The Complete Patient

Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures may have thought his Monday Sacramento meeting designed to overturn AB 1735 went well, but two days later, the most important legislative target in his campaign remains unconvinced.

In an email to individuals who wrote her protesting the legislation, the chairperson of the California Assembly Agriculture Committee, Nicole Parra (pictured at right) today defends the 10-coliform-per-milliliter maximum for raw milk, describing it in terms that only bureaucrats could love—a fulfillment of the legislature’s duty to “protect” the public health. Here’s the heart of her note:

I have a sneaking suspicion that not many California raw milk drinkers "will be pleased to learn" of this legislator's reassurance about the availability of raw milk. Nor will they welcome her refrain about "our responsibility to help protect the public health." (You can email the Assembly member at Assemblymember.Parra@assembly.ca.gov.)

They know that anywhere from 25% (the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s estimate) to 80% (Organic Pastures’ estimate) of California raw milk won’t meet the standard. With raw milk already in high demand, it’s reasonable to assume that many current customers will be shut out. Moreover, at least some dairy farmers in Washington are getting their milk to market without meeting the coliform standard, because of lax enforcement. With all the publicity, CDFA can be expected to strictly enforce the new standard next year.

Ironically, Assemblywoman Parra’s territory includes Organic Pastures’ base, Fresno County. Probably more significant, when a committee chairperson decides to go one way on a piece of legislation, other committee members tend to follow along.

Clearly, the decibel level of protests isn’t yet loud enough for the legislators to hear.

One person trying to raise it is Aajonus Vonderplanitz, a raw-food advocate who successfully fought a ban of raw milk by Los Angeles County in 1999.

He promises to file for a court injunction against enforcement of AB1735, and, “Then, we need to establish a class action suit against CA Agriculture Committee members, Governor, Surgeon General and many John Does in the CDHS who were responsible for submitting the discriminatory, unscientifically unwarranted dairy changes to CA law. Also notice that they made the new laws punishable by criminal action rather than infractions. I will need everyone who is willing to join the class action suit. It would be very effective if 10,000 California residents were plaintiffs.”

If you are interested in joining the class action suit, email Theo Copley at tcopley@ziplink.net. Request a class action form, along with information on donating to a legal fund.

Aajonus also provides suggested alternative legislation that is more flexible in required bacteria counts. (You can request the text as well.)

Given the assemblywoman’s email, I’m wondering how “stealth” the CDFA was in getting the new standard passed. Either she’s covering her rear end in not wanting to admit she wasn’t minding the store as chairperson of the agriculture committee in appreciating the importance of AB 1735, or else she really believes in it.

Over the last two weeks, Andrea Elliott has been writing emails to farm associations, her Congressman, and members of the U.S. House and Senate agriculture committees—all urging that the upcoming farm bill not include funding for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). She and her husband, Jim, own a dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and she made it plain in her notes that she is adamantly opposed to registering the farm’s 80 cows under the federal program.

Yesterday (Monday) she received a call from an inspector with the New York Department of Food and Markets in Albany that he planned to come by the farm for a special inspection, based on “a complaint” made to the department’s Division of Milk Control and Dairy Services.

Andrea couldn’t imagine who might have complained, and what the complaint might have been about. Her farm, Crystal Brook Farms, sells nearly all its milk to a local creamery for pasteurization. She sells a few gallons of raw milk occasionally to individuals who stop in with their own containers, under New York rules that allow sale of 25 gallons a month without a permit.

Today (Tuesday), the inspector, Bradley Lyle Houck, arrived from Albany, two hours away, together with her regular local dairy inspector, and Andrea was prepared. As soon as they arrived, “I turned on my video camera. I think that made them a little uncomfortable.”

Then, she says, “I asked the state inspector to fill out my form.” Her form is a three-page “public service questionnaire” that asks for the inspector’s identity, his principal reason for doing the inspection, how the information he gathers will be used, and other such data.

“He shook his head and refused,” says Andrea. “He said, ‘I have to be authorized by Albany.’” He tried to make a call on his cell phone, but couldn’t complete the call because the farm area has no cell reception.

Andrea persisted. “I said, This is our property and I can require you to fill it out.'” He offered his state ID and badge.

Andrea moved on. “I asked him why he was here and he said a complaint was received in Albany.”

