Words, Words...Why RAWMI Exposes Such Deep Fears; Rally to Support Vernon Hershberger; Coming New Look
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 10:06PM I've had some trouble writing this post. I keep starting it, and then someone posts an intriguing comment that takes me off in yet another direction, and I start over again.
I started off wanting to relate the Obama Administration's response to a petition seeking an end to the federal ban on raw milk, to the debate over the Raw Milk Institute. 
There's no surprise in the administration's actual response, that Obama supports pasteurization of all milk, and opposes raw milk. We can assume he doesn't pay much attention to this specific issue, but the reality is that his aides don't issue positions he opposes. He said he was against raw dairy when he was a senator, and so he continues to say the same thing now.
What's discouraging is that the White House adviser who wrote the response was cynical enough to suggest, "We...understand the importance of letting consumers make their own food choices."
These words were just fluff to the adviser, and his boss. They, of course, "understand" nothing of the sort. In their world, they can't allow true choice because they know best, they are the repositories of "science."
I wanted to point out that as much as these autocratic opponents of true "food choices" want the issue to disappear, it won't. It will inevitably expand, as ever more people learn about not only the ever-expanding restrictions on our liberties, but the costs in human health.
It seems to me that one important way it will expand is that it will wend its way through the courts, likely on a number of fronts (an appeal of the Wisconsin Craig/Zinniker case, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund case against the FDA, the Dan Allgyer case, among others).
It seems to me that RAWMI is a way to reply to the fear mongering the regulators throw out there, as a way to demonstrate that raw milk providers are self policing. Sally O'Boyle's immediate reaction was similar to mine: "When I first heard about RAWMI and its attempts to be a private regulatory 'agency' for dairy farmers, I immediately called to join up, to be trained as an inspector for KY. I would so much rather have a private agency inspecting my milk than a gov agency, bought and paid for by corporate interests."
But what should this RAWMI we refer to look like? Should it even exist at all?
Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. expresses surprise about the depth of opposition to RAWMI. "I did not know about farmers that absolutely want no help or assistance to develop consumer friendly programs to show the work they do for safety. I did not know that many Cow Share operators reject any kind of exposure and demand absolute secrecy."
But I wonder, is his surprise that this segment of farmers exists? Is he surprised by the depth of their concerns? Or is he surprised that they "demand absolute secrecy"? Or does he mean "privacy" instead of "secrecy"?
So strong are the feelings, on both sides, that they are difficult to articulate. That leads to frustration. Gayle Loiselle,a plaintiff in the Craig/Zinniker cases in Wisconsin, sums it up when she says, "We need to organize and educate within our communities about the far reaching dangers of highly processed mass produced food and the benefits of sustainably produced nutrient dense food. And not waste our energy arguing over who is more right…that is exactly what the opposition is hoping for."
Yes, all this was a lot easier when all we had to do was rail against the state and federal regulators at demonstrations, or express our cynicism during the Raw Milk Symposium. But now that we are looking at creating a new safety-oriented entity that is at once "consumer friendly" and "transparent," as Mark McAfee puts it, the situation is much more challenging. Partly because we each have a different vision of what all these qualities mean.
Tim Wightman rightfully raises the fundamental question many of us would just as soon not think about: What should RAWMI (or a similar organization) actually do? He's not sure exactly what it is, but knows what it isn't. "To supplant wisdom with testing is not the answer and is the very reason we got in this mess in the first place. Balance is the key, in our soils, in our understanding and in our approach to the forces we must align ourselves with. To relegate that balance to testing alone is to ignore the other 75% of what it takes to create a quality product, and takes responsibility away to gaining wisdom and the relationships it forges."
And then there are a good number of clear-thinking people who have serious problems with the idea of the Raw Milk Institute (or any such additional institutional entity) being a part of the food scene to begin with. Doreen Hannes fears "monopoly," "control," and diminished overall dairy quality--all the result of some kind of repeat of the setting of costly organic standards, which resulted in giving the biggest advantages to the biggest players.
