For author Ron Schmid, the recent problems in California regarding raw milk have a familiar ring to them. The consumer outrage. The hearings. The hope that public officials will relent and begin to listen to reason.
“This is old hat in California. It’s like a repeat of the Alta Dena situation that went on for more than 30 years. You see the same tactics coming up over and over. They (state officials) are trying to wear people down.”
I spoke with Ron a couple weeks ago, just as the California and New York State situations were heating up. I was looking for some sense of hope that perhaps the outrage was greater this time around or state officials more vulnerable compared to the earlier problems, which he described so well in his book, “The Untold Story of Milk”.
But when he looks at California in particular, and the nation at large, he doesn’t see much that’s different this time around. In fact, he sees some signs that consumers are losing the battle for the right to consume raw milk.
“The public reaction to Alta Dena was big—probably as many people bought raw milk back then as do now,” he said. The state’s campaign to put the Alta Dena Dairy out of business lasted from 1965 until 1999, when the dairy finally succumbed to the pressure.
If anything, the situation is more ominous today than it was then, he says. “There is a dummying down” of issues today, in his view. “People are willing to accept more horse shit now…Plus there is more of a fear factor today, with all the security stuff and the way they sell wars.”
The fact that there are only two raw milk producers in California underlines the problem further. “You have two farmers trying to serve 25 million people. The state has been very successful in keeping raw milk marginalized.”
He’s not optimistic about the future for raw milk. “It will be interesting to see how things play out in California. The state’s strategy is death by a thousand cuts. Bleed him (Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co.). That way, they can make an end run around public opinion.”
Nor does he see much hope in trying to right the situation via court cases. “If people put all their trust in court cases, it may be a dead end, because the courts can rule against you. The judges come from the same backgrounds” as the regulators. “We have a 100-year history that they (judges, legislators, regulators) are full of ill will.”
The only ray of hope he sees is if people organize themselves into a true movement. “Ultimately, people don’t get rights until they get together and demand them.”
The hope there may lie with the growth of consumer lobbying and legal rights organizations. Over just the last couple years, the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association has morphed into ten other state entities. The Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association had a lobbying day last weekend, where it served legislators with raw milk, grass-fed beef, and other natural delicacies. The newly formed Michigan Independent Consumers and Farmers Association is having its first-ever get-together this weekend, and Greg Niewendorp, one of the organizers, told me he’s hoping 400 to 500 people turn out.
Still, it’s hard not to get the same feeling I got when studying the old 100-year wars of Europe. Do we have the stomach for it?
In my opinion, we can’t afford not to fight! With the skyrocketing rates of autism, cancer, CHD, auto-immune diseases and other disorders and the concomitant exponential increases in the cost of health care and health insurance, the choice is to either fight for the right to traditional food or give up and accept a miserable life and early death. If the present disease rate trends continue then how will our country function carrying such a burden of chronic health issues?
We just found out that one of my wife’s childhood friends was diagnosed with epilepsy, which is actually one of the few diseases that the medical community recognizes as having an effective treatment through dietary modification. If you perform a Google search for "epilepsy ketogenic" you’ll find a trove of medical journal articles describing the "ketogenic diet" and its efficacy with few sides effects in controlling seizures. The ketogenic diet is essentially an Adkins diet – high protein and fat, little to no simple carbohydrates. What you won’t find printed anywhere is that another possible name for the ketogenic diet is a gluten-free diet, and anyone familiar with traditional foods knows that gluten is a potent allergen and that all grains should be soaked, sprouted or fermented to neutralize gluten, lectins, phytates and other anti-nutrients present in the whole grain kernels. What the journal articles will say is that even though the ketogenic diet is safe and effective, it’s only recommended in extreme cases where the patients can’t tolerate the medication or the medication is no longer effective. Basically people don’t want to give up their pizza and fast food, and popping a pill is easier.
Should we happy few who know the value of traditional food and the dangers of a modern diet abandon everyone else, or should we do our best to educate and bring our friends and relatives along with us? I believe in the principal of enlightened self interest – the more people I can educate, the more people there are demanding traditional food and increasing the supply for everyone. The first thing I did when my wife mentioned her friend was to print out and forward some of the medical journal entries to which I have access, and hope that she doesn’t want to rely on medication for the rest of her life.
