Reminder: conventional dairy farmers consume raw milk by bottling up what they plan to drink before their milk is trucked out to industrial dairy processors for pasteurization. Clearly, the people on the ground are not that concerned. It is the corporate interests who fight to keep raw milk off the shelves, and out of sight, to protect the profitability their processed dairy products.

When you buy conventional milk, you are buying from a food processor. Dairygold, Organic Valley, Shamrock, etc are not farms – they are middlemen. They are food processing corporations who buy milk from farms, process that milk, and sell it under their own label.

Common question: what makes it “processed” milk? Sure, raw milk production has processes, or a process even. Processing is a service, therefore processed milk is milk which has sent out of the producer’s premises for processing.

This is not to be confused with raw milk which is sold directly by the farm, on the farm, or through a vendor in states who permit retail sales.

Big Dairy is anti raw milk

One of the more annoying and brazenly ignorant dismissive statements that I see around the Web is the claim that Big Dairy must be behind the growth and proliferation of raw milk for human consumption and/ or acquisition. This is quite literally the opposite of what’s going on.

Big dairy interests are the primary opponents to raw milk legalization. Dairy industrialists are leading the charge, while medical speakers and administrators are dragged out to various meetings – employed to reinforce their arguments against this grassroots competition.

I’m not under the impression that their business would immediately disintegrate if raw milk produced for human consumption was sharing shelf-space with their processed milk options. However, that level of threat is not necessary to create an appeal or incentive to punch down.

On some level, it’s about preventing competition at the root. On another level, it’s make-work for various organs within their organizations. Whatever the reason, the actions of these large industrial organizations are against raw milk.

Raw milk bans then and now

Raw milk bans in the USA go as far back as 1909, starting with Chicago’s citywide ban. The arguments made to ban interstate raw milk sales were related to public health and minimizing pathogenic illness. With near-distant memories of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and the Swill Milk Scandal, raw milk bans just seemed to make sense.

Big milk companies were originally against pasteurization, until they were forced, then realizing that the overhead costs represent a barrier to entry and combative force to be used against grassroots competition.

The United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA, est 1906) governs interstate milk sales – not intrastate – and first began strongly recommending against the consumption of raw milk under the Reagan Administration in 1987. The FDA remained neutral until faced by lobbying from a coalition of large dairy processors, manufacturers, and retailers who sought to ensure a uniform and pasteurized milk supply in interstate commerce.

All administrations of the FDA since the late 80s have maintained the interstate ban on raw milk sales, including the administrations under Bush, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, Trump, and Biden.

Raw milk legalization remains primarily a state-level issue, with exception to interstate sales. The FDA doesn’t really do much beyond keeping Fresno-based Raw Farm from exploding across state lines, which they stand ready to do. Herdshare members and customers traveling across state lines to acquire raw milk are left alone. Amos Miller’s situation is complicated and actually prosecuted by the USDA related to meat sales, he continues to distribute raw milk to his members. Virtually all government action taken against raw milk happens on the state level.

Suppression is an overt policy

Here’s a statement from the National Milk Producers Federation in 2018, cheering on the defeat of a policy change that would’ve increased access to raw milk in the USA: Dairy Groups Applaud Defeat of Raw Milk Amendment to 2018 