What was the complaint? “He said he couldn’t tell me.”

Who filed the complaint? “He wouldn’t tell me. He just wouldn’t go any further. He said all complaints that come into Albany are treated as confidential.”

“I asked him what statute allows a complaint to be treated as confidential. He said he couldn’t quote a statute.”

At that point, the inspector asked if they could talk off-camera. Andrea declined.

“He said, ‘I guess the best thing would be for us to come back another time.” The two got back into their car and took off.

Andrea adds, “At no time did I deny him the inspection. I didn’t ask him to leave. All I did was ask him for specific reasons for the inspection…I have a right to know who my accuser is.”

Andrea seems to have added an entirely new dimension to the agricultural inspection. Especially one with such an intriguing coincidence connecting it to NAIS.

A few words in some dry state legislation on dairy standards seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest in California.

California legislative representatives who met for an hour-and-a-half yesterday with Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy Co., the state’s largest producer of raw milk, told him they have received thousands of email messages and hundreds of faxes protesting those few words—a standard limiting raw milk to 10 coliform bacteria per milliliter and could have the effect of taking up to three-fourths of raw milk off the retail market.

As a result of the protests, Mark says he is hopeful the standard will be changed—either eliminated or adjusted so the limit is perhaps 100 coliform per milliliter.

“The legislative people were upset and amazed,” Mark reported. “They seemed to be saying, ‘It’s a mistake, let’s fix it.’ We want to work with you and change it and make things right.”

He suggested that consumers not assume everything will be okay, however. “Raw milk is still very much in jeopardy.”

Mark also says he had checked with some dairies in Washington, where the 10-coliform-per-milliliter standard has been implemented, and “inspectors have been letting producers slide—higher levels are being allowed.” But, of course, who wants to depend on the ongoing kindness of regulators?

He says his recent measurements of Organic Pastures raw milk show readings of 12-20 coliforms per milliliter, “which wouldn’t qualify under the new standard.”

A lawyer who Mark says accompanied his party on a pro bono basis, Joel Siegel, compared the new standard to requiring everyone to drive their cars at five miles per hour. In other words, all risk would be eliminated, but cars would be rendered useless.

Mark says he made tried to make the case that coliform bacteria are naturally occurring, and that there’s no correlation between them and pathogens. He also pointed out that once milk is disturbed—such as during the automated bottling he is required to do—coliform counts rise. “I came loaded for bear,” with studies and experts to back him up, including two epidemiologists.

He says the legislative people indicated he should have been consulted in advance of the legislative change. The legislation requiring the new standard, he says, had no sponsor—it was staff directed—which suggests that it was pushed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

The next step? Mark is supposed to provide a written package of data and studies to legislative representatives within the next two weeks to follow up on the meeting. He’s hopeful the situation will be rectified. “They said, ‘It’s a mistake, let’s fix it.’”

He knows there are no guarantees of change, but feels it was "an excellent meeting. I let them know raw milk is sacred food in California." 

The serious consumer trying to fully understand the raw milk coliform situation doesn’t have it easy. As Ted Beals points out in a comment following yesterday’s post, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has a link from its press release to a Q&A document that seems to completely contradict its press release by suggesting that three-fourths or more of raw milk doesn’t meet its new standard for raw milk (fewer than 10 coliform per milliliter).

My take (and giving the benefit of the doubt to CDFA) is that the press release refers to samples taken from the Organic Pastures dairy and a second California dairy that sells raw milk at retail. The samples referred to in the Q&A document refer to raw milk drawn from a wider range of dairies, most or all of their milk destined for pasteurization. The bulk milk from dairies that pasteurize are permitted higher coliform counts based on the expectation that pasteurization will kill off most or all of the coliform.

But Ted’s real point, I think, is that this is another example of blue-smoke-and-mirrors by the regulatory authorities. As I said in my previous post, the authorities want to get us all engaged in sifting through their new rules and figuring out whether our dairies can “make it,” rather than asking the larger question of why they’re suddenly putting the screws to dairies that are safely cranking out raw milk for 40,000 or more Californians each day.

The answer they want us to adopt for focusing without question on their rules is that they’re the scientists, “the experts.” Well, enough of that.

