The Complete Patient

There’s a move afoot in New York state to allow raw milk to be sold via retail outlets.

When I noted the possibility in a recent posting, I made mention of the fact that New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets wants to ensure it keeps a tight rein on the marketplace.

I didn’t realize quite how tight until Steve Smith, whose Meadowsweet Dairy LLC still has a court case against Ag and Markets pending and is awaiting a decision on an agency hearing last January over the dairy's refusal to obtain a raw milk permit, alerted me to the legislation’s current language. Steve and wife Barbara, as you’ll recall, got into a tangle with Ag and Markets because the agency didn’t take well to the dairy’s decision last year to distribute raw milk products directly to consumers via a limited liability company, similar to a cowshare. There were weird visits during snowstorms and questionable enforcement of a search warrant last December.

The proposed legislation dates back to last January, but apparently it’s been refined more recently, to include language satisfactory to Ag and Markets. It does indeed state, “The production for retail sale and the retail sale of raw, untreated milk for human consumption shall be authorized in this state.”

But then the next paragraph states, “Every person engaged in the production of raw, untreated milk for human consumption shall hold a permit issued by the commissioner.”

Steve says that the legislation, “if passed as written, will end our company and make the matter pending in Judge Egan's court moot. It could also be used to prevent any cowshare or herdshare in NY. And it seems that anyone with a family cow would require a permit.”

There’s one other thing Steve doesn’t mention: the right to produce raw dairy products other than milk, like yogurt, butter, and cream, as the Meadowsweet LLC currently does, would presumably go away as well.

I suppose one could argue that the “right” to buy raw milk retail would represent such a huge gain as to make the rights to herdshares and other raw dairy product irrelevant. And the fact that Ag and Markets is willing to make such a magnanimous gesture is testimony to the consumer outcry over the case involving the Smiths and other cases involving questionable findings of listeria in raw milk.

But I think we’ve learned enough about how the bureaucracies operate in real life to appreciate that any such deals with the devil are just that—deals with the devil. Are they worth making in the interests of satisfying growing demand for raw milk from consumers who aren't able to arrange trips to dairies or to organize herd shares? That may be the question as this legislation wends its way through the legislature.

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No big surprise here, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Michigan Department of Agriculture didn't respond to an "intent to sue" letter from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund in May. So the FTCLD is suing--filing suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, against the two agencies.