So, the fight against Alta Deena was strictly a local issue, but the fight against Organic Pastures is a national concern and draws in people from every state. Last year Sally Fallon underwrote a large chunk of the legal costs that affirmed our right to raw milk through herdshares in Ohio, and we would have been hard-pressed to raise that money ourselves if we hadn’t had the Weston A. Price Foundation standing behind us.
We are in a WAR to regain our rights to make our own nutrition choices. As Ron pointed out, every time we gain a victory as we did last week in causing California to supposedly rethink or adjust their actions, we are just winning a very small battle in the overall war…a battle that means nothing long term. All it does is make us relax, and gives the other side an opportunity to come up with their next attack…and they WILL come up with another method of attack, rest assured.
That is why actions like the Defense fund’s suit against the state of California is so important. Frankly I don’t WANT that suit won at the state level, as that would only be another battle won, albiet a somewhat larger one than usual.
If, however, that suit is lost at the state level, but won on appeal at the federal level on constitutional grounds, then we will truly have won something of value that is durable, in that EVERY time after that, when any state pulls the regulatory BS, there is federal precedent to slap them down, and make no mistake, the ONLY thing that will stop state regulators is for them to get slapped down and slapped down HARD.
This does not just apply to the current situation in CA. The regulators at every level, in every state, and at the federal level will not willingly give up their power. It must be TAKEN from them, and with enough will we can do that…with enough will. We each have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we have that will. I personally believe that there are enough of us for whom that answer is yes for us to win.
I hope so.
Bob Hayles
Thornberry Village Homestead
Jasper, GA
Thornberry Village Homestead…a small goat dairy owned by God, managed by Bob and Tyler
First civil rights, then the Vietnam war, then homebirth, then homeschooling, the social services as foster parents, and now the right to drink raw milk. Over these 40+ years we’ve seen tremendous changes in public awareness and attitude which cannot be denied. Even though Ron may be right that people are more tolerant of governmental abuse than they were back then, at the same time issues which were definitely fringe issues in the 60s (organic food was "health food" available at health food stores run by hippies only) are now advertized on TV!
California is always pushing the envelope. Alta Dena was way ahead of it’s time, and still the concept of raw milk on the store shelf is premature in most of the country.
But the trend is undeniable and cannot be legislated away. Once folks drink raw milk and feed it to their kids they will never go back to pasteurized no matter what the legislators say! So each new cow share member and each conversation with a friend about the issue is a step in the right direction.
Maybe I’m too old now to be impatient, but I look far into the future and see no hope for the pasteurization industry. It is a dead end in all ways – safety issues, transportation problems, environmental troubles, etc. Industrial agribusiness is doomed in the long run and pasteurization along with it. It is our task to inform others and most important to preserve the land and the knowledge necessary to produce food the "old-fashioned" way so someone knows how to do it as the demand increases.
Today the demand for raw milk is expanding exponentially, as we all know. Alta Dena had a the lunatic fringe behind them (which in California admittedly may be quite large) but today we have many many mainstream folks on our side.So keep farming, keep drinking that good milk and step by step things are changing.
Thanks for all your support and we’ll let you know how it goes. Barb
The more we can grow this movement the more we make food regulators obsolete and the less money their corporate backers will have to translate into power.
There are really two prongs in this attack. On the one hand consumers are driving demand and price and leaving industrial foods. The second prong is the farmers leaving the old system for the new, as well as the new farmers entering agriculture. Local food offers something that agriculture hasn’t had for almost 100 years: good prices and a hope for the future.
However, that there are only 2 raw milk dairies (is this really true?) says that this second prong needs some attention. The raw milk dairymen are their own worst enemy in this case. I have seen far too many concentrate on getting bigger to supply demand, when what they really need to do is help others get started and swell their ranks.
It is not good to fight alone. Not only will getting more farmers into raw milk production increase supply (which should help demand too), but pulling farmers out of the pasteurization system will also decrease the power of those corporations. This is important; many farm organizations, coops, and corporations work against the best interests of the farmers while simultaneously using their farmers as legitimacy. Decreasing the supply of corporate food can’t hurt either.