As for the new exchange following my previous post involving Mary McGonigle-Martin, readers who haven’t been involved in earlier discussions about the illness of her son may want to use the search function and read some of the previous material—there’s been a lot, including comment from Mark McAfee as well. Two of my recent posts include this and this.

Finally, Mark reports that the rally Saturday at the Fresno Farmers Market to raise opposition to the new California coliform standard drew about 120 people. Above is a photo of a television news camaraman focusing on some of the children in attendance.  

The new California dairy standards, including the coliform bacteria limits, were signed into law October 8, yet it wasn’t until yesterday, three weeks after the fact, that the California Department of Food and Agriculture got around to putting out a press release about it.

Interesting coincidence that this release wasn’t issued until the day the media, including a number of blogs, come out with stories about the new standards. What is especially intriguing about the release, though, is this statement: “Routine farm inspection samples of bulk milk collected during the last year show the two {California raw milk} dairies would have met the new coliform standards 75 percent of the time.”

My first reaction was to think that maybe the situation isn’t as bad as Mark McAfee is making it out to be. I suspect that in saying that three-fourths of his milk won’t pass the standard, Mark has made the situation more dire than it really is, to help him make a stronger case. The CDFA is almost certainly doing the same thing at the other end. If you put the two estimates together, "only" half of raw milk in California won’t meet the standard...maybe it won't be so bad...

Then I realized that this is exactly how the authorities want us to think. They set arbitrary standards (instead of realistic standards that will also ensure safety), and get everyone absorbed into whether the dairies can meet them—if only they apply some extra ammonia and Mr. Clean, it will all be okay.

But in thinking their way, we overlook the  larger messages the regulators are communicating to us and to anyone producing raw milk, or thinking about producing raw milk:

* As Kirsten states in a comment on my previous post, “the powers that be continue to harass raw-milk producers for endpoints that have no bearing on the safety of the product.” In other words, the regulators want to intimidate every dairy farmer who is producing raw milk, or thinking about selling raw milk or setting up a cowshare, and use Organic Pastures as the example. They want dairy farmers to think to themselves: “I don’t have anywhere near the resources of Organic Pastures. How can I possibly fight these people?”

* I now understand that our government and its agri-business moneybag supporters are deadly serious about getting rid of raw milk, and that all the other instances of harassment are definitely not isolated incidents. To their way of thinking, this has already gone much further than they would like. I’m sure the factory-farm dairy lobbyists have conveyed the message to the FDA, CDFA, and the others: stop this foolishness NOW!

* These are sinister, sinister people we are dealing with here—the bureaucrats, the legislators, and the moneybags supporting them. To sneak through legislation like the coliform standard, and then talk about protecting the public…most of them could care less about the public, except that they want their budgets and political contributions, and to continue those, they must keep the agri-business lobby happy. If they cared about the public, why would they deny people the right to consume one of nature’s oldest products?

* The FDA and USDA really run things here. These state agriculture departments may act as if they’re independent, but they take their “advice,” really, their orders, from Washington. And Washington (i.e. the corporate interests) doesn’t like to see millions of people bypassing Wal-Mart, Publix, and Krogers to buy food at farmers markets and via herdshares. Next thing you know, people may cut back on their Cokes and corn chips, and question whether they really need that statin.

* This is a long-term battle. We’ve lost apple cider and almonds; we're going to have to earn our right to keep drinking raw milk, as well as keep access to other nutritious whole foods.

* I realize how vulnerable my/our raw milk supplies really are. In my case, I rely on two farms for raw milk—one in New Hampshire and one in Massachusetts. Both are small subsistence operations, with nowhere near the financial resources of Organic Pastures. Either one could be wiped out very quickly by the kind of government mandate we’ve seen passed in California. Since other farms are similarly fragile financially, I presume such a situation extends to most of the country.

On the encouraging side, the blogosphere has been abuzz about the California situation. My main hope is that the regulators and legislators underestimated the outrage people feel, because that is really the only hope of correcting this situation, and sending a message so strongly convincing that they won’t be tempted to do it again. (To Maggie’s question about the meeting Mark McAfee is having Monday in Sacramento, attendance is limited; he had wanted an auditorium that would seat 250, but the authorities are allowing him to bring along only four people.)

History is full of examples of revolutions having been started over people not having access to bread. Why not one over milk?