In Colorado, Making a Strong Case for a National Dairy Association; New Kombucha Source; Updating My Book; New Meadowsweet Appeal; Pricey Dinner in Field
Sunday, July 11, 2010 at 10:50PM One of the things Ontario Judge Paul Kowarsky marveled at when he ruled in favor of raw dairy farmer Michael Schmidt and his herdshare arrangement last January was that there was "no evidence of any illness" in the 16 years the farmer and government authorities battled over availability of raw milk. Moreover, tests by the regulatory authorities never found any evidence of pathogens.
The other side of that observation by the judge is that, when a case involving raw milk comes up for court consideration, there damn well better not be evidence of illnesses lurking in the background (not that it guarantees a win, by any means). Or, to put it another way, just a few bad apples--farmers whose milk causes illnesses--can make things very difficult for the vast majority of dairy farmers who are being meticulous in ensuring their milk is produced according to the highest possible safety standards.
Unfortunately, there are a few producers who are creating all kinds of problems for the vast majority of raw milk producers. I don't mean to suggest anyone is doing anything intentional, but definitely in this business, shit does happen. Complicating the situation, there are many who don't want to admit that raw milk can become contaminated with pathogens and result in illness.
In that vein, I want to thank Blair McMorran (of the Raw Milk Association of Colorado) for sharing with us (in a comment following my previous post) her candid assessment of the recent illnesses attributed to raw milk in Colorado: "In this case, certain standards of production were not followed...more outbreaks will happen unless we focus on herd health before consumer demand."
She concludes by making the case for a raw dairy association with teeth: "We need more testing, more administration, website function, more educational brochures, some training videos, and more part-time help - including a field-worker who can go onsite and help new producers."
Why not a national raw dairy association? Every other food category has an association of some type. At least some of the good ones establish standards of excellence that everyone has to abide by to remain a member in good standing.
Yes, it costs money. But there's money to be made in producing safe high-quality raw dairy products. An active and credible association helps to politically protect the industry. Just like any other industry association.
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I had a busy but productive weekend on the food front. I accomplished one important goal by locating a new source of high-quality kombucha, to replace the kombucha that Whole Foods ditched a few weeks ago. It's a small Vermont producer, Aquavitea, that distributes to small food retailers within about a 150-mile radius. I asked at the New Hampshire retailer I purchased from how Aquavitea has avoided the recall over supposedly excess alcohol that convinced Whole Foods to drop out of the business. The manager told me Aquavitea rigorously tests each batch of kombucha for alcohol content before shipment, and then ships only short distances, so most of the kombucha is sold within days of being shipped. Another argument for locally produced food, I suppose.
The second goal I accomplished was completing what might be called "a minor tuneup" on my book, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Struggle Over Food Rights. The book is going into a second re-printing, and the publisher gave me the opportunity to do some minimal but important updating. Many thanks to those who have so enthusiastically supported the book's publication. There'll be lots more copies out there, so feel free to tell your friends about it. 
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On the legal front, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund has filed another appeal in the Meadowsweet Dairy case in New York. So far, Meadowsweet has lost in a trial court and been rejected by two appeals courts. It is now making an appeal based on the argument that "personal liberties and constitutional rights are protected" by New York's constitution. "Members of Meadowsweet believe it is their right to form a private organization to produce and consume the food they choose to put into their own bodies and that the government has no role or right to interfere or make it difficult or impossible for them to obtain that food."
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If you're looking for more evidence that locally grown nutrient-dense food is hot, take a look at this article, and see if you can find the sentence about how much people were paying for dinner in the field of organic veggie farmer (and author) Eliot Coleman. His farm is near the Maine coast, about four hours from Boston. (Hint: $160 a person).
Reader Comments (36)
I'm not convinced this is a case of "a few bad apples." That was also the excuse Bush used over Abu-Ghraib.
The issue is more systemic than that.
In our modern commercialized American society, we have a high number of people with comprimised immune systems, because of the SAD. This is a reality we have to face as producers of raw dairy products. Even one listeria organism per mL is enough to send people to the hospital, if our proudct is distrubited to a wide enough population.
We also face, on the other front, the issue of widespread GMO crops, depleted farmland soil from overplanting of corn and soy, CAFO factory farms breading E. Coli O157:h7 amongst other things, the collapse of pollinating insects (bees), and the constant price war by milk processing corporations (such as Dean's, DFA, Foremost Farms, Organic Valley, Horizan Organics, which is a subsidiary of Dean's, etc...) against small farmers.
