Can a Raw Dairy Association Bring Order to Chaos of War? Children as Political Pawns; Defense for Michael Schmidt
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 10:28PM 
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.
Reader Comments (30)
A record nearly 50 000 000 Americans came up short of food on their tables this past year and a new record will be set this also. That number contained 17 000 000 HUNGRY CHILDREN!!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/16/AR2009111601598.html?nav=toast
America's Economic Pain Brings HUNGER PANGS by Amy Goldstein
AGAIN 17 000 000 HUNGRY CHILDREN!!!
While at the same time we criminalize and raid our small raw dairy farmers!!!
Is our nation suffering from MENTAL AND MORAL TERMINAL CANCER???
Simply put, the taste of real milk greatly surpasses that of pastuerized milk. What child wouldn't march in favor of better flavor?
Thanks for coming to the WAPF conference, David. Looking forward to reading the book!
“The worst thing that could happen to raw dairies and public health, IMHO, would be to have an insurgence of people with varying degrees of experience/knowledge entering the raw milk 'business' with the primary motivation: money.”
That line made me think about our so-called “health” care system, which is of course very well accepted by the vast majority of Americans, promoted endlessly by our dear medical experts (and government and media), is the third largest killer in America today (as reported in JAMA), and is about to become mandatory. (Half of those medical-care-caused deaths, by the way, result from medical care “properly” delivered.)
The plain truth is that the worst thing that could happen to public health is the continuation of our current public health paradigm.
The idea that our health is best cared for by “experts” has been proven so deficient, so baldly destructive, that it is astounding we haven’t run our experts out of town on a rail. Amazingly, instead we reward them with money and power, and lend our government to them for enforcement of their horrific system.
Here’s some food for thought: A friend just returned from a medical mission trip to Hanoi, and reported to me that he found there deep poverty, a thinly built infrastructure, and little medical care, but also a cultural ethos that work must be a part of everyone’s life, and that “food” means fresh, unprocessed, and locally grown. My friend noted, among other things, that there is almost no heart disease or diabetes there, and that doctoring is a virtual blue-collar profession. (He was told that the average doctor must save for 30 years to buy a house.)
Are we blind?
"4) Sales at retail, where the consumer is likely not to know the producer, should have increased testing under state law.
"5) Transactions (whether sales, cow shares or otherwise depending on state law) direct from farmer to consumer whether on the farm or otherwise, or from farmers with herds smaller than a yearly-average [100] milking cows, should not be regulated other than by individual agreement.
[precedent for a similar exemption of raw milk, is the federal Egg Products Inspection Act (Pub. L. 91-597, 84 Stat.1620 et seq.) which exempts eggs direct farm-to-consumer or any sales from flocks of less than 3000 birds. At the state level, some states permit sales to various degrees and at the other extreme, some few prohibit all kinds of raw milk transactions; these issues will have to be dealt with at the state level.]"
Enforcement against (read: Shut-down of) small dairies producing raw milk are blatantly unfair in the context of nearly-total lack of similar sanctions against large operations. Fine, if the regulators don't want to shut down large operations, then regulators should stay in that universe and manage large operations according to whatever priorities seem important. If FDA and/or national safety standards arrive on the scene to manage large operations even more tightly, then that may be the will of the people, and the fate of large operations. Surely, if cargo-ships of melamine-laced milk powder are supplying the factories of big-ag food producers (as seems to be a factor in the current dairy crisis), then FDA ought to be on the case. More power to them.
The problem is not with small operations, however, and fundamentally consumers who enter into private contracts to obtain the foods of their choice are simply exercising the freedom which the Founders forgot to include in the Bill of Rights simply because it was too obvious to think about.
It's all about choice: businesses or consumers who want to live the big ag life should be free to do so, with both the assurance and protection of the government's rules where bigness piggybacks on all of the advantages of a complex, interconnected, mass-advertising society. You can't be big and get all those advantages without playing by some rules.
