The Complete Patient

Richard Hebron, the Michigan farmer victimized by a sting operation in 2006, which led to new conclusions about the benefits of raw milk. Did you ever think you’d see this statement endorsed by dairy regulators?

“Milk fresh from the cow is a complete, living, functional food…the full benefits…are only realized when all of these components function as a complex interdependent and balanced process.”

Or how about this:

“Of all the milk constituents, the milk fat globule is the most drastically altered by the combination of pasteurization and homogenization.”

After endless reassurances from scientists and other officials in public health, agriculture, medicine, and government that there’s no difference between pasteurized and unpasteurized milk, we are now being told something entirely different by an organization that includes top dairy regulators and an agriculture university dean (along with a number of raw milk proponents). The organization is the Michigan Fresh Unprocessed Whole Milk Workgroup, which includes among its members the two top dairy officials of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and a dean of the Michigan State University College of Agriculture.

The Michigan Fresh Unprocessed Whole Milk Workgroup, which I described in a previous post, is a committee that grew out of the ashes of the bizarre “string operation” against Michigan farmer Richard Hebron in October 2006. After forcibly confiscating $8,000-plus worth of dairy products the farmer was delivering to members of Ann Arbor’s Family Farms Co-op, Michigan’s Department of Agriculture sought to have Richard indicted on criminal charges. Instead, a county prosecutor refused to go forward with the case, and pushed the department to settle with Richard. As part of the settlement, the department agreed to allow herdshare arrangements. Subsequently, the department’s two top dairy officials, Katherine Fedder, who ordered the investigation and subsequent raid on Richard Hebron; and Susan Esser, agreed to join the Michigan Fresh Unprocessed Whole Milk Workgroup, which is charged with answering the question: Where do we want to be in three to five years on access to fresh unpasteurized whole milk.

The workgroup has moved systematically, some might say tediously, to address ten topics relating to the question of access to raw milk. When it started meeting in early 2007, it expected to get through the topics in 18 months. Now, nearly three years later, it has formally addressed only two of the ten topics.

The statements I quoted from above come from the second topic and was just posted in recent weeks, on the subject of “Benefits and Values.” Part of the challenge facing the workgroup is that each of its eleven members must approve each and every word of each topic discussion. No majority-rules here. That’s the bad news in terms of pace, but it’s also the good news in terms of buy-in and impact. You know that the government and ag people have reviewed and signed off on everything posted.

From that viewpoint, the posting on Benefits and Value is remarkable, coming from the first state in the nation to require pasteurization, and prohibit the sale of raw milk, back in 1947. It provides detailed explanations in response to the questions: “What are the additional benefits of milk fresh from the cow?” and “What is the impact of pasteurization on fresh unpasteurized whole milk’s value?”

The posting never explicitly states what I say in my heading above—that raw milk is superior—but it’s impossible not to draw that conclusion from reading through the list of eleven criteria that are listed as “the additional benefits of milk fresh from the cow.” These include twenty “well characterized intrinsic enzymes”, “immune system enhancers,” and “antibacterial components.”

It comes out positively on four of the most explosive issues in the debate over the nutritional benefits and special properties of raw milk:

1. Competitive inhibition: It says raw milk contains “microorganisms that suppress pathogens by competitive mechanisms.”
2. Lactose intolerance: “Many people with professionally diagnosed lactose intolerance do not have the symptoms of this condition, even when consuming large amounts of fresh milk.”
3. Pregnant moms: There’s “enhancement of mother’s breast milk quality by including fresh milk in her diet.”
4. Reducing asthma and allergies: “Numerous well-controlled studies have shown the independent effect of drinking fresh milk on reducing asthma and childhood rhinitis in general and specifically in childhood allergic rhinitis.

On and on it goes:

“There are large numbers of different bacteria present in fresh milk. Some of these are included in the Standard Plate Count test; others do not grow under those culture conditions and so are not counted as a part of the test.  Both the total numbers and the diversity of bacterial types (genus and species) are variable.  Most of these bacteria are beneficial.”

“Therefore, milk is inherently a prebiotic since it contains lactose and numerous other components that beneficial bacteria can utilize.”

And I haven’t even addressed the section on “the impact of pasteurization,” but it’s equally devastating for the anti-raw-milk lobby. Here, the strong inference is that pasteurization offsets many of raw milk’s benefits. It concludes that pasteurization adversely affects milk's proteins, carbohydrates, and enzymes. It also states that pasteurization un-does the immune-building benefits of raw milk: “Cell-mediated immune mechanisms rely on living somatic cells, but pasteurization kills those cells, losing that effect.”

