I very much hope that Mark McAfee/Organic Pastures Dairy and Claravale Dairy continue with their lawsuit, as I believe that spreading the fact-finding across multiple venues is a good thing. It has become obvious that the CDFA are willing to talk to the farmers and the people, and willing to make their decisions on their own, but not willing to bring their deliberations to the public (and, as I recall, they were not willing to take aboard the farmers' evidence or hear their experts). Instead we got AB1735 sprung on us as a done deal, with little time to protest before it went into effect. And this is *after* they forced a recall on Organic Pastures and then, months later, admitted that they had no evidence for the recall, and THEN settled with Organic Pastures on the agreement that OPDC would not sue the CDFA or its employees.

Thus, any hearing or settling of this issue really requires going through authorities higher (and other) than the CDFA. Let the California State Senate and the Court step in, because it's clear that there ain't no justice where the CDFA is involved. I mean really: if they were out to protect consumers, they'd have admitted the farmers' evidence.

Of course, this is the same California Department of Food and Agriculture that is involved in spraying pesticides over the San Francisco Bay Area in order to combat a moth that, it appears, doesn't need to be combatted. And the Monterey County Weekly reported that the manufacturer of the pesticide to be sprayed on Californians contributed to Governor Schwarzenegger's campaign.

At any rate, the CDFA's refusal to participate in hearings into its own bill is suspect, at best. I'm not sure what they hope to gain by refusing to participate or to defend their own bill; it looks like a short-term avoidance technique from here. Could it get any weirder?