This really stinks. Jose Bove, a French sheep farmer and maker of Roquefort cheese better known as an anti-agribusiness rabble rouser, arrived in New York on Wednesday only to be detained and shipped back to the south of France. Bove had come to New York at the invitation of Cornell University, which hosted a gathering of farmers, labor advocates and academics from around the world this week in Manhattan.

Bove was scheduled to participate in forums entitled “Fighting the Commodification of Food” and “The Struggle Against Monsanto in Europe,” but U.S. customs officials detained Bove and refused him entry despite the fact that he had a valid passport and had visited the U.S. last year to speak at Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology without incident.

Bove does have a history of aggro against agribusiness which includes the ransacking of a McDonald's that was under construction in the South of France as a protest against trade policies that threaten small French farmers, and ripping up a field of genetically modified corn, a crime for which he was sentenced to four months in prison.

Janet Rapaport, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's New York spokeswoman, said that Bove was denied entry on Wednesday for reasons she could not discuss.

Back on his farm in the south of France, Bove told the Associated Press that a primary focus of the conference was “how people can fight Monsanto. This is an international struggle. The American government is fed up with this fight because such companies are losing a lot of money.”

“Evidently, the Bush administration is behind this decision,” said George Naylor, president of the National Family Farm Coalition. “No one would think of fearing Jose's presence in this country except multinational corporations with a profit motive.”

Freedom is on the march, all right. Apparently, it's being marched right out of town.

Image credit: USDA