When you think, these findings are part of what came out of the sting operation against Richard Hebron, you realize that life does work in strange ways. Guess I can’t wait for the workgroup to complete the next eight sections of its agenda.

***

I suspect the Michigan workgroup’s conclusions about the benefits of raw milk will have a wide impact. Initially, they may raise the decibel level of the debate (if that’s possible), especially as regards the farmer-vs-farmer side. I have to admit, I was caught off-guard by the intensity of the debate associated with the upheaval at Organic Valley co-op, as reflected in the comments on my previous post. Thanks to lola granola for the insights into what’s happening at Organic Valley.

The farmer-vs-farmer aspect of this mirrors to some extent the discussions over raw milk’s risks, as noted by Lykke and Sylvia, and the issue of rights, as noted by Bob Hayles and Miguel. But there’s a whole separate dimension related to the role of the farmer in the marketplace. Most farmers been so marginalized, they have nothing to say about pricing and distribution of not only milk, but most other farm products. And if Organic Valley takes the radical step of distributing raw milk, it may, as Milk Farmer suggests, potentially marginalize even the growing cadre of raw dairy producers.

In this debate as well as others, we see divisions among supporters of raw milk, especially between what might be called moderates and strict constructionists--those who are open to compromise with regulators, and those who want the regulators removed from the process and the marketplace. The division is asserting itself in the debate over the role of legislation to loosen the tight regulation of raw milk in Wisconsin.

But this issue isn’t open-and-shut—too much water under the dam to just let the established order of the agriculture marketplace take over. A chaotic time seems to be in store.

Tim WightmanHere's the message I get from Tim Wightman's comment following my criticism of Organic Valley Family of Farms:  Don't be so quick to criticize this large farm co-op. There are some delicate political and economic issues involved here. Many dairy farmers have a big stake in the conventional co-op/processor distribution sytem, and at Organic Valley, farmers are being pinched financially because of a decline in consumption of pasteurized organic milk...and are resentful because some of their farmer brothers are making up for the financial challenge by selling raw milk. Besides, regulators and processors regularly communicate about routine issues, and may say a few things that sound conspiratorial. Cut us some slack.

It's an intriguing message, coming as it does from a founder of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, and I can appreciate that there are business sensitivities. I actually think some of these sensitivities signify quite important issues, though. (By the way, if this is just a little internal misunderstanding, you might think that someone from Organic Valley might have at least had the courtesy to answer my email or phone call--there's been only silence.) 

I say all this while acknowledging that I don't necessarily have special insights into farm economics and pscychology, having spent practically my entire life in the city, with little or no contact with farmers until the last three years.

But I'd like to throw something out that may shed light on what's really happening here. I think many Wisconsin dairy farmers, indeed, dairy farmers everywhere, are more upset about the raw milk controversy than has been generally appreciated. I remember when the Ohio Department of Agriculture began cracking down on raw dairy producers back in 2006, being told by regulators there that some of the cases the agency was pursuing originated with complaints by conventional dairy farmers.
I've heard similar rumblings in other states--that it's dairy farmers who are concerned because some of their brethren are challenging regulatory limitations on raw milk...and earning nice money in the process.

Now, I think it's safe to say many of these upset dairy farmers are being urged on by processors, who have absolutely nothing to gain and lots to lose when dairy farmers transition to raw milk.

There's a larger issue involved, though--a business issue--which has to do with the different mentalities involved when you're doing business as part of a government-business cartel and doing business in the real marketplace. Conventional dairy farmers don't experience all opportunities afforded by our capitalist system because they are dealing in a highly controlled marketplace, a marketplace where prices are fixed by a few processors with government approval, and those prices are too low for the suppliers to make a regular profit.

There are few incentives for doing a great job because pasteurization levels the quality playing field. There's little economic opportunity. It's very difficult to be anything other than a commodity. In fact, over the long term, the deck is stacked against you, much as it would be if you lived in a company town.

It's much different if you are in a market economy, out there selling directly to consumers, or via retail establishments. All you have to do is observe many Amish dairy farmers, or Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures, who aggressively sell a wide variety of products, to appreciate the demands of the real economy.

So when we talk about conventional vs raw milk, we're not just talking two different supply sources, we're talking two entirely different business models.

