It’s tempting for many producers of raw milk to think that if they stay far enough under the radar, or off the grid, that they can escape the clutches of super-zealous regulators like Bill Chirdon of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

That’s what Nancy and Glen Wise of Elizabethtown, PA, thought five years ago when they acquired a couple cows and began selling raw milk, yogurt, butter, and cream—to complement the existing chicken and vegetable sales from their 23-acre farm. Gradually, the raw dairy business expanded, and they now have twelve cows and thriving dairy sales.

They didn’t want to deal with the state, its raw milk permit…and its prohibition on selling other raw-dairy products like yogurt, butter, and cream.

“We were hoping to do this quietly, selling to customers, and not making a fuss,” Nancy told me last week. “Now we are in a spot we don’t want to be in.”

The spot they are in is that last month they were sent three citations for selling “manufactured” raw dairy products, and also for selling raw milk without a permit. They are due in court in Elizabethtown (920 S. Spruce St.) on Tuesday, the day after Mark Nolt’s trial on Monday in Mt. Holly Springs. (The two towns are apparently within an hour of each other.)

It seems someone—perhaps another farmer, or a consumer afraid of raw milk—tipped the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to the Wises’ activities last summer. In September, a PDA agent came to a farmer’s market and gave Glenn an application for a raw milk permit.

But Glen felt he didn’t need a permit, since he and Nancy sold their products as part of an organization known as CARE (the Citizen’s Alliance for Responsible Ecofarming), which has several thousand members and serves as a private milk club. Each of the Wises’ customers must pay a $20 membership fee to join CARE.

The campaign targeting Glen Wise and Mark Nolt is part of a larger campaign against Pennsylvania raw dairy farmers, and coincides with the arrival of Bill Chirdon from Dean Foods as the state’s top dairy safety official in 2006. Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation provides details of that campaign in a posting on Rep. Ron Paul’s web site. 

But lurking in the background is another issue I have refrained from writing about. It’s one that’s come up repeatedly for me in speaking with producers of raw milk around the country: the black market in raw milk. Now that the New York Daily News is writing about it, I feel more comfortable discussing it. Indeed, I expect the subject to attract even more widespread attention very shortly from at least one other major media publication.

It seems that a good chunk of Mark Nolt’s raw dairy products have been winding up in Brooklyn. Now those customers are in a tizzy--one won't be able to make her cream puffs--because Mark’s production has been interrupted.

I would venture that the market in unregulated raw milk is possibly as large as that in regulated distribution and sales. I’ve heard it spoken about or seen it at work in states around the country—Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, California, Washington, and, of course, possibly the largest outlet for black market raw milk products: the New York metropolitan area. A number of individuals commenting on this blog have referred to it as well, usually in hushed or clipped tones.

I’ve refrained from writing about it because I haven’t wanted to get raw-milk dairies into more trouble than many of them already face. I know that state agriculture officials around the country read this blog—I’d like to think it’s because they want to educate themselves, but I know that it’s more often because they’re looking for intelligence in their monitoring of the hundreds of small dairies that brave the forces of repression to produce their milk.

I’ve always assumed that one day the story would come out, but I didn’t want to be the one that broke it, and thereby interfered with the marginal livelihoods of small dairies, as well as possibly launching a nation-wide crackdown on raw milk, and thereby interrupting the supplies that so many individuals depend on. But now that another publication, with a more distant view of the entire situation, has done it for me, well, it’s relieved at least some of the pressure I felt.

I also feel that once this black-market story begins to come out, it could act as a positive force. The larger mass of consumers than read this blog are more likely to be outraged by some upset in their personal lives than in the abridgment of the rights of one or another dairy farmer. Rightly or wrongly, that’s the reality of life in America today.

But if this ripple effect from Mark’s arrest Friday does lead to outrage, there is a near-term way to express it: come to his trial at 9:30 Monday morning. The courthouse is at 229 Mill St. in Mt. Holly Springs, which is about 18 miles southwest of Harrisburg.

“We did seize one book,” the official told me, the Salatin book. “I don’t have any other information on that.”

When I pressed him that the seizure seemed weird, he said that Chirdon “will be glad to give it back to him on Monday” at the court hearing. But why was it taken in the first place? At that point, he resorted to euphemisms and legalisms: “It was taken as evidence. We can’t go into the details as to how it might be used.” Yeah, maybe they’re going to use it at PDA to supplement the new-employee orientation program.

Chirdon likely didn’t expect anyone to even notice his act of arrogance and condescension in swiping the book. It’s definitely not allowed for in the search warrant, which PDA sent me as well. That provides for search and seizure of product, equipment, containers, and records related to bottling and packaging, but not for books (or cream separators, either).

A few other items of interest in the search warrant:

--Chirdon claims dairy expertise because “I was a plant manager at Hershey Foods for twenty years and also the plant manager at Dean Foods for five years. In those jobs, I gained extensive experience in milk and dairy manufacturing, processing, and sales.” Yes, those sound like just the qualifications to help guide consumers in their dairy journeys. Those Hershey bars and Kisses are made from only the purest and freshest of dairy products, with a keen eye on nutrition.

--PDA on several occasions used its agents to go undercover and make purchases from Mark “of the raw milk on display, which was lab tested by PDA’s Food Safety Laboratory and confirmed to be raw milk.” I wonder if they had to call in the FBI for definitive confirmation.

--PDA seems to have chosen to look the other way for about eight months while Mark resumed selling raw dairy products after the agency’s last raid in August. “From 8/10/07 through 3/8/08, the Department did not possess evidence that Nolt was continuing to sell milk and manufactured dairy products made from raw milk…” Presumably PDA had bigger fish to fry, other raw dairies to shut down.

After more than four hours of arguments and testimony, the proceedings weren't anywhere near completion, so the judge, Harry Tobias, extended the temporary restraining order he ordered last month for another three weeks, until May 16, when the parties will meet again at a courtroom in Hollister. "We're kind of like at half time," Gary Cox, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund attorney representing plaintiffs Organic Pastures Dairy Co. and Claravale Farm  told me after the session.

During today's session, Gary and the lawyer representing the California Department of Food and Agriculture argued over procedural matters--primarily whether witnesses should be allowed to testify. In the end, the judge allowed two plaintiff witnesses--Ted Beals, a pathologist, and Ron Hull, a microbiologist--to testify.

As they had at the California Senate hearing on raw milk last week, the two experts testified about the role of bacteria in both triggering and protecting against illness, and how different bacteria play different roles in the human body. They cited research about the importance of probiotics in strengthening immunity.

At the May 16 hearing, the state will be allowed to cross-examine Ted and Ron. It will also be allowed to present its own witnesses. As usual, these matters take longer than expected. The good news, in addition to the extension of the TRO, is that the judge is getting to hear lots of research about the science behind both raw milk and pasteurized milk. That can only help, right?