Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle vetoed his state’s controversial raw milk bill yesterday.
“I recognize that there are strong feelings on both sides of this matter, but on balance, I must side with the interests of public health and the safety of the dairy industry,” [Governor Doyle] said in his veto letter to lawmakers.
At first blush, it’s hard to understand the reasons for this veto. Doyle cited safety issues, but the bill itself proposed a law that would be no more liberal than, say, Minnesota’s, where customers can only purchase raw milk directly from the farm, and where there are nearly no reported infections from raw milk. Indeed, Wisconsin’s was not really a “legalization” bill the way most would think of it. No retail sales. No commercial sales. Understandably, Doyle said early on that he was leaning toward signing it into law.
So what changed? From the above article:
[Doyle] was heavily lobbied in recent weeks by Wisconsin’s dairy and cheese industries, the Wisconsin Medical Society, farm and health groups and a host of other business. The National Milk Producers Federation and the International Dairy Foods Association joined the chorus last week. [Emph mine]
I’d hazard a guess that it was those last two groups, “Big Milk,” that tipped the balance and got a veto out of Doyle. Why would national dairy groups take an interest in a bill that doesn’t really liberalize raw milk laws? The dairy industry sees raw milk as competition, because raw milk doesn’t easily work in the status quo industrial level. So frightened of losing market share to small, independent dairy farms, these huge trade groups won’t even cotton direct sales of raw milk, from farmer to consumer.
No, no, it will not do to have a gamechanger in the symbolically rich Dairy State, not while these same trade groups are pressing for raw milk to be banned at the federal level,
ARGHHHH. This kind of makes me want to kick something. Corporate America, one day you will LOSE.
But instead, I’ll just get excited and invigorated for next year when hopefully I can find a job in something local foods/sustainable ag, and really get in the game. And until then there are Local Foods Happy Hours and Fair Food Fight Nights to sustain me and others just waiting for the moment to fight back.
I feel ya. Even Bill Marler, the noted food safety expert and anti-raw-milk attorney, has said he agrees that purchasing raw milk off the farm, farmer to consumer, is a decent compromise, which is what the Wisconsin bill proposed. Making the governor’s veto a “defense of public health” is total crap. If there were a significant public health threat from direct sales, the bill never would have gotten that far in Wisconsin (or any other state).
As for you, I look forward to watching you hit the gorund running, envirosprite. I’m confident you’re going to be a force of nature, in all senses of the term.
As someone who really wants to be on the raw milk wagon (I do currently eat raw milk cheese), I’m curious about the infection reporting in MN. You say “nearly no.” Does that mean there are raw milk consumption related infections reported in MN? If so, how does one find these?
I’m assuming the state of hygiene and methods for processing, storing and distributing raw milk and raw milk products are the relevant issues. These would be farm-by-farm assessable. Does the raw milk community rate and recommend standards and/or specific sources?
Hrm. I knew someone was gonna ask me about that…
I saw a complete list of all the reported outbreaks associated with raw milk (can’t find it right now — anyone got a link??) and, if I remember right, you have to go back to the ’80′s to find one in Minnesota. I think.
But here’s the thing. If food safety and public health were the real issues, we’d shut out national beef operations. But we have no problem with yearly outbreaks, with hundreds of victims across mutiple states, due to burger (or lettuce, or peanut butter). But a handful of infections, localized around a single farm? That necessitates a near-total ban on raw milk.
It just shows what an upside-down and totally bamboozled world corporate food has created.
I did not mean to amplify the lack of fairness and double-standard dealing going on with raw milk regulation. I like the MN standard of allowing direct purchase and would advocate (I think) to opening this up even further to make it easier for consumers to make their own choices.
I guess I was just looking for some data to help me make my choice and have it be informed — i.e., which dairy to choose.
I suppose I should not rely on the negative — official reports — which are not good indicators of status quo quality and risk. I mean, I check out the sources of my other farm purchases — by visiting them and asking questions — and don’t go looking for infection reports first. Why not treat dairy farms the same way?
Guess I will… (although a link to infection reports would be helpful context for researching the greater issue of how the raw milk industry is being thwarted)
Yeah, visit the dairy or farm (many small farmers sell raw milk). Ask questions about their cleanliness efforts/programs, if that matters to you. I think it comes down to which farms do you trust, and what efforts do they take to instill trust from customers.
I just had raw milk this weekend and I’ve been mooning over it ever since. So creamy and terrific.
I’ll keep looking for that report I mentioned earlier.
OK, here’s that list of raw-milk-related outbreaks I was trying to recall (via Barfblog, an excellent food-borne illness tracking website). And here’s an update to that list from Bill Marler.There are three Minnesota outbreaks, but you have to go back 18 years for the most recent one.
On a side note, to all my Food Fightin’ buddies, I want to make clear that I’m not pushing raw milk, despite the fact that I write about it frequently. I’m not a raw milk enthusiast, and I don’t recommend that kids or senior citizens drink raw milk. Me, I gulp it any chance I get, mainly because I love it, particularly after a grassfed dairy’s cows go on pasture in May. Summer milk? It’s one of the most amazing tastes I know. I’ve let my kids try it, but they don’t like it, so I’m spared saying no to them.
But raw milk is an issue that brings out the libertarian in my libertarian-socialist beliefs, and if a farmer sees it as an economic boon, I say go for it. I don’t think government should get between a customer and her farmer on this issue, especially when anectdotal evidence abounds that raw milk does cure a host of ills. True, science has not verified that these health benefits exist, but it hasn’t proven that they’re imaginary either. I have a dear friend who’s had health problems her whole life — I’ve known her for decades — and she credits raw milk with clearing up her notoriously chronic stomach troubles (she says it’s cleared up her child’s stomach problems, too). She can choose for her own grown-up self and buy milk from her Amish farmer in Minnesota. But in Wisconsin, such a purchase is illegal. I think that’s nuts. We should be able to choose for ourselves on this issue.
That may have been some thread-jacking. Sorry, if so. Just felt like I needed to go on record with all that.
You can shoot a deer on a warm fall day, drag it a half mile through mud and sticks, put it on the hood of the car to drive around showing it off, and maybe it gets cut up and frozen 24-30 hours after killing it. No one is concerned about the food safety matters there.. But try to sell a deer steak, WHOO Boy!!
Its not about food safety, its about competition, control. Big Milk knows that if raw milk ever caught on, they’d be out of business as we know it. Its how milk was consumed for 6,000 years until we decided to make food a commodity.
John M>
Food as commodity. Yes. It’s a wild, unpredictable widget that has to be controlled in order to monetize it. Despite all our best efforts in the real food movement, food is not allowed to be a symbol of home and health in America. Not yet. If it were, we wouldn’t be so quick to smack the life out of it.