How does one begin to deal with these problems?
It is a very complex question. And the answer is not so simple either. Small farmers are under an incredible amount of pressure to make yields on their land. Unless they are independently wealthy, they must be able to match the "quick returns" of conventional farming. Even angel investors (ala Woody Tasch's "slow money" movement) do not present a workable solution to the vast majority of raw dairy farmers.
This is capitalism. This it the modern, commercialized, over-populated, enviromentally destructive civilization in which we live.
How do we make the best of it?
Mineralization of soil is a good start. This is especially important if you are using depleted farmland.
Permaculture is a next step. Plant fruit and nut bearing trees, annual organic vegetables, pastured livestock, etc.... Use every resource available to you. Do not even expect dairy to be your main source of income. Diversity is your stregnth.
But these are really only individualized solutions. How do we get an entire commnunity of people to invest in a farm? Isn't this the model of the cow share? Its not really about the private property of the consumer. Its about the consumer caring about where his/her food comes from.
Unless we have a society (or at least a social movement) which values high-quality nutrient dense food, we cannot expect to have regular access to raw milk.
Tim Wightman is right. Raw milk is always the first victim of foods rights. Likewise, MILK is always the first victim of the progressive industrialization and commdification of our food supply in our commodified globalized neo-liberal economy.
We must demand that this trend stops. We must seek to build the most localized food supply possible, while also supporting others on the opposite side of the globe who wish to do the same.
Perhaps we should make our slogan: Food Sovereignty for All!
After all, this is about much more than just milk. This is about the entire future of food on the planet Earth.
Scary because it implies standardization, and one-size-fits-all production standards. My vision of a trade association for raw milk would incorporate everything WI Raw Milk Consumer just listed as systemic issues, with an emphasis on education. (Nice, very nice post WRMC!)
Maybe require milk testing once a month - but only if they didn't demonstrate adequate animal and soil health. Milk tests are the last ditch, and no guarantee of safe product. They do indicate, over time, process quality, but they don't guarantee product safety....What Miguel keeps teaching, I accept as fact. Milk tests are like nailing jello to a wall, with gold hammer and nails.. Looks like a hopeful good tool, eh?
Could we trust a National association to allow farmers to use their intuition and wisdom about their piece of land and the animals in their care? Heck, we can't get consensus here in Colorado - a National debate would be a real hoot.
Don't get me wrong - seems to me most producers have good reason for some disagreement with what RMAC deems 'best practices'. They may live in arid Eastern Colorado, and they're not letting those cows trample the pasture all winter or there won't be anything growing come spring. They have some cows that need grain, others, not. The good ones know their soil and their animals, and they juggle on a weekly basis.
So what we've come up with is "Just tell it like it is". Tell the consumer how much access to pasture your animals get, and what you do about the grain issue, and why.SPC spiked this month, and if you've got a streak of mastitis, and they might choose to drink, cook, or toss the milk this week. Full and open disclosure, and frequent communication will educate consumers. And consumers will teach their farmers.
Because bottom line, the best, most tenuous and most fragile thread about raw milk is our right to choose. Not just raw or pasteurized... The consumer's right to choose milk that tastes consistent every week (from penned goats fed high-quality alfalfa and a little grain) or milk that has hints of wild onion one week and clover the next. Some choose the most convenient access, others will drive for hours for the CLA-rich milk. The farmer has a right to farm as s/he deems best for their land, their animals, and their conscience It should be tween farmer and consumer. Anything that gets between that will corrupt the food chain and distract the farmer from what they do best..
All an association should do is disseminate shared wisdom and experience, often, in the spirit of continuous improvement.
I'm in favor of more of that kind of association. Anything else, count me skeptical.
-Blair
I'm not convinced this is any guarentee of safe milk, though. I do think that a thorough producer doing things the right way should be able to consistantly produce milk that is less than 10 coliform/mL, but I'm not convinced this is enough.
Herd & pasture manegment, soil mineralization, the eco-system in which the animals live, etc... all affect the safety and quality of the milk.
Once again, its not about how many bacteria are in the milk, its about what kinds of bacteria are in the milk -- the good guys or the bad guys?