Dave Milano worries about my perceived "monitoring void." He suggests that "the need for third-party controllers resulted from invented systems that created voids between people and the products and services they use. Controls are emphatically not necessary and not desirable when a product or service is natural and uncomplicated, and when face-to-face contact can occur between the provider and consumer."
And then there is the anger that comes out. Much of it is directed at McAfee. Some is way over the top, overly personal, though I prefer to think of it as indicative of the huge amount of emotion people have invested in this issue.
And some of it is directed at this blog, and me, for not regulating or censoring the commentary more.
As Deborah Peterson says, "This blog has turned into such a negative, ugly blog which has lost its focus in its intent. That is what is sad."
I think there is something to that, though it is worth noting that things have actually gotten uglier a number of times in the past. Still, I am especially sensitive to the rising number of complaints over the years that those using pseudonyms are more prone to engage in personal attacks on others, especially on those who do use their real names.
In the big picture, though, Doreen Hannes has captured the dynamic real well, articulated the explanation that has eluded me for answering those who demand (ever more frequently), "Get rid of the jerks.":
"To everyone that wants David to control the commenters, that is a very tough thing to do from an ideological standpoint. How can you be for freedom and cut some people off from expressing themselves?...It would be too time consuming to monitor all comments and then David would find himself having to explain why he wasn't allowing x or y to be posted. So, while I personally detest many things that are said and the spirit they appear to be given in....and while I rarely comment here myself because of the continued personal vendettas and even outright silliness of some of the commenters, I think David just needs to let it be. Spit out the bones and take the meat. It is evident who is worth discussing things with and who is not. Let's all just self police on the comments.
I still think much of it comes back to our difficulty confronting all that RAWMI implies. Maybe the solution is something akin to what Maurice Kaehler suggests, which is a return to more simplicity in our thinking. "How about everyone milking the cows twice a day, keeping your numbers down, taking care of your customers and starting an association based on a 4-H model where info about research, technology and practices are shared. The bison farmers have been doing this for years."
I prefer to be more optimistic than to go along with his predicted "split" in the food rights movement. "For some people and farms too much is at stake as the cart is before the horse." Getting the cart in the right place can't be that difficult, can it?
***
There's a rally tomorrow (Wednesday) in Sauk, WI, to support dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger when he makes his first court appearance in connection with criminal misdemeanor charges. The charges were filed a year-and-a-half after Hershberger cut the tape placed on his coolers by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to prevent him from distributing raw dairy products to members of his food club.
The rally will be at noon, on the Sauk County Courthouse Steps, 515 Oak St.
**
Not sure if the timing is good or bad, but this blog is getting a new look. It is a look intended to highlight more effectively the commentary that takes place here, as well as to make topic searching easier, and just be easier on the eyes.
As you might imagine, moving this blog, and its six years worth of content, from one locale to another, is no trivial matter. Along with that challenge has come the challenge of making sure the new site operates smoothly.
All this by way of saying that, if you are registered with this site, you will sometime in the next few weeks be receiving an email from me announcing the switchover. The email will provide a link to the new site, so you can set up your password there (either the one you are currently using, or a new one). Your user name will remain unchanged.
Reader Comments (70)
As we spit out the bones and eat the meat....let us all embrace the diversity of our entire movement. Embrace the many places we all live. The many political ideologies we all follow.
As perhaps the most diverse group of people ever aligned on a single subject, we are the raw milk drinkers and raw milk thinkers.
We can have cow shares, retail raw milk, family cows, micro dairies....all at the same time in America. We can all embrace and support one another. This is possible if we put the health of our children first. People in down town LA deserve raw milk just as much as those that live in rural America.
you can find an hour a day with your relentless, irrational nagging, dredging up minutae for no good reason but to demean one of the heroes of this movement, yet you can't seem to get around to answering the simple question : when's the last time you actually got your boots muddy in a real farmyard which produces REAL MILK?
what qualifies you to critique the operation of a multi-million $$ industry, which is on the very cutting edge of the technological AND legal fronts, meanwhile you've never so much as gone out to the barn and come back with a pail of milk?
