Community Corner
Dairy Farmers Protest Downtown
Goat farmers milk their herd in public to push back against laws forbidding sharing at family farms.
Santa Cruz goat farmers milked their animals and gave free samples downtown Wednesday to gain community support against laws forbidding sharing from dairy farms.
The California Food and Drug Administration has launched a statewide crackdown on unlicensed dairies sharing milk, even sending SWAT teams out to arrest farmers. The law allows family farmers to consume their products on their farm. However, people who want unprocessed, raw milk have banded together to share their herds.
Some people invest cash and buy shares of the herd; others trade agricultural products for the raw milk. Either way, the state has been sending cease and desist letters claiming they are violating the law and taking too broad an approach to the concept of the family farm.
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The CFDA claims that unpasteurized milk has a greater risk of spreading disease. The U.S. Center for Disease Control reported 86 outbreaks due to consumption of raw milk or raw milk products from 1998 to 2008, which resulted in 1,676 illnesses, 191 hospitalizations, and two deaths.
Raw milk advocates point to similar numbers for pasteurized milk products, although the percentages are considerably smaller because of the numbers of people drinking pasteurized milk. They say raw milk is healthier, because nutrients are burned off in the sanitizing process.
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The farmers claim the government is infringing on their rights to eat and grow what they want. They passed around a petition they plan to present to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, asking it to support those rights.
Kori Farrell, 23, who trades vegetables from the farm where she works for goat's milk, was at the milking protest, across from the Wednesday Farmer's Market.
“I think the reason people are so afraid of the health risks associated with raw milk and the reason pasteurization is so widely used is that milk typically comes from so many different sources," she said.
"Like milk from 50 different cows, goes into a single batch, and then is shipped miles and miles all over the place. If something were to go wrong with any one of those animals, the whole batch becomes dangerous.
"But if it's from milked from a single animal and distributed that same day only a few miles away, then there is nothing to be afraid of. I think that's what the problem is, really, that people are afraid.”
Farrell sees herd-sharing as good for everybody, including the goats, who are treated with love by their owners.
Gail Williamson said she thought the pressure on farmers is part of a nationwide effort by the federal government to more tightly regulate food production.
“My daughter owns a farmers market in Washington, D.C., and gets raw milk from an Amish farmer, who was 'SWAT- teamed.”