I do think that a national raw milk standards organization should be formed. When is the first meeting?
Yes, coliform counts appear important. Now, I don't claim any special expertise, but additional testing ag and public health people seem to take most seriously is testing of cow and goat manure. It's possible via these tests to determine if the animals are shedding E.coli 0157 H7, campylobacter, etc. The animals don't get sick, but if their manure somehow gets into the milk, then people who drink the milk can become sick. These tests are much more expensive than testing of the milk, but much more accurate in isolating animals that can cause problems. That's one of the big, and expensive, chores an association could take on.
David
"Once again, its not about how many bacteria are in the milk, its about what kinds of bacteria are in the milk -- the good guys or the bad guys?"
However, if Miguel is correct and bacteria can change species and/or pathogenicty by exchanging DNA, the number of bacteria in milk becomes extremely important. It is much more difficult for a bacterium to find a neighbor to exchange DNA with if your coliform count is less than one and plate count less than 250 than if your coliform count is 50 and plate count is 70,000.
I however get the impression David that you are grasping at straws when you suggest that an association take on the task of testing for pathogens in manure. Considering the “systemic” nature of the issue as WI Raw Milk Consumer correctly points out and the chameleon like nature of these so called pathogens as migel has repeatedly shown, it would be a futile waste of time and money for an association to take on such a task.
Ken Conrad
By Jill Richardson
"The food industry long ago saw the benefits in fomenting CONFUSION; CONFUSION defuses public out cry about our TOXIC FOOD SYSTEM. Long after the discovery of the neurotoxic, carcinogenic endocrine-disrupting effects of farm chemicals, we are still debating the merits of organic agriculture.'
HMMM Sort of sounds exactly like the raw milk debate does it not? Approved boiled dead milk from filthy confined cows standing in their own urine and manure 24/7 eating who knows what or natural milk from clean cows out in the pasture eating grass? A never ending debate!
As a cheesemaker, I would actually be very concerned about raw milk that has a SPC of 200. The first question I would start asking is: Are there anti-biotics in the milk that aren't being picked up by the state-required test? Sanitizers, bleach, chemicals? Why are there so few bacteria? This does not happen naturally.
There is a certain level of good bacteria that are desirable in healthy raw milk. In France it is not uncommon for raw milk destined to be made into raw milk Camembert and Brie to have an SPC of 25,000. The bacteria contribute to flavor, acid development, and food safety.
In fact, it is said by some experts that the biggest threat to the future of Comte cheese (France's #1 cheese in production volume -- a raw milk, cooked pressed curd, Alpine cheese made in the foothills of the Alps) is sanitation. I kid you not. The increasingly sterility of the raw milk going into Comte is having dulling effects on the flavor of the cheese and the bio-diversity of the traditional whey starters.
Coliforms are still considered a problem with raw milk cheesemaking. They create funky undesirable fermentations in the milk.
But an elevated total plate count (we're talking over 100,000 here) can only be used as an indicator of gross contamination or old milk. Coliforms are probably the more important number to look at for food safety and quality. Pyscrotrophs like pseudomonas can also be a problem if you are making cultured products, or want the milk to have more shelf life.
Point being, the goal is not to have a ridiculously low plate count. For fluid raw milk, if you can keep it under 10,000 you are doing fine. What you really need to look at is coliforms, and like David said, start testing the manure for human pathogens.
I would even go so far as to suggest we should NOT be testing the milk for pathogens (with the notable exception of Staph Aureus). What other ready to eat product has mandatory testing for human pathogens in the finished product? NONE!
We need to be looking for the problems BEFORE we find them in the milk. i.e. manure testing, enviromental testing of the milking parlor and the milk house, etc... to identify where the hazards are and how to keep them out of the milk.
http://genomebiology.com/2008/9/6/225
"What makes pathogens pathogenic?"
"Pathogenicity is not only dependent on qualitative issues such as the presence of specific species, strains, or genes, but also on their relative abundances. Thus, the differential growth of one microbe may result in others transitioning into or out of pathogenic status. It is therefore likely that many pathogens did not initially evolve as pathogens, but simply take on this role as a result of a lack of ability of the host to maintain homeostasis [3] . Interestingly, not all bacteria associated with pathogenic processes cause disease by their presence; some bacteria are pathogenic by their absence, such as the vaginal lactobacilli whose loss results in an increased pH, which permits overgrowth by invasive species [4-6] . What makes a pathogen, therefore, is the addition, or deletion, of metabolic capabilities in the symbiome that results in a disruption of homeostasis."
