Chuck Phippen seems to have received an answer from New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets over his challenge to the agency’s approach to dealing with listeria in raw milk.
I reported in February about Chuck and his campaign to convince Ag & Markets to adopt a more reasonable approach to dealing with findings of listeria monocytogenes in raw milk. He has argued that low levels of listeria pose no danger to consumers, and that pasteurized milk regularly contains listeria. In addition, he has pointed out that none of his customers has ever complained about feeling the least bit ill.
The answer? Ag & Markets has shut Chuck’s production down again, claiming it’s contaminated with listeria monocytogenes. Adding insult to injury, it has issued a warning that has been picked up by the Associated Press and other media. Of course, there is no suggestion that the publications attempted to contact Chuck. I did try, but haven’t been able to reach him.
At a time when dairy farmers need all the help they can get, NY Ag & Markets persists in searching out every single listeria monocytogenes cell, and seems to find it most often at the dairy of a farmer with the gall to challenge the agency’s policy.
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The above photo of an innovative approach to transporting cattle had me wondering: how would this situation be handled under the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)? The system envisions filing notifications every time an animal is transported. I wonder if the type of vehicle the animal is transported in will need to be spelled out. In this case, might it say, “via convertible, top down, to provide maximum circulation”? (It’s apparently out of Oklahoma, came to me via Mark McAffee–many thanks.)
Hopefully, NAIS will crumble of its own weight before we get to having to worry about such problems, and interfering with such uniquely American solutions to transporting animals.
It seems the “listening sessions” being sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture are not going the government’s way, according to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.
Most speakers are against the system of tagging billions of farm animals and tracking their movements…surprise, surprise.
can you publish a list of names / titles / addresses / phone numbers / email addys?
i can find the time to speak to (read harasses) them all. i would be sure many others here and on other blogs / real food sites would find the time also.
these clowns need to be forced to adapt to the needs / wishes of their citizens or they need to be fired / removed from office.
"we" are becoming a major movement. at my farmers market i keep running out of real milk lititure and my patition pages are filling up fast… it’s just one small upscale middle class neighborhood. we’ve (all the vendors) been approached to participate in other new farmers markets that comunities all around us want / are planning to start this year.
ny and any other state that is controlled by dean foods or whomever pulls the buracrats strings need to be "persuaded" to listen to us. we are the real power in their decision making…. they have just forgotten that…
Great post!! That bull must be eating soy…..he sure seems femine and friendly.
The secret to the elimination of listeria is to increase organic acid producing bacteria in the environment. This is according to Dr. Ron Hull PhD Australia. He should know he studied listeria and worked for Chris Hansen the probiotic culture experts. He also taught food safety and dairy biology and science in Australia for years.
Lactobacillus is the arch enemy of Listeria. LB produces organic acids and this prevents the development of psuedamonas and their brethren listeria.
So if I were you I would do several things…
Never use quats to clean. Use bleaches, hot water and caustics, acetic acids like vinegar and Hydrogen peroxide work very well. Then spray down everything with Fermented raw milk Kefir. When Dr. Hull helped me develop the HACCP Food Safety plan for OPDC, he was delighted to see that we fermented raw milk into Kefir and then filled our raw milk containers using the same facilties and fillers. You desparately need good strong probiotic cultures in your facilities to keep out the listeria. This is a lesson that has not been learned by pasteurization plants where in Australia ( pasteurization plants ) more than 60% have positive culture tests for listeria in their environmental tests.
OPDC has never had a positive listeria found in its raw milk or facilities. OPDC purchased some raw cream years ago from an organic plant that also does organic and pastuerized products….guess what…that was the only time that we found listeria. No illnesses were caused but it was a hard learned lesson. We have not purchased any organic raw cream to make raw butter since.
Pasteurized plant faciliities breed bad bacteria!!!
If you are too clean biologically…it is dangerous to your raw milk operations. You must have good bacteria working for you. You need to be dry, green, clean, sundrenched and feeding good forages and pastures. Fermented silage also is associated with listeria.
Those low levels of listeria in our products would shut us down also in CA. I do agree that low levels of listeria build immunity to listeria but the state and feds do not see it that way and consumers with very week immune systems may also not be so happy either.
Do not back down…make some changes and demand to get your permit back. The best defense is a damn strong offense.
All the best,
Mark McAfee
Harassment as a way to make change? I sincerely doubt you will succeed in accomplishing anything meaningful with that approach.
5 years ago I would not have believe this could happen in the land of the free but that was before I made friends with real farmers and saw the pain and suffering that was inflicted upon them and their wives and their CHILDREN for rejecting the party line.
And farmers that have wavered a bit from the party line have been WARNED that they will suffer the same brutality if they dared go down freedoms road.
The "food safety" lies promoted against raw milk is just more of the propaganda to keep the chemically dumb down Americans from seeing their beloved nation turned into the United Socialist States of America. If we dont soon have an "OUTBREAK" of TRUTH GOD help us all even the ant-raw dairy folks as it somewhat pains me to include.
I took a poll and found that a full 40% of people responded with a generic "I can not drink milk" when asked it they "wanted a sample of fresh raw milk". Of those people I was able to get about half of them to try raw milk and those that tried loved it and were in awe. Half from the delicous flavor and half in disbelief of the lies they had been told about their supposed lactose intolerance or milk allergies.
I say that Davids theory of economics trumping food safety and politics is correct.
If mega dairy can not sell its milk then….there will be change.
A recent dairy magazine had a major article that said….new dairy products include "Branded Water and Fruit Jiuces". If these are new dairy products….I see a white flag of surrender. Pasteurization is done and so is fluid milk.
As I see it…the only hope for pastuerized dairy is cheese and probiotic yogurts or other probiotic creations….at least these products are a little alive after being given some bacterial CPR after being killed.
The man on the street does not lie ( and they actually have very high anxiety and fear about taking even a small sip of pasteurized miilk because of their past experiences ) and I heard this all day long. The dollar vote is moving to living foods because our bacteriosapien bodies can not tolerate the media and big dairy lies anymore. For 40% of the people I saw in the last 48 hours…. pastuerized milk causes diarrhea and gas….what a horrible epitaph for the milk industry. I think I will invite the GOT MILK marketing representatives to come stand next to me at the next farmers market to hear the truth.
That should awaken them with shock. The last time I spoke with the GOT MILK people they were in deep denial and were inventing a phermone that smelled like chocolate to spray on the bus benches in San Fransicso ( to trigger urges to drink milk with cookies…at least that was the theory ).
That one back fired when chemical sensitive people started showing up in the areas ERs….I wonder what deviuos these they are up to now.
How about some truth therapy. A new direction would save my dairy friends family farms. I worry about them all the time. Kids I grew up with are losing everything all becuase of lies told and taught to them by Universities and the government. Including "get big or get out" and "America Feeds the world" so we need "BST and pre-Sexed female semen". All of those ideas oversupplied milk and has nearly killed the dairy industry.
This sucks. Darwin and hungry sharks are ugly things. When will they learn…mother nature is right and she will kick your butt if you get in her way or fail to work with her.
All the while Raw Milk Rocks!!!
Mark