The Complete Patient

We have an interesting dynamic occurring in Pennsylvania. Raw milk can be legally sold from farms and stores, yet the public officials who administer the regulations clearly are uncomfortable about the rapidly growing numbers of people purchasing Pennsylvania raw milk.

But these officials face a dilemma: raw milk is becoming a serious business there, just as it has in California. The number of farms licensed to sell raw milk has more than tripled over the last four years, to 75. That’s a significant number of farms, paying significant taxes, and spending significant money in their local communities. That’s a lot of consumers paying premium prices directly to farmers, without interference of middlemen.

Business is so good that Pennsylvania farmers want the state to allow them to sell other raw-milk-based foods. And the politicians in Harrisburg are at least considering the possibility.

When money clashes with principles, money has a way of winning out. Just look at the expansion of gambling well beyond Nevada into many states around the country, hungry for the extra tax revenues.

It’s important to remember that one of the big reasons the raw milk business is so good is that consumers are pouring into Pennsylvania from neighboring states that don’t allow raw milk sales—Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and New Jersey.

Brian Snyder of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture described the phenomenon this way: “In my opinion the ‘real’ reason for us to be here today has to do with the fact that far more production and sales of Pennsylvania raw milk products are now occurring than anyone fully realizes. Most of this trade is ‘legal’…But there is also a large and increasing amount of product that is leaving Pennsylvania through a variety of means that challenge federal and state laws.”

He added, “Not only are some farms already doing a very significant business in selling raw milk and its products, but other farmers with larger than average operations are watching these proceedings very closely to evaluate their own potential to enter this market.”

I suspect neighboring states will look across the border and wonder whether it makes sense to keep some of the raw milk and related sustainable agriculture sales closer to home. Individuals like Evelyn are going to be there to remind the Maryland legislators.

Increasingly, as the comments following my previous posts on the Pennsylvania hearings make clear, farmers and consumers alike are re-defining the raw-milk agenda, and in effect, the health and nutrition agenda. Dave Milano says it well: “Positive change will only occur when bureaucrats are overwhelmed by the grass roots. So does milkfarmer: “What they don’t understand is that rules, and laws, and press conferences, and contamination scares will do little to slow down this movement.”

I would only add that truth has an easier time of winning out when there are financial benefits in the victory.

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The other shoe may be getting ready to drop in Greg Niewendorp’s crusade against the Michigan Department of Agriculture’s bovine tuberculosis testing program and accompanying implementation of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). He reports that the Charlevoix County sheriff, George Lasater, alerted Greg that a state court has issued an administrative search warrant to allow the MDA to conduct the bovine TB tests and apply RFID tags to the ears of his 29 head of cattle.

Greg says he’s been told the sheriff likely won’t serve the warrant until early October. In the meantime, Greg hopes to delay and eventually overturn the warrant, by challenging it in the same state court from which it was issued. He plans to challenge it on the basis of what he argues are inconsistencies in the underlying state law, as well as “my freedom to be left alone and just feed and clothe my family on my land.”

Hopefully, this drama will next play itself out in court rather than on Greg's farm.