Musing on the trends here related to nasty exchanges...seems like for a long time the down and dirty exchanges (between "real" names and pseudonyms) occurred almost entirely against food safety types posting this blog. The food safety types left and the "void" was filled by attacking each other.
MW
As the discussion continues, I hope you will consider your words and proof read your messages before you post. Sometimes you are your own worst enemy. You undo much of the hard work that you have done to make raw milk available when you denigrate other producers.
OPDC is not the only supplier of raw milk to urban markets, nor should it be.
Many more people would be willing to get behind RAWMI as an educational organization that promotes research and understanding of the benefits of raw milk from healthy cows, as well as the potential pitfalls possible in the production among other topics.
Offering recommendations and training in quality production methods is a good thing. Forcing production methods on someone is another story. There is usually more than one way to accomplish a task successfully. RAWMI can make recommendations AND it needs to allow each producer to do what works best for their farm and customers.
What we don't need is a Raw Milk Tong that extorts protection money from producers with fewer resources than large operations like yourself. A fireman who starts a fire to help his crew look like heroes is still an arsonist. I sincerely hope that none of the recent harassment of small share operations are the result of your or RAWMI's discussions with the CDA et al. I never wondered about that in the past. Some of your recent posts now give me pause.
Some of your posts give the impression that you think you are the only producer supplying urban markets or that you want to have a monopoly in these areas. Please think again. That is not the current situation, nor is it a desirable one.
I would love to talk with you directly. Would it be possible to connect via email or a call. Please email me so we can talk. Www.mark@organicpastures.com or call me at 559-846-9732.
I want to discover more about how the RAWMI message can be shaped to be more inclusive and helpful to all.
To me, the issue of RAWMI and it's rather uncertain, or confused, focus of activity is easily seen in the light of history. While focus on herd health via controlling new animals brought in and monitoring health of the herd and their environment is important, and proper milking cleanliness and quick cooling of raw milk is also important to taste and longevity of the product, we really must remember that throughout history, there was no refrigeration. If you were lucky, you had a spring house. In the last 60 to 70 years refrigeration has become the norm and our taste buds have acclimated to that scenario. Prior to that, the only deaths or illnesses associated with raw milk were due to brucellosis and tb in those milking the animals.....and occasionally getting caught by a cow horn or hoof. I can't speak to the dangers of camel milking, although I did milk a cat once.
The thing about the RAWMI common standards, that have been put out, but not completely made available to people in general, is that there is a continuing inference to "risk management, risk analysis, and risk assessment"..along with a huge amount of testing for a,b,c, in the milk itself. What that says is...Insurance, Insurance, Insurance, Inspection, Inspection, Inspection, Stress, stress, stress....and NO amount of insurance will stymie the fact that life is a dangerous endeavor. It nearly always leads to death. Insurance policies do not prevent anything, they only help financial liability.
Not too long ago, a very good, very academic, and highly trained friend of mine wrote to me regarding the outbreak attributed to raw milk in Wisc., saying, "This is why I can't support uncontrolled access to raw milk. The people who are raised in the city don't have the immune systems to handle potential bacterial issues..." Well, I wondered immediately, "How in the heck can they develop any immune system if everything they encounter is sterile? The germs are always mutating. Wouldn't they be stronger if they had some systemic challenges?" And that is the critical point here, folks. Life is not safe.
There ARE potential dangers from drinking raw milk. Certified or not. There are also dangers from ingesting GMO's, MSG, meat glue and DHA, along with all other manner of food additives, treatments or enhancements. There is a serious danger to your health if you fail to eat living food that your body can actually use. The FDA approves of nearly everything EXCEPT raw milk.....other healthy food is rendered potentially dangerous by their control paradigm as well....as are supplements. Yet, the FDA also approved Vioxx and a myriad of other drugs that cause serious health issues.
So why do we want to cater to the fear mongering mentality by indulging the populace in the faulty logic that "certification" will make something more safe? Lack of certification would then, by inference, make something "less safe".
The USDA is about to approve corn genetically engineered with Agent Orange's active ingredient. They are also involved in discussions with "organic" leaders on how they can approve GMO's to be organic!
