brown is feral and must be disposed of, or any chicken that is not raised in a hen house is a feral chicken? Industrial agriculture wants all the market share, he added. They want all the small farmers off the land, and they want to own the entire food production model. Baker asks for ammunition Theyre putting me out on the street and theyre not blinking an eye about it, Baker said. I need American people to get fired up about this. And I need wealthy Americans to come alongside us and join our legal team, so we can start going after them [DNR officials] individually and putting them out on the street. Baker said there is much more at stake than his farm. Our little pig thing is a microcosm of whats going on nationally. If we let Big Ag win, he said, it will be a grim future for our children and grandchildren. Were all in this together. There are plenty of us [farmers] that are fighters, perpetual warriors, but we dont have ammunition to put this fight on. So were looking to other Americans and saying please give us some ammunition, and thats money, U.S. dollars. You can pray for me and pat me on the back and thats great, but if I cant pay lawyers to do their job, it doesnt happen. And Im at the end of my rope right now, and I need help. There it is I need help. Please check out the Bakers Green Acres website, watch the video of him and his family asking for help, donate to the cause, and dont forget to like Food Riot Radio on Facebook. Brad Jordan hosts a podcast called Food Riot Radiowhere this article first appeared. He and his co-host Sara Burrows work to expose how a collusion between government, big agriculture, big pharma and big food has determined what ends up on our plates and offer ideas for how to fight back. State Demands $700,000 from Michigan Farm Family and the Destruction of 70 Farm Animals linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 