On the other hand, consumers and farmers who choose to stay small also should have a choice. The rules of large scale should not be applied where the freedom to choose, with its greater responsibilities and benefits, reigns. In this zone of freedoms, government should not tread.
Freedom is scary. Lawyers may peek into the tent and sue when something goes wrong. High levels of voluntary standards, models of best practice, whatever you want to call them, will help. It's hard work. What we don't need are suffocating layers of rules and enforcement targeted at the small-scale segment of the market which is innovating, meeting new consumer demands, and helping this country regain and preserve its health.
My perspective comes from witnessing the citizens of Colorado getting a herdshare bill passed, against the advice of the Health Dept, which could not have happened without legislator's help, and lots of consumers showing up at the table.
Since then, I've witnessed the subsequent growth of small raw dairies in this state. 50 *legal* raw dairies in this state now...it's a beautiful sight. As much as we wish they'd leave us alone to conduct business, it isn't going to happen so we we have to get a seat at the table. If not you, who?
That video could have shown interviews with kids talking about raw milk, with closeups of their facial structure and teeth. I assume the parents didn't hear David speak about the 'mind of the enemy', and didn't perceive how this video would come across. I know they had good intentions, and it was probably a good lesson in activism for the kids, which will be important some day.
Thanks for the updates, great info, and for this blog! I'm going to look into that inspection model.
-Blair
IF...we attempt to move towards a raw milk producers association let me make one very important suggestion.
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.
I will be looking for the labs in the next week who still have equipment to do milk quality tests beyond what we have now as the milk standard as it relates to SCC fat protien ect.
To get two farmers to agree is rather hard..to get thousands together to create a idea of process would be nearly impossible.
To get all raw milk producers to agree to an objective standard which has a sliding scale is our only hope.
I saw the raw milk summit in 2006 in Nebraska desinigrate into process early on in the disscussion..mostly from an emotional content, not a basis of what constitutes quality milk.
This will not only foster a greater understanding of the animals we use to produce milk but the land from which the feed is produced and a goal to achieve to garnish the best price and the most value from a consumer.
This will also foster many avenues to proviide raw milk not just one model which can be corrupted by Local, State and Federal agencies.
Soil health and animal care have the perk of quality milk...not the other way around.
Tim Wightman
The very idea that children should not drink raw milk is a crazy and ignorant beyond compare.
It is as crazy as saying that all mothers breast milk should be pastuerized and breast feeding should be illegal.
Mothers breast milk is raw milk.!!!! it is not sterile. It is biodiverse representing the bacteria in and on the mothers bodily ecosystem ( also dads and sisters and brothers and cats and dogs and the house and the area in which they live ). Our bodies are not sterile....if they were we would be dead. We are 95% BACTERIAL....SEE THE NIH and Princeton University for this ( Dr. Bonnie Bassler ). Can we not listen to our scientists and listen to the wisdom of the ages... Do we want to kill off our next generation? Do we really like seeing kids with chronic immune depression, asthma, ear infections and Gut disfunction. Do we really think it is smart to create more super killer bugs as we become weaker and weaker. This is suicide by ignornance while under the guidance of the FDA.
Kids thrive on raw milk and it is critical to their continued immune system development to go from their moms breast milk to the broader biodversity of enzyme rich cows, goats, sheep, horse or yak raw milk ( this is a world issue ).... The same people that freak out at the idea of kids drinking raw milk are the same people that are scratching their heads and crying about the 1 in 90 boys that are born with autism. These are the same people that cry at kids funerals when they die of the flu and or get repeated ear infections or die from Asthma etc....and the number is getting worse and worse. Just a few years ago it was 1 in 150 children with autism( the number is higher for boys than girls for some reason ). Technology aint fixin nothin....it is the FOOD and the heaping on of more and more immune challenges to our youngest and most defenseless. The staws are breaking their immune backs.
