Thu, 24 Jun 2010

The fight over raw milk: a matter of choice

By Christian von Arnim

DURHAM, Ontario (NNA) – A Canadian farmer was back in court today having to defend himself against charges of having sold raw (unpasteurised) milk in breach of the law.

Michæl Schmidt, who has been dubbed the “raw milk champion”, runs a biodynamic farm in Durham, Ontario, north-west of Toronto on which he has introduced an innovative scheme to allow consumers who wish to drink raw milk to do so without breaking the law.

Schmidt, who has a master’s degree in agriculture, has been battling for 16 years to legalise raw milk in Canada while the authorities have been doing their best to close his operation down.

While it is not illegal to drink raw milk in Canada, selling it is. So Schmidt came up with the idea of a cowshare programme in which any member of the public who wants to have legal access to raw milk can buy a share in one of his cows for 300 dollars. For this money Schmidt provides the service of looking after and milking the cow; what he is not doing is selling the milk or other products made from it.

Because of the share they have bought, the cowshare members are effectively drinking their own milk, which they are entitled do to under Canadian law.

In fact he has now extended the scheme into a farmshare cooperative “to better reflect the nature of our operation,” Schmidt says.

This David and Goliath battle nearly cost Michæl Schmidt is farm in the mid-1990s when he was charged and fined for providing unpasteurised milk to the public. After everything had been paid off, he was left with 100 acres of his 500 acre farm and three cows. But Schmidt did not give up and built up the farm again.

Then, in 2006, his farm was raided once more by inspectors from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Schmidt was again charged with distributing and selling raw milk, but this time he prevailed. Earlier this year, Justice of the Peace Paul Kowarsky at the Ontario Court of Justice acquitted him of all charges, agreeing with Schmidt that he was working within the confines of the law and that he had done everything in his power to comply with it.

One might have expected the matter to end there, but the Ontario authorities were not willing to give up their campaign to stop Schmidt and appealed the judgement on the grounds that the judge “misapprehended and misapplied evidence” and “erred in law”. Hence Schmidt was back in court on 24 June to deal with the appeal.

Underlying the action of the authorities in the first instance is, of course, the debate about the safety of raw milk. Opponents argue that only pasteurisation gets rid of the pathogens which can be found in untreated milk, while supports say that such pathogens are only introduced if the conditions in which the milk is produced are not completely hygienic – and that includes intensive animal husbandry to maximise milk production which, apart from anything else, place unnatural stresses on the cows.

Michæl Schmidt has his milk regularly tested and keeps scrupulously clean production facilities. As a biodynamic farmer, he also keeps his cows in the natural conditions which intensively farmed animals do not enjoy, which also promotes the safe production of raw milk. “Since 2006 we have provided approximately one million servings to our cowshare members without one single reported outbreak of sickness,” he says on the Glencolton Farms website.

What is more, he argues, he is being unfairly discriminated against: “In the meantime cold cuts from government inspected plants have killed over 20 people across Canada. Product recalls from government inspected plants with Listeriosis contamination continues until today. It is noteworthy that no charges have been laid, no ban of cold cuts has been implemented by Parliament and no armed raids take place in these plants,” he says with reference to the strong-arm tactics which were used against him by the authorities.

And that also raises a much wider issue which underlies Schmidt’s refusal to give up the fight, namely basic freedoms and equality before the law: “The increasingly aggressive stand of Government agencies to infringe on the basic right of individuals to make an informed decision for themselves and their children has forced us to be very concerned and on a continuous alert,” he says.

Many people consider raw milk to be beneficial to their wellbeing and health and what right has government to stop them making an informed decision as to what they want to eat and drink? In this sense it becomes a wider issue of basic human rights, Schmidt argues, and government’s attempts, influenced by corporate interests, unreasonably to restrict them.

“The rules and regulations imposed on all of us by fear, misled politics through the corporate lobby and under the banner of freedom and democracy are far beyond the limitations set by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” Schmidt argues in an open letter to “Dear Friends in Government and those who work for the Government” on The Bovine website.

“I and many others never gave anyone the permission to decide for us what to eat, what to drink and how to live. Neither will we impose on you our beliefs,” he says.

While “always open for constructive dialogue”, the game has changed: “Please do understand that in the future I cannot and will not anymore co-operate in any actions and proceedings, which are imposed on us IF you are violating our basic rights,” he warns.

“We have the choice to resist with love and determination. We are ready to enter into a new chapter of civil disobedience. There are many of us and there will be more to come as we proceed.”

Whatever the outcome of the appeal, Michæl Schmidt is clearly not going to lay down his unpasteurised milk pail quite yet.

END/nna/cva

Links: http://thebovine.wordpress.com, www.glencoltonfarms.com

Item: 100624-01EN Date: 24 June 2010

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