I guess, in a nutshell, my ideology just breaks down to this. I believe we are smart enough to decide what food we want to eat ourselves. We do have a right to know what we are eating, and that right is not being honored by the food safety agents (who some think we need to appease) regarding raw milk.
If anyone deems to tell you otherwise, they likely have an agenda for financial gain ready to spring on you.....or already sprung.
Your last post you speak of diversity and embracing and supporting one another.
Walk the talk and stop speaking of herd share farmers as if they are criminals. You have referred to us as "Black Market Milk", "secret handshakes" to obtain milk, we "have no interest in basic food safety practices", we "operate under the radar with no testing programs", you accused us of causing the latest EColi outbreak in California, refer to us as "unknown milk", called us Un-American, compared us to pot growers ,and said “I would not blame CDFA for shutting down all cow share programs in CA,”
This is not supportive!
In a diverse world we let people be who they are. Please leave herdshares alone, we do not need the help of RAWMI. All the stainless steel, colored graphs, and testing protocol will never replace great soil and caring farmers that tend to their healthy animals every day 24/7.
Most of us started milking a cow to feed our own families and the extra milk started pouring into our communities. The same milk we feed our children is the same milk we share with our neighbors. We milk our own cows and look our herd owners in the eyes and know the names of their children. Their children attend the same schools and churches as our children. They visit our farms and begin to understand where there food comes from. We are ordinary caring people that love our animals and are struggling to make ends meet.
So set down your sword and I will set down mine. Let me milk my cows in peace and some day I may gain your trust again and consider you as my ally.
Mark you have done great things for the raw milk movement. Why throw it all away?
"Congressional investigators looking into an outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe linked to 30 deaths last year found that third-party auditors who gave Colorado's Jensen Farms a "superior" rating just before the outbreak largely ignored government guidance on food safety."
This is what happens when you allow others to monitor for you. 3rd party monitors and the govt inspectors/regulators are inadequate.
It was not the farm that was contaminated, it was the processing plant that was contaminated.
I simply do not understand, after reading the comments on this blog, why McAfee is considered a leader in the raw milk movement? How does someone who throws all the other producers in his state under the bus, repeatedly, get elevated to a leadership role?
Please answer me this, raw milk lovers! Or does it not matter how he treats his fellow producers here on this blog? For those of you far away, would you want him denigrating your dairy or dairyman/woman this way?
It seems to me he has a good thing going. Is his aim to be the sole producer of raw milk for the state of CA? How, then, does he propose to meet the demand for raw milk from the CA urbanites, suburbanites and ruralites combined?
"Beware of the false prophets that come to you dressed in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Matthew 7:15
Kristen
Being repeatedly "thrown under the bus" has felt very painful.
I've come to fear for our safety!
Now, when I hear assurances that Mark is on our side, I find myself thinking: "Sure... until the next time he throws us under his bus".
The fact that he announces a new policy, without explanation, without even admitting the prior policy, does not instill confidence. Instead, I fear that the new policy of "inclusiveness and mutual support" is P.R. strategy rather than a new way of doing business.
When Mark wrote: "Suzanna. I would love to talk with you directly. ... I want to discover more about how the RAWMI message can be shaped to be more inclusive and helpful to all."
I note that the question is about how to shape the RAWMI *message*, not how to shape the RAWMI reality.
I hear Mark/RAWMI sending a new message about being inclusive and supportive.
To *believe* this new message, I'll need to see Mark/RAWMI *acting* inclusive and supportive.
A good first step would be admitting the past attacks and lack of support, and explaining why RAWMI has adopted a new policy of inclusiveness and support.
Last May we organised a scientific conference on the topic 'raw milk, health or hazard'. About 10 different scientists have spoken about the pros and cons of raw milk. We took this focus after a talk with the German Food safety authorities. I asked them what their focus was on the raw milk issue. Well, they said, for us the negative sides of pasteurising milk (loss of milk contents, effects on health) are smaller than the positive sides of drinking raw milk. But, if we have new scientific information about the milk issue, our judgment might change. This opens possibilities for a discussion, for a scientific approach and for adoptions of farm practices. I took from that exchange, that we should work on the scientific evidence that raw milk has another health effect than heated milk on the one side and on the other side we have to aware of the potential negative impact in term of food safety and try to reduce this as far as possible.
