I had a special treat on Sunday, spending time with Margaret and Stuart Osha, owners of the Turkey Hill Farm in Randolph, VT (as well as with Cathy Raymond of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, who was visiting). And it wasn’t just the amazing food they served for lunch (real burgers from their farm’s beef on home-made bread, and raw milk vanilla ice cream). Turkey Hill Farm is a great example of a thriving sustainable farm–it has four milking cows, four pigs, a half dozen lambs, and about 100 chickens, to go with all kinds of veggies and flowers. Nearly all the products are sold in advance to customers in the local area.
While it’s a serious well run business, I have to admit I thought the raw milk warning sign in the tiny store area, pictured here, was a joke. The sign is more than two feet high.
But no, it isn’t a joke. The new Vermont raw milk law that went into effect last year specifies exactly this sign (actually, it can be a tad smaller–the lettering is supposed to be at least one inch high), be posted at the farm. Of course, it hasn’t hampered sales in the least, but it highlights the craziness of the regulator mentality.
In the wrangling in Massachusetts over buying clubs, one of the arguments that’s been put forth by those who want to ban the buying clubs is that the reason it’s essential for consumers to go to the farm is so they see the warning sign (even though each bottle of raw milk has a warning statement similar to that posted in Vermont). Not surprisingly, the Massachusetts regulators change their arguments. Sometimes they say they want people to see the signs. Other times, they say they worry whether the milk being transported by the buying clubs is refrigerated well enough.
There were some similar arguments put forth in Wisconsin, that the signage required wasn’t clear or explicit enough. Or maybe it had to do with the height of the signs. It’s hard to keep track, and that’s part of the problem. Once you answer one of the opponents’ concerns, they have another.
I have actually come to wonder about the whole buy-only-from-the-farm argument. If raw milk is to be treated like other foods, why are we limiting its sale to the farm? And in Vermont, not only are sales limited to the farm, but quantities are as well; it was a big deal when the state’s new law lifted maximum daily sales to 160 quarts from 10. Once again, it seems that either you allow sales or you don’t allow sales.
You look at California, and raw milk is being shipped up and down and around a state that is probably larger than the six New England states combined. Thousand of people are buying it every day in retail stores, and lo and behold, no one’s dropping ill or dead. Quite the opposite. To make the regulators feel better, allow retails sales everywhere, and put one of those Vermont warning signs above the dairy cases housing raw milk.
I devote a chapter of The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Struggle Over Food Rights to examining how listeria tests of raw milk in New York state have been of dubious validity. That doesn’t mean each state is going to do questionable testing and enforcement. As I said, I thought Minnesota treated raw milk like any other food in its initial testing, and feel, as Milky Way suggests, that it’s a mistake to try to portray that effort as some kind of conspiracy because pathogens weren’t found in the milk. (A new report from Minnesota Public Radio indicates regulators feel conditions at the farm were unsanitary.)
Minnesota regulators may have gone overboard in their subsequent investigative activities, as I noted in my previous post. But let’s keep in mind that in our justice system, people are given lengthy prison terms based on circumstantial evidence. The presence of a suspect’s hair or clothing in a murder victim’s car can seal the deal, even if there are no witnesses to the murder.
In the Hartmann case and others, we’re not talking about sending people to jail. Aside from the real issue of people becoming ill, we are talking as well about a propaganda war. In propaganda wars, credibility is in short supply. Those in favor of food rights do themselves a favor to question cases that should be questioned, and be prepared to accept problems that seem to be real problems–it definitely builds credibility.
Margaret and Stuart Osha, owners of Turkey Hill Farm in Vermont.On both sides of the raw milk argument, it’s tempting to let prejudices get in the way of common sense.
***
There was a pretty good segment on the issues around the raw milk debate, including the economic arguments, broadcast by the National Public Radio show, “Living on Earth” last Sunday, including an interview with yours truly (scroll up to the top to be able to click on a link to a recording of the broadcast).
Rather then doggedly blame a specific organism as the cause of illness Migel demonstrates through the numerous articles he references that organisms are indispensable, diverse, highly complex, adaptable, unpredictable and above all essential. We either learn to live in harmony with them or suffer the consequences.
As previously stated, organisms have been encoded with a survival instinct by an intelligence far superior to current human knowledge. Will our ability to identify them make a positive difference? I think not if we persist with our current simplistic and primitive search, isolate and destroy mentality.
Ken Conrad
Wrong. These are two separate issues. First must come…MUST come…a high court decision on a citizens rights…do we or don’t we have the right to make our own nutritional choices, or, at the federal level, does the constitution give th government the power to interfere in nutritional choice.
THEN, and only then, do we decide how to achieve food safety.
Bob Hayles
BTW, I love the sign. No misunderstandings when purchasing the milk.
cp
Does "Sanitary practices" include pouring a splash of bleach in the milk to lower the bacteria standard plate count (SPC)?
There are farms that do this, sadly. Some might call it a sanitation practice.
Cleanliness is important, but not as important as encouraging the right kinds of bacteria. I’d rather drink raw milk that has an SPC of 15,000 cfu/mL than an SPC of 500 cfu/mL. I’d be very concerned about anti-biotics and sanitizers in the milk with an SPC of 500, which would cause an imbalance of bacteria and create space for the bad guys.
