OT-Save raw milk in California

January 1, 2008

Although this only affects you directly if you live in California, if it

isn't reversed it can have a negative effect on raw milk all over the US.

Anyway, if anyone is interested you can read the story here:

" California's two raw milk producers filed suit Thursday to keep the state

from imposing a strict new standard that, they say, would put them out of

business. "

A letter explaining the situation from Claravale dairy:

" We already have an excellent and well constructed raw milk testing

protocol in California which includes bacterial counts and tests for all of

the pertinent pathogens. The state has not been able to shut us down with

these regulations not because the regulations are insufficient but because

our product is clean and safe. So now they come up with a new regulation

that contributes not at all to product safety nor, at the bacterial levels

we are talking about, to product quality. Rather, the regulation seems to

be solely for the purpose of limiting the raw milk industry in the state to

an insignificant level that would be entirely inadequate to meet the

demands of the people of California for raw milk. "

Information on raw milk activism in California:

" Presently, raw milk is tightly controlled and rigorously tested by the

state, and it is as safe as, if not safer than, factory-farmed pasteurized

milk. Nevertheless, even though raw milk has not caused any disease

outbreak, health department officials slipped into the 2007 California Farm

Bill a new and scientifically baseless regulation that will cause raw milk

to pass inspection only about half the time -- which means that our raw

dairy farmers will be forced to either dump half of their product, or sell

that half of it, for much less money, to the big industrial distributors --

who will pasteurize it. Either way, they will lose a large proportion of

the value of their business. "

Irene

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