Blair requested more on our RAMP food system at OPDC. It has been posted at our website for quite some time. I can also email to any one. The magic to RAMP is the consistancy of daily checklists to assure that in fact the management that is bragged about is actually happening and never breached.
This takes discipline and work. Discipline and work is sometimes short on a farm. But if you are going to be consistent and have reliable results like no pathogens and stable chemisty and biology that wirk with you...then you had better be disciplined and dilligent.
Why do you think that CA is filled with 1750 dairies and only 2 that produce raw milk???
Raw milk productions is a 100% departure from the commonly tought and utilized practices at a CAFO or conventional dairy system. It is also politically incorrent and inflamatory.
In order for there to be a back ground of peace and in order for the raw milk to get established the farmers doing raw milk must be extra dilligent. If not... the enemies of raw milk will use the farmer to kill his own growing efforts.
Peace comes from not ever being your own worst enemy....
RAMP is not perfect....but it sure helps me sleep well at night knowing that OPDC is consistently achieving the targets we have set to reduce risk to the lowest practical levels that we can.
As far as the 10 coliform level for raw milk is concerned....it is an obsurdly low level to be used for all practical purposes. It was a dairy lab test established in the 1930's to see if pasteurization was effective....that is all that is it. It has little practical application to raw milk in 2010.
Coliform levels in the less than 20-30 range seem much more appropriate when testing finished products ( my persnal opinion based on countless litigation, legislation and scientific areguments I have seen and heard and also seeing the corrupt application of lab testing standards that are not related to safety ).
The WAP convention this fall will address food safety and I am sure that a national association will come up and be a big subject. I do not like national hammers over my head....but enforcement as ugly as it seems would be something that participating producers would need to think about....
The farmer is either following his RAMP plan or not...???!! If not why not.
The USDA NOP kind of does the same thing. I would suggest that each farm has its own custom RAMP program and each would be inspected to assure compliance to its own plan. That way it is the farmers plan that would be measured agaist his own practices. He becomes his own hammer but it would be audited by the third party.
If raw milk is going to become nationally recognized and respected....it will need a serious police department.
Mark
"Raw milk secreted in the udder is virtually sterile." ("Fundamentals of Cheese Science" Fox Guinee, Logan, McSweeny)
"From a healthy cow, milk in the udder is sterile but becomes naturally contamilnated upon leaving the udder" (Greg Blaak, Phd, University of Manitoba)
From this it appears that a plate count above 1000 is due to contamiination from outside the udder (except in cows with mastitis). The contamination could come from the surface of the udder and teats or from the milking equipment. In either case it is unwanted because the type of bacteria could be variable, depending on environmental conditions.
Due to the above, I maintain the highest quality raw milk has a standard plate count of 1000 or below. This can be achieved by meticulous cleaning and sanitizing of the teats and udder, pasturing the cows, and heat sterilzing the milking equipment. Only once has our SPC been above 250 in over a year of State regulated testing.
However we must remember, we're not having this debate because of food safety. We're having this debate because of food freedom. Food safety is only the excuse, the justification to take away food freedom. Any move towards centralizing control and enforcement works against food freedom and plays right into the aims of the food tyrants.
Any national association needs to focus on education and resolve from the outset never ever to step between the consumer and the farmer.
I'm not sure what you mean by a raw milk police department?
There are only two things that have the power to put a raw milk farmer out of bussiness -- the customer, and the state.
As a raw milk certification & education agency, we are neither of those.
What we would have the power to do, to sloppy higher-risk producers, is revoke or deny their certification. This would not stop them from selling raw milk, it would only mean they cannot claim our badge of certification. This has the potential to drive some consumers away from the sloppy producer, but others won't care. That is not our job, or really any of our bussiness. Our job is to protect the identity and reputation of the certification, so that consumers who purchase raw milk from farms which are certified, have an extra degree of confidence that a third-party expert believes the milk is being produced in a safe way.
There is no way the state with all of its resources can stop the sale of raw milk. We have witnessed this first hand in Wisconsin, the most over-regulated state when it comes to dairy. How do you expect our certification agency to police the sales of raw milk?