Suppose both milks had 1 listeria organism per mL. Which would you rather drink? Which do you think would be more likely to make someone sick. No doubt, the milk with the 500 SPC would be a higher risk in that case. I’d rather take the 15,000 milk any day.
Its not about how many bacteria, its about what kinds of bacteria. Modern sanitation ideologies are based on the idea that all bacteria are bad. I’m not saying cleanliness isn’t important, because it is still important to be clean. But even more important is encouraging the right eco-system and right bacteria to exclude the bad ones.
Listeria is a HUGE problem in modern dairy plants which have excessive sanitation programs. Listeria can buildup a resistance to chlorine and becomes the only bacteria left. The best way to exclude listeria is to encourage micro-biological diversity.
Sometimes I wonder if these goons are hired by raw milk farmers to make opponents look like primates.
Then one might consider another sign explaining that "Food may contain harmful bacteria…"
And another explaining that "Human beings may contain harmful bacteria…"
I don’t think there’s any law against posting here and there this sort of honest, helpful, informational material (yet).
I think cleanliness is the right word. Chemicals are not an automatic fix (or an excuse to be uncleanly, so to speak).
Listeria and E. coli O157:H7 in the dairy environment are very different creatures. I’m not sure I’d even call Listeria a "fecal bacteria," per se, if referring to the strains that have been linked to human illnesses. There are so many differences between the life styles and survival strategies of those organisms, you’re almost talking apples and oranges comparing them in the context of raw milk and products made from raw milk.
E. coli O157:H7 has become ubiquitous in our cattle populations (grassfed, grain fed, pasture, feedlot)…no producer is immune to the need to be careful when working around manure and raw foods (whether that be raw milk or compost applied to raw produce, for example). Admittedly, I’m not sure why cleanliness, in part defined as keeping manure out of the milk products, is considered controversial in these raw milk discussions. Or, why it would be a surprise that lack of cleanliness might lead to illnesses.
MW
What about biosecurity on the farm.
http://www.uvm.edu/~ascibios/?Page=visitor.html&SM=submenuvisitor.html
"Not only do different types of visitors pose different levels of risk, but also different areas of the farm or types of animals are more susceptible to the introduction of or potential transmission of infectious diseases. Most dairy farms do not go as far as prohibiting visitors or making them shower in and shower out, but all farms do need to evaluate the risks posed by various types of visitors and develop strategies to minimize threats to the health of their livestock."
It is our responsibility as farmers to be vigilant when allowing visitors on the farm even if they bring a search warrant and a bunch of police.We know that they have all kinds of dangerous pathogens at the health department.We would be neglecting our responsibility to the public to allow people from the health department onto our farms.
What would happen if a regulator showed up and a producer denied access without a warrant. Next, the regulator went and got a warrant and returned with it, along with paw enforcement types to enforce it. At that point the producer tells the regulator, "OK, your warrant let’s you in, but given your own concerns about clenliness and germ control, and given concerns about germs coming in from the outside, and to be sure any germs found were here already and not brought in by you and the police, you need to go through a pre-inspection decontamination…the whole 9 yards…showers, bio-hazzard suits…everything…and the cops too…guns, handcuffs…ANYTHING you bring on the property. You regulators say germs can come in from the outside, so I’m protecting my farm from contamination by YOU…and if you refuse I will use your refusal as evidence the place was clean before your visit and any germs found must have been brought in by you."
It would sound ludicrous, but in court they would have to prove the germs were already their prior to their visit, the producer wouldn’t have to prove they weren’t.
Never, ever play by their rules. If you play the game, do all you can to set the rules.
Bob BubbaBozo Hayles
The above article states in part, Ben Burkett, President of National Family Farm Coalition and Mississippi family farmer, added, Corporate control over inputs and the free trade agenda have destroyed the livelihoods of so many farmers at home and abroad. Thats why farmers worldwide are calling for food sovereigntythe right to choose fair and sustainable farming practices that protect our local food and livelihood security. This is what works best for our farms and communities.
Ken Conrad
Indeed! Yet how can we know which problems are real and which should be questioned? There have been legitimate inspections and there have been nefarious inspections (and stings and downright harassment). When an article says, "authorities link deadly bacteria to Joe’s farm" but don’t say how it was linked, how do you know if author or the authorities are credible? When an article with that headline goes on to give not one piece of information you can use to discern truth, yet goes into four or five paragraphs about how "inherently dangerous" raw milk is, are they credible?
The authorities may have created a more egregious public health issue by their methods, misdeeds, and mis-statements. Even if they issue a real warning, many folks just might not believe them–and that is the real public health concern.
Credibility indeed!
Heated debate over heating milk
Audio story on raw milk with the voice of David Gumpert and a woman that likens boiled milk and "the milk is unchanged except for the dead bad germs and the dead good germs" to making her teenage children wear seatbelts in a car. Seat belts can not make dangerous driving safe and neither does boiling filthy factory farm sick cow waste material they call milk safe. And TPTB will not admit that their CAFOs do not produce a drinkable product!!!
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