Organic Valley may be an upstanding organization much of the time, but at its heart, it's a processor that is part of a government-industry dairy cartel. Tim Wightman strongly suggests in his comment that we'll see a much more positive side of Organic Valley before long. Certainly it could be a force to help dairies diversify by providing outlets for their raw milk. That would require innovative thinking within an industry where there's little room for competition, for segmentation, for niche marketing, for growth.

Think back to the old Soviet style farm collectives, and you won't be that far off in thinking about the dairy co-ops. Some farmers who value that way of doing business are resentful of the Scott Trautmans of the world, who are out there hustling and seeking out new opportunities. The controversy over our right to access raw milk happens to be the trigger for bringing out into the open the farmer-on-farmer divisions. 

Organic Valley Family of Farms presents itself as “Organic and Farmer Owned: As Good As It Gets”, with almost 1,400 dairy farm members. It donated organic sour cream at the just-concluded Wise Traditions conference sponsored by the Weston A. Price Foundation, and an organization official was present at some of the events. (Being accepted as a food donor at the Wise Traditions conference is a prestigious acknowledgment of an organization's quality.)

But that squeaky-clean image isn’t what comes across in an email exchange its national dairy farm quality manager had last summer with an official of Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. No, what we get instead is an image of a turncoat, encouraging regulators to go after raw milk sellers.

The emails were obtained by Max Kane, the buyers club owner, who is facing possible contempt of court charges in connection with his refusal to get into the turncoat business, who gained access to the emails under the equivalent of the state’s freedom of information act.

Last July 6, Rachel Turgasen, national dairy farm quality manager, emailed Jacqueline Owens, chief of field services at DATCP, “I know we’ve had some discussions in the past about raw milk sales and cow shares…More & more, I am learning of farms engaging in raw sales off-farm of raw milk, raw cheese, raw butter…Bascially, I’m wondering how/if DATCP is regulating this and where the burden lies.”

To which Jacqueline Owens responds, “We have a list of about 18 locations in WI that we know are selling raw milk or raw milk products on the farm. We have limited resources so we are focusing on the ones that we know are processing raw milk dairy products without the required dairy plant license…I am aware of one dairy plant that warns and then terminates producers who sell their milk/milk products directly to consumers.”

Then, she adds an ominous request: “Please let me know if you have any additional questions or care to share the names of individuals you are aware of that sell raw milk or raw milk products directly off the farm.”

I asked both Rachel Turgasen and Jacqueline Owens whether Organic Valley had provided additional names. Rachel Turgasen didn’t respond to my email and phone inquiries, but I did reach Jacqueline Owens by phone, and she said, “The only information I have is what is in that email…I did not” receive additional names from Organic Valley.

So what we have is Organic Valley expressing concern about Wisconsin dairies selling raw milk directly to consumers, and DATCP seeking what can only be described as intelligence so it can add to its then-existing list of 18 raw dairies it knew about. (Wisconsin prohibits most sales of raw milk, but arbitrarily waxes hot and cold in its permissiveness around the matter.)  We have a denial from DATCP that it received the sought-after intelligence (though no comment from Organic Valley).

Given DATCP’s aggressive stance in shutting down two dairies and sending warning letters to dozens of others, we can assume that DATCP has many more names by now.

But perhaps more significant, we have even further evidence of both the concern by dairy processors about the marketing inroads being made by raw milk, and collusion between the regulators and the processors. It’s particularly discouraging that an organization like Organic Valley, which positions itself as a friend of the small organic dairy, should be joining in on the offensive against Wisconsin raw dairies. It should be working on behalf of legislation currently being introduced in Wisconsin to legalize sales by its members, as a first step toward opening up the marketplace in Wisconsin, a major dairy-producing state.

Max Kane at the recent Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions conference. Two other matters in Wisconsin: Max Kane also obtained emails showing that federal support for DATCP has increased from $9.3 million in 2005 to $13.6 million in 2008, with the largest chunk coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and smaller chunks from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And no surprise here: salaries at DATCP range up to $120,000 annually for the head, Rod Nilsestuen. That’s a lot of taxpayer money being paid to bureaucrats for trashing family-run dairies.

***

My writing hand has recovered from the time I spent Friday afternoon at the offices of Chelsea Green Publishing (White River Junction, VT), autographing about 100 copies of The Raw Milk Revolution for bloggers who requested it. The books shipped Friday, so watch your mailboxes today and tomorrow. And thanks to Blair McMorran for the perceptive and detailed review of the book—some excellent suggestions for things to include in a revision.

