Right or Wrong, the AB1735 Fight Teaches Us Classic Lessons About Politics and Food Fights
Friday, April 18, 2008 at 09:33PM 
On the flight from San Francisco back to Boston last evening, I had written a further update about the California Senate’s hearing on raw milk—about how Mark McAfee has been on the phone nearly non-stop lobbying on behalf of the changes to AB1735 that I described in my previous two posts. And that the proposed changes seem to be attracting important support, with the California governor’s office understood to have signed on, along with the experts at the University of California at Davis, who had testified about the dangers of raw milk.
So encouraging has the news been that Mark is talking about a possible delay in the court hearing scheduled for April 25 to determine whether or not to extend the temporary restraining order granted last month to prevent implementation of AB1735.
Then I read Dave Milano’s comment on my previous post—in particular, his comment, “Mark is certainly a better representative than the CDFA in that regard, but this is supposed to be about ALL the people”—and I decided to step back and start the post over.
The way I see it, there are four primary parties in the California raw milk dispute. First, there’s the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which initiated the current predicament late last year by secretly pushing through AB1735, which was designed to cripple the state’s raw milk market. This past week, the agency refused to go out into the daylight to express itself in Tuesday’s hearing.
Then there’s Mark McAfee, who got completely riled up after learning about AB1735 and launched something approaching a one-man lobbying effort to overturn AB1735. He pushed a hearing in the Assembly in January, and when that went nowhere, he helped manufacture Tuesday’s Senate hearing. (He's in the group photo of raw milk supporters pictured above outside the capital building in Sacramento, prior to the hearing.)
Mark got the third party in this drama, much smaller raw dairy producer Claravale Farm, involved. But Ron Garthwaite and Collette Cassidy, the owners, have a much different outlook on raw milk than Mark, I learned in a visit with them. While Mark wants to expand and deliver the raw milk message as widely as possible, Ron and Collette simply want to farm in the tradition of 1927, when Claravale was launched as a dairy under its original owner. Ron and Collette stayed under the radar for ten years, until AB1735 emerged, at which time they determined their existence was in danger and decided to join in supporting Mark’s effort. But they haven’t relished it the way Mark has, and Ron even decided not to attend Tuesday’s hearing, in part because he was so turned off by the results of the Assembly hearing in January.
The fourth party is Sen. Dean Florez. He’d like to be California’s next lieutenant governor, and making an outspoken group of food activists happy in America’s most food-conscious state isn’t a bad way to win points. But at the same time, he doesn’t want to alienate the germophobes.
So what’s happened is that Mark and Sen. Florez have essentially teamed up to re-write AB1735. Left on the sidelines are the CDFA and Claravale’s owners, Ron and Collette.
Now obviously I’ve simplified things, but back to Dave Milano’s comment, he raises an important point in objecting to the new OPDC/Florez alliance. The new rules may work well for Mark, and give Sen. Florez some electoral points. But the new rules may not work so well for Ron and Collette, who didn’t sign up for highly formal HACCP-type management of their dairy. The new rules may also intimidate other small dairies from entering the California raw milk market. Perhaps most worrisome, the new rules could be misused by CDFA—after all, isn’t using and misusings regulation what bureaucrats are trained to do, and hasn't CDFA done it before?
But where does all this leave us? It seems as if the question being asked is whether you work within the system—as limiting and even corrupt as it may be—and possibly settle for the lesser of two evils, or you hold out for complete victory, as Bob Hayles advocates. When you immerse yourself into the system, as I did over the last few days, you inevitably find yourself caught up in the process, and identifying “victory” as the best deal you can get. Because if you don’t, your connection into the system, Sen. Florez, is likely to back off. He’ll take a small risk to gain a few points, but there is no way he’ll risk his entire political career to gain a few points. And the judge who issued the temporary restraining order may back off as well, when the state’s attorney general explains that OPDC and Claravale turned their backs on a legislative “solution.”
Bottom line, this is a classic lesson in the workings of our political system. Those who become most seriously engaged, and can deliver something (usually money or votes), get to write the rules.
This isn’t to say you can’t fight for further changes to adjust the raw milk (and other) rules down the road. Money and/or votes, along with a willingness to stay engaged, will likely determine success.
Maybe another way of saying this is that if Mark hadn’t become seriously engaged, he wouldn’t be on the inside looking out, and the CDFA on the outside, looking in.
***
It’s not surprising that the mainstream media didn’t bother to cover the California Senate's raw milk hearing. Oh, wait, there was one bit of coverage, from the Fresno Bee, about the fact that one of the consumer witnesses nursed her child for a brief time while testifying. As always, the media get at the issues that matter most. And you wonder why America’s old-line newspapers are headed for extinction?