The agency's role should be to educate all producers (regardless of whether they are certified or not), inspect producers who wish to be certified, and protect the reputation of the certification badge.
If national standards were stated clearly by a national Raw Milk association then the consumer could look up the producer and see how they stand on the Good Karma Raw Milk score card.
Let the consumers decide if they want to buy from and comsume low score raw milk or listed honored high score raw milk.
Easy as that.
Perhaps this is extremely hard and not so easy. There are lots of social issues that go along with egos, pride and biases....this is a sticky ugly thing when it comes to opening up your practices to critical evaluation and assessment.
If each farmer had his own RAMP program that was customized to address his very own risks then the playing flield would be level. My risks and the risks of a farmer in Maine are not the same. The RAMP programs should have similiar end objectives but may differ on how to get there. This is fair...being certified or listed on the national association list would be volentary but would hold high honor and prestige. It would also hold much value with consumers and hopefully dramatically reduce risks.
A good plan....if followed... nearly always accomplishes its goals.
The cost ( human, economic and etc...) of a recall and illness is something far greater than putting a producers pride away for the greater good of his brand, reputation, his family farm and most importantly his consumers health.
Mark
"Due to the above, I maintain the highest quality raw milk has a standard plate count of 1000 or below. This can be achieved by meticulous cleaning and sanitizing of the teats and udder, pasturing the cows, and heat sterilzing the milking equipment."
I agree, and thanks for posting the good references.
MW
RAMP is our cost of freedom. All silent on the legal CA RAW MILK front....you do not see the FDA, CDFA or the FBI coming onto OPDC soil and terrorizing us or attempting a shut down.
We have identified the legal and regulatory standards, identified the risks in our Raw Milk production systems and we have addressed as many of those risks as possible in a food safety plan in order to achieve compliance and reduce risks....
....so far so good. When ever we have a deviation from our daily checklists in our RAMP program we are all over the repair of the system to again maintain compliance.
The price of freedom is eternal dilligence and viligence....never truer words spoken and never more true than with raw milk. If we are going to have true freedom we will also need to be careful and conscientious.
Take the "RAMP" to a higher level. You may also will find some respect from the FDA and your state and local authorities. They love policy and proceedure. The consumers will also come to respect your consistency, safety and flavor.
As far as sterile raw milk is concerned. That is a crock....we are talking about raw milk as it is consumed not raw milk physiologically as an internal organ excretion. Raw milk comes out of the end of a teat and it is milked by machines....it is not surgically extracted from some iconic sterile place imagined by some industry paid off sterile loving idiot scientist.
The idea that raw milk is sterile is something that is rediculous....raw milk is colonized by resident bacteria in the teat canal and at the teat end. These are the commensual symbiotic bacteria essential to completion of the milk biome. UC Davis researchers did a huge study on this....
See the link
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8950
To quote..... this functional alliance between the baby, the bacteria and the mother’s milk, a team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of California, Davis, recently published a sequencing of the genome — an analysis all of the genes and related DNA — of B. longum subsp. infantis.
Get a clue....raw milk is not a sterile food even though it is released from its lacteal glands as a near sterile excretion. Raw milk is not a complete food until it is joined with its essential bacteria and it is ingested.
Politically bought off scientists that mascarade as real scientists...make me sick.
Most importantly they make tons of real people very sick.
Mark
And while state mandated certifications and licensing have proven good at erecting barriers to competition they have largely failed to make us safer.
Interesting article in the NYT today regarding microbial biomes, intestinal microflora-- maybe recognition of our internal ecosystem is finally going mainstream again. . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13micro.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th
How Microbes Defend and Define Us
By CARL ZIMMER
Researchers studying the microbiome hope they will learn
enough about it to enlist it in the fight against diseases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13micro.html?th&emc=th
Ditto MW: Steve A. thanks for the reference.
(I need to put a wireless/data line on the tractor......)
RDK
Perhaps it should be made clear in the founding documents of the certification program that it is intended to be a voluntary program, and that we are against any effort to make it mandatory. If we use clear enough language, we can hopefully avoid the pitfalls of power struggles.
The real goal of the organization, after all, is to improve management practices of all dairy farms which provide raw milk. The certification is for farms we believe are in the "very low risk" category on food safety issues.