***

Finally, a victory of sorts over the right to sell raw milk via a private club. A member of C.A.R.E. a huge buying club in Pennsylvania, had charges brought by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture dismissed by a magistrate last week. The PDA charged that the farmer was selling without a retail license and refusing inspection. The case was argued by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

***

Note: I’ve just added an emailing option at the end of blog posts. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time—now you can easily send posts around to friends and associates.

One of the reasons Vermont’s new raw milk regulations have attracted so much favorable attention is that they are based on production versus process standards. In other words, let farmers feed their cows or cool their milk according to any of several processes, just so they achieve the needed standards. 

Tim Wightman makes that same point in his comment following my previous post: “Set the standards on a production model, not a process model. Research what constitutes quality milk, actually ramp up the old tests used to do so in the 50's through 70's, apply those, and there is your standard. How one gets there is up to the producer..not the consumer but the producer. IF we apply a process model the conversation will only get bogged down in emotional responses and a mis-informed consumer base as it relates to the animals needs to produce a quality product. Grass can be in that production model..but cannot be the only process to achieve quality milk.”

But before we can get to the point of setting standards, we need, as Steve Bemis suggests, the freedom of access to raw milk. The matter of setting standards is a productive discussion to have, yet all involved in this arena need to appreciate that the standards won’t do a lot of good if governmental authorities are conducting harassment and interference exercises. While consumers may have limited knowledge to help set the standards, consumers need to be prepared to help producers win the battle for access.

Just in the last few weeks, we’ve seen at least three raw milk advocates challenge authorities’ efforts to interfere with supplies.

There’s been Scott Trautman, a Wisconsin dairy farmer; Max Kane, a Wisconsin buyers club owner; and now, Bob Hayles, a Georgia farmer and raw milk advocate.

Per his comment following my previous post, Bob has just written a letter to Georgia’s agriculture commissioner, essentially warning him that consumers will be buying milk in neighboring South Carolina, and bringing it back to Georgia—following the same routine as members of a buyers club recently forced by the Georgia Department of Agriculture to dispose of their South Carolina milk.

News of Bob Hayles’ challenge was tweeted far and wide yesterday.

But the big question for not only him, but Scott Trautman and Max Kane, is whether consumers care enough and are brave enough to actually show up and provide in-person backing to these resisters. In the case of Bob Hayles, consumers need to both buy milk and then possibly defy regulators and/or law enforcement representatives.

While yesterday’s tweets suggested much initial enthusiasm for Bob Hayles' approach, there is reason to suspect it could be of the mile-wide-inch-deep variety.

While the market for raw milk seems from all signs to be expanding significantly, the record of raw milk consumers in backing raw dairy victims has been tenuous, at best. Richard Hebron, the victim of a 2006 “sting” operation while delivering raw milk to Ann Arbor, MI, herdshare owners, saw his deliveries sliced up to 20% in the immediate aftermath of the seizure of $8,000 worth of consumers’ products. Many consumers apparently feared they could be hauled in by police or regulators, and abandoned Richard.

When Greg Niewendorp, a Michigan cattle farmer, resisted the state’s efforts to implement the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), he was similarly left pretty much on his own by other farmers. Turnout at courthouse rallies in New York for Barb and Steve Smith, who have been fighting to maintain a type of herdshare arrangement for Ithaca, NY, consumers, has been tepid, at best.

My sense is that we’re going to see more such open challenges to the authorities mounted by raw dairy producers and distributors, as authorities in places like Wisconsin and Georgia seek to tighten the screws on consumers. But these challenges will only succeed if consumers are willing to stand up and be counted, and maybe even be arrested in the process.

The unfortunate reality is that we’ve given up or lost key rights when it comes to choosing and controlling our food. Once you lose rights, you almost always have to fight to get them back. Fighting means sacrifice. Are raw milk consumers ready to make the necessary sacrifices? The jury is out. One thing is for sure: The opposition is watching closely (and nervously) for signs that consumers are serious about securing their rights. Lots of bravado without follow-through will only strengthen the opposition's sense that consumers aren't truly serious about fighting the battle.

***

Thanks to Kimberly Hartke for her nice writeup of my talk Saturday at the Weston A. Price Foundation.

In the same vein, thanks to everyone who’s had nice things to say about my book on this blog over the last few weeks. It’s been very gratifying (though I promise not to remove comments that include criticisms).

I also wanted to say how great it was to see so many bloggers at the Weston A. Price Foundation’s Wise Traditions conference over the weekend. I knew many by name from their comments, but quite a few came up to me to say they were readers who hadn’t yet commented. I encouraged them to join the fray.

