Advocates and opponents of a Wisconsin Senate proposal to allow farmers to sell raw continue to disagree on key points, including whether unpasteurized milk is safe, and whether the government should regulate what people are allowed to purchase.
Mark Kastel, co-director of the Cornucopia Institute, a farm-policy research group based in northern Wisconsin, said prosecuting farmers who sell milk to their neighbors was a waste of tax dollars, and consumers should be allowed to make informed decisions.
On small farms with good quality control practices, he said, the risks are low. He estimated that as many as 25,000 people might be drinking raw milk on their farms in Wisconsin already, including small children.
“These people aren’t in the emergency rooms,” he said. “The problems with raw milk have been very, very few.”
Furthermore, he said, outbreaks of illness with raw milk would be easier to trace because of the small, local scale of the operation.
“If you’re buying milk from a local farmer who you know and they have a client list, and if there’s ever a problem with contamination, it would be on a scale more like Aunt Tilly’s egg salad got left out too long at the church picnic and we all know who got sick,” he said.
But Wisconsin Safe Milk Coalition lobbyist Shawn Pfaff, also mayor of Fitchburg, said the safety risks – including tuberculosis and other bacteria that the pasteurization process kills – also presented a threat to Wisconsin’s all-important dairy brand and could undermine state farmers.
The coalition includes not only dairy organizations, but numerous hospitals and healthcare associations around the state.
"I would hang my hat on the medical concerns that have been raised by the thousands of professionals from across the state that are members of those organizations who have teamed up in working together for Wisconsin dairy interests," Pfaff said.
He also said continuing to prohibit those sales was necessary to protect children, and those otherwise unable to look after themselves.
“That is why food safety laws are out there,” he said. “We don’t know where everything comes from. We have to hope our government agencies will take collective self-interest in mind and protect us from something that could be bad for our health, especially young children.”