There are some informative re-caps of the hearing—from Amanda Rose at Ethicurean and from the Organic Pastures site.
Reader Comments (7)
What is not appreciated is that every dairy in Australia has had a HACCP plan in effect for five years. It has worked very well. It is a shame that HACCP is prejudged before it is even understood.
I have been trained in HACCP and it is not to be feared. After training you will love it. You must love it or you will never do it.
The results are really amazing and make your company more efficient and not only save money but make serious safety improvements a reality.
If Raw Milk is going to be taken seriously and supported by our culture, raw milk producers must be serious and exceed the expectations of mainstream.
The HACCP plan that will be eventually used in CA will be specialized for each producer. It will be his plan created by using a model provided.But it is his plan with his risks. Major risks will be common for all raw milk dairies but details will be specialized.
Whether your operation has 10 cows or 500 cows it will work and fit with economics that also fit.
We must become serious about safety....so we can prove once and for all that raw milk is safer by far than pasteurized milk.
Keep the faith and do not fear.
We are in close contact with Collette at Claravale and she supports the plan as well. We are united in this effort. We have a long way to go and the Raw Milk Expert Panel will submit a draft HACCP plan and other recommendations for review early next week.
OPDC is out of this picture. The Raw Milk PhD Experts are handling this. We are in very good hands.Our experts know exactly what they are doing. I have seen what they are doing, it is awesome and very do-able for all of us. For once we will get respect as raw milk producers. The consumers will be proteced becuase the flow of safe raw dairy products will not be blocked by anyone anymore.
Mark McAfee
"But where does all this leave us? It seems as if the question being asked is whether you work within the system—as limiting and even corrupt as it may be—and possibly settle for the lesser of two evils, or you hold out for complete victory, as Bob Hayles advocates."
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
I have to ask again...where in all this discussion has anyone been willing to get past competing studies? Both sides of the discussion can present compelling statistics and studies that bolster their side. I don't believe that science will ever have THE definitive answer regarding safety or benefits of raw milk.
So, that leaves the answer to come from rights. Do we as citizens have the right to make our own nutritional choices, or must we pick from a nanny state approved list of foods?
The issue of rights is where this whole question will be finally settled. Why is it so hard for folks to bring rights into the discussion?
Bob Hayles
I drive one hour thru Pa. dairy country for our raw milk. I pass 6 "LICENSED" dairy farms all their cattle are confined to the barn or appx. 100 square feet of black wet muck the cows are always filthy and eat some kind of brown seedy stuff never able to reach one blade of grass. But the tank trucks pick of the "STUFF" from these farms for human consumption and tell us it safe to drink.
The farms that our raw milk comes from have been severely attacked by the establishment. Their cows however are always clean, roam freely in grass covered fields, never eat the brown seedy looking stuff.
The establishment permits FILTHY farms to produce "MILK" and attacks clean farms with healthy cows.
This is an awful picture thats why there is a sinking feeling haunting me.
Maybe the only way for real change is for the American people to be informed of the TRUTH about this whole story. Then as people no longer purchased dead filthy milk change would be dramatic and cows returned to the fields.
Just dreaming I guess.
Don
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/daimoov.html
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/haccpdai.html
During the hearing I heard the term HACCP for the first time. As I listened, I assumed it was simular to hospitals' universal precautions and sterile processing. Skimming these links is mind-boggling. I would think that any dairy (or other entity) would adhear to something simular to this, without the govt making it law. I can understand that laws are made to protect people as not everyone is honest and I understand that basic measures are set. When an entity exceeds those basic measures, that makes them stand out as superior. Seems like common sense to me.
When they "form" the HACCP for the raw dairies, I do hope that the goals are obtainable and realistic for all the dairies, small and large. I will also not hold my breath waiting for "factory farms" to meet the same strict laws as the raw dairies.
Another issue has been on my mind. The last few times I bought OP raw cream, it was thinner than usual. The whole milk tasted the same, and the amount of cream on the top of the whole milk appears less than a few years ago. I cannot speak for Claravale milk as it is always sold out at the Co-op when I do my shopping and I am not in that area on the delivery day. If I recall correctly, Mark has said something to the effect that to meet the 10 coliform count he'd have to thin the cream. (I am sure I will be corrected).
Strauss pasturized (non-Homogenized) cream is also thinner. The reason I bring this up is my concern with "settling" for inferior products. Is this what it will come to, just to "pass" the dictated laws?
Than it is in a mall.
I'm not looking for acceptance or approval by the culture, bureaucrats, Phd's or anyone else, they are the problem. I'm looking to transform the culture, restore health and render the aforementioned busybodies obsolete.