In Europe epidemiological studies on raw mailk in relation to asthma and allergies of young children showed the clear protection of raw milk consumption, independently if you were a child growen up at a farm or not. Only the heating of the milk at farms strongly reduces the protecting effects among a group of 800 farm children. Testing allergic children with shop milk versus raw milk showed the same patterns: raw milk could be taken and in almost all cases heat treated and homogenised shop milk could not be taken by the young allergic children. They immediately showed the typical reactions (skin, breath). This kind of research is very helpfull for the discussion, because it can safe large amount of money in treatment of children during the rest of their life and strongly improves the quality of living.
However, we should be aware of the risks as well. During the raw milk symposium in Prague in May last year in Hamburg there was an EHEC outbreak which killed over 40 people. My breath was taken from this awefull event and immediately my mind went into the question: Was it raw milk? But no, the most plausible factor was the consumption of infected sprouts.
We have to work on a better understanding on the 'ecology of the zoonotic germs' and implement these finding in our food chain. Where and why do these bucks develop, what are the circumstances, and very important, what might be the critical control points in a farm and during delivery and packiging of milk?
In Germany, there is a legal raw milk in shops, called Vorzugsmilk. 'Bevorzugen' means 'prefer'. It was the 'child-milk', the milk for the weaks in the 1930s when it started. Some physians warned against the consumption of pasteurised milk in those days, because the strongs sides of the raw milk were gone after heating. Nowadays the meaning has changed completely and raw milk drinkers are seen as people playing Russian roulette.
Farmers delevering Vorzugsmilk undergo a strict control system. Every month a milk sample is taken and they have to 'proof' that there milk is safe. If not veterinarians can stop the raw milk delivery until the level of risk is reduced. This is to my opinion a big help in the acceptance of raw milk drinking. I also would not drink any raw milk, and I always encourage farmers who sell raw milk to take samples in a regular repeated distance. Show the public by nowadyas safety standards and laboratory methods that your milk is OK.
I am convinced that every farm who is delivering raw milk should built up such a control system and should adopt some scientific proven standards about hygien, etc. The way how, you want to reach this as a farmer is free, but at least you have to show to the public that your produce is 'safe'.
I believe, that we can change the balance in thinking about the consumption of raw milk, if we reduce or even can get rid of the risks, understand the mechanisms and ecology of the germs and if we can communicate the positive sides.
Ton
http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2012-01-10-new-research-next-generation-of-gmos-could-be-dangerous
In my humble opinion, safety is not generally the true agenda of those who oppose raw milk. More often, it is the profit interests of industrial dairy and their political bedfellows who, despite what they say to the contrary, will do everything in their power to keep the public from having easy access to raw milk. Indeed, it has been demonstrably their aim to keep the public ignorant of the health and nutritional benefits of raw milk, and in unreasonable fear of its potential risks. This will not change, as corporate dairy cannot profitably produce and distribute safe raw milk through their factory farms and national distribution channels.
Thus, I would be very pleasantly surprised if Mark McAfee does not eventually realize that, despite the talk and the promises, every time success appears to be on the horizon (no pun intended) the bar will be raised. Or worse, he will find himself set up to take the fall for an outbreak of e coli etc. that causes widespread illness and death. Big dairy would love nothing better than to keep raw milk producers jumping through hoops, scrambling to meet ever changing standards, and sidelining all real progress while appearing to be genuinely working with them. What they do not intend is to really create a process by which consumers can be guaranteed certified safe raw milk, however disingenuous their claims. They will continue to do everything they can, in every way they can, to string us along until they can, once and for all, 'prove' that raw milk cannot be safely provided to the public. I do not believe they can be trusted, nor do I doubt for a moment that they would stoop to deliberately setting up a raw milk producer - even at the cost of lives.
Perhaps I am overly cynical, but as for me and my house, we will drink raw milk, and we will not ask for government approval.