The very idea that people are upset about children drinking raw milk shows the darkness and ignorance of the sterilized bacteriaphobic American reality. In CA the testimonials of raw milk recovering injured immune systems in kids and adults is a bright light at the end of this dark tunnel.
Education is the key....awareness is the key... a national association of Raw Milk producers is key. We already have legal defense and consumers associations. We have www.californiarawmilk.org and WAP nationally. We already have www.rawusa.org.
I think that the FTCLDF should establish this organization take nominations and elect producer officers and create national guidelines and standards and start the lobbying effort. It is critical to speak with one voice and put the money behind it. The research is out there...it just needs to be spoken. For every gallon of raw milk that is sold the farmer and consumer would pledge some amount to this national association. I will speak with Sally about this next week when she comes to OPDC.
There are huge groups of people that are demanding raw milk in CA because they are awakening...they realize that John Sheehan is really Jim Jones and the act if drinking the "FDA lemonade" is not for them.
They see the bodies.
NARMPA .....North American Raw Milk Producers Association. Hows that???
Mark McAfee
First I want to thank David for allowing me to use the comment section of his blog for what follows:
As readers here know, recently the state of Georgia Department of Agriculture's operatives intercepted raw milk that had been bought and paid for legally in South Carolina and was being brought back to the purchasers by someone who was going to pick up milk.
No sale of raw milk took place in Georgia. No laws were broken...Georgia laws or South Carolina laws, or any federal law regarding the transport for sale of raw milk across state lines.
But the milk...the legally bought, paid for, and owned milk...was dumped on the orders of the milk police.
For a month now I have stewed over the injustice and the abuse of power, but, after the fact, I felt there was nothing I could do. I was wrong.
Please go to my blog, http://www.JuicyMaters.com and look for the "Recent Posts" section on the left sidebar. There will be a post title "Open Letter to GA Ag Commish". Please read the entire letter, and the notes below the signature, and act as you feel moved to.
The post will be available starting at 6:30 pm eastern time, today, Wednesday, November 18, 2009.
Thanks folks...and David...thanks again.
Bob Hayles
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
cp
Do you mean like this?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2058/1763164945_06f3931fc3.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/2771696843_b102f8ce6f.jpg?v=0
Exactly. Here’s a few videos that make the point. Nursing animals don’t get sick when there’s poop on the teat. Humans do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MQjBLvespk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2SajbMurA8
cp
You think breast milk is not connected to the gut? There is research saying it is. Yes indeedy, your breast milk reflects your poop. Breast milk can be toxic.You should advocate pasteurization! of breast milk too!! That would annihilate disease, que no?
Lykke, shame on you - those are CAFO cows, and you know it. Look at those swollen udders. Why do you vacillate between fear and knowledge?
Do you not trust your instincts?
-Blair
Why is it that when raw proponents use anecdotal evidence that backs raw milk, you two dismiss it as "unscientific", yet you see nothing wrong with using pics from youtube and flickr as YOUR evidence?
I know the definition of double standard. Since you two obviously don't, try looking it up in the dictionery. There is no text definition...just a picture of you two.
Bob Hayles
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
EVERY time you are in contact with an elected official or government bureaucrat, remind them:
"We don't work for you. You work for US."
Those cows look like CAFO Holsteins, but they are on grass. Besides, I've seen grass fed jerseys and browns, and their poop comes and goes the same direction as the Holsteins. Also, part of the latest thread has related to converting CAFO cows to raw milk, something that worries me. David gave an example where it could be done slowly, over time, but who has time in this economy, especially when raw milk leaders are telling the media there is money to be made...
I respect you, Dave Milano, Tim Wrightman, and others that have described intense dedication to farming and quality, My experience with raw dairy has been negative (seeing the bad outcomes where there were illnesses and problems with things like sanitation, outsourcing, cooling, mislabeling), and this influences my perspective. But, I continue to wonder about the dairies that haven't had problems. Can honest education about risks combined with good farming practices make this debate almost go away?
Pictures of cows pooping are testimonials? You lost me...