One of the points I emphasized during my talk at the Weston A. Price Foundation Saturday evening is that not only are we in the midst of a war over raw milk, but that we’re at a possible turning point in the struggle.

In the smoke and blur of war, though, it can be difficult to gain perspective. Blair McMorran takes note of this phenomenon in her comment following my previous post: “Wisconsin might legalize raw milk, and the Feds want to regulate it?… Seems to me like the pavement is cracking and there's some weeds pokin through. But maybe I'm naive.”

I agree that this war’s situation map has become quite confusing. Efforts to make raw milk more available are moving forward in a couple states like Wisconsin (to legalize the sales from the farms of Grade A dairies, many of which have long been selling raw milk informally or via herdshares) and New Jersey (to reverse a long-standing ban on raw milk sales). Idaho is moving to make sales more difficult.

But while these local struggles are going on, the enemy is moving in with an attempted surgical strike to render the whole situation moot. The last-minute push by two big dairy trade organizations to make raw dairies subject to the rules of the food safety legislation currently speeding through Congress could be the equivalent of a knockout punch. Here’s the problem:

The food safety legislation moving through Congress appears to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority over food producers, regardless of whether or not they’re involved in interstate commerce—in other words, over intrastate commerce. By throwing raw dairy producers into the mix, you’re suddenly subjecting them to regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as in John Sheehan, notorious head of the agency's Division of Plant and Dairy Food Safety, and most famous for his statement, “Consuming raw milk is like playing Russian Roulette with your health.”

Call up the image you want—end run, letting the fox into the chicken coop, wolf in sheep’s clothing—it spells disaster.

This push by the dairy trade groups against raw milk producers is an explicit acknowledgment of their ever-more-serious about the rapid expansion of the raw milk marketplace. For them, this move is a marketing maneuver--squeeze the competition. But for raw dairies, it could be a disaster.

If it fails, it should serve as a wakeup call to raw dairy producers to organize themselves into a private association committed to developing serious safety standards and lobbying for the interests of raw dairy farmers. Scott Trautman, the Wisconsin dairy owner who lost his dairy license recently, is pushing for such a group. He writes on his blog: “I am working on a Professional Raw Milk Producers Association: guidelines for safe production of healthy raw milk for people, when they will never be able to breathe, 'We made children sick.' What we do now is good: what we will do in the future will be astounding.”

He’s getting backing from Mark Kastel, head of Cornucopia Institute, the increasingly influential national organization devoted to seeking justice and economic opportunity for small farms. Mark told me he thinks a private association, modeled on the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, which has authorization from California and Arizona to conduct audits and inspections of its members—and leave the government inspectors on the sidelines.

I just hope it isn’t too late.

***

If you want to get opponents of raw milk upset, show them pictures of children consuming raw milk. Now it seems there’s a video that’s appeared on YouTube that stokes those fires very well. It shows children at the recent Weston A. Price Wise Traditions conference this weekend chanting, “We want raw milk!”

A blogger on a food poisoning site licked his chops when he saw it. “Shameless exploitation…like the line-dancing instructor shouting out fascist routines, these kids are being paraded and chanting…”

I'm not sure who put the video on YouTube--I don't think it was great judgment if, indeed, it was put up by a raw milk proponent. But it's also clear these kids aren't doing anything inappropriate. They aren't demonstrating in front of opponents. In fact, they’re in a nearly-empty hotel corridor that is host to a gathering of raw milk proponents. Maybe it’s just kids who’ve been raised on raw milk, whose parents believe in freedom of choice. But when it comes to raw milk, as we know, everything seems to become political.

***

Michael Schmidt, the Canadian raw dairy producer awaiting a verdict on his trial in connection with violating Canada's raw milk regulations, will get a new defense. The Canadian Constitution Foundation, which sounds like the equivalent of the American Civil Liberties Union, will take on his case, and any appeals associated with the outcome of the trial, expected to be announced early next year.

“This is about the rights of Canadians to choose a product that is safely consumed by tens of thousands of people around the world. It’s also about the right to earn an honest living free from government regulations that are unnecessary, unreasonable and unfair,” said CCF Litigation Director Karen Selick.

“There have been huge technological improvements in refrigeration, transportation and pathogen testing, in addition to the entrenchment of individuals’ constitutional rights. Consumers who want freedom of choice expect their government to make the transition to the twenty-first century and to respect their rights,” added Selick. Right on.