May those chains rest lightly on your shoulders.
Bob Hayles
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
Every time you are in contact with an elected official or government bureaucrat, tell them,
"We don't work for you. You work for us."
the first pic the cows are tie stall barn cows(note horns & neck strap) not cafo cows and have laid down in wet conditions either outside or in the barn....both are malnurished the one in the back ground just calved and is swollen and may have a touch of milk fever or just urinated.... and the grass is way too short way too high in protien.
the goat in the second pic is getting ready to kid..same swelling senario.
The guy with the mike is with a herd of crionic acidosis and malnutrition given how the cows walked away..or tried to....because of too much protien but at the time of shooting the manure looked good not too runny...may have just been turned out to pasture....and the grass is way too short way too high in protien.
show cows at fair..nice cows
In all pics or videos did not see any animals crapping on udders.
That is the norm...some cows drop a pile and back up on purpose to lay down in it..just the way it is...those we use a hose on first.
However at milking we use a solution to render all matter inert in case we miss any when hanging a milker.
It takes the assumption that all manure has pathogens to infect milk...but remember it would take a large amount of manure to do so.... not just a splat...if gut flora is proper and feed is balanced and nutrient dense and properly balanced in the ration no human pathogens are usually detected in manure, so the chance of detection in milk is slim.....
FarmerTim
Just by changing a few of your words, I can say basically the same of what I've seen in my line of work: My experience with medicines/medical community has been negative at times (seeing the bad outcomes where there were illnesses and problems with things like sanitation, outsourcing, cooling, mislabeling) (substandard care, insurance companies dictating care standards,etc), and this influences my perspective. But, I continue to wonder about the patients that haven't had problems. Can honest education about risks combined with good and honest teaching/instruction practices make this debate almost go away? Would it not improve health care? Safer patient care, with better outcomes? If the patient really was informed of the risks/side effects of medications along with alternative treatments, wouldn't that be morally correct yet also the right of the patient to be correctly informed? I know many who are truly dedicated to administering good health care, yet they are fighting a long hard battle and are the few.
As for breast milk, you can't sterilize the nipple, as stated, what the mother consumes almost always come out in the milk, variety of cells (good and bad) circulate in the blood and co-mingle with all body fluids. Many so called pathogens are on the skin naturally, staph, strep, yeast etc. Don't forget that clothes that touch the skin aren't sterile either. Do you think that each mother scrubs her nipples at each feeding? That is not realistic.
There are trace amounts of toxic residues carried into mothers' bodies that become even more concentrated in the milk their breasts produce. Contaminated with dioxins,PCBs, Salmonella, etc.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/578222
Breast milk is contaminated with many things.
http://healthychild.org/blog/comments/the_benefits_of_breast_milk_outweigh_any_risks1/
Thanks for the useful information. I quibble with your last paragraph, but agree that good diet and health are a critical parts of the picture (quality, safety, welfare). The problem is that bacteria like E. coli O157, Campy, and most Salmonella are not pathogens for cattle, goats, wildlife, etc.; healthy cattle and other animals on balanced diets can shed them in their feces at varying levels. Also, a splat could be a problem if the concentration of bacteria is high (several logs per gram), especially if the milk isn't cooled properly or otherwise mishandled later to allow bacterial growth. It seems this is rarely ever a problem for farm families consuming raw milk from their own animals. But, it has been a problem for some people from outside the farm environment who buy it; in the last few years, those who became the most ill had tried raw milk for the first time ever (or had been drinking it for a short time).
BTW, I finally got a copy of your FTCLDF publication, "Raw Milk Production Handbook." It is well written and packed with good information in a short format. A few areas could be expanded, but great overall and probably the only source I've seen from the raw milk movement that deals with quality and safety in a realistic, honest manner. Hope it becomes more widely available in the future.
***********************
Off topic:
FDA Takes Action Against Dairy Farm and Owner
Farm selling animals with illegal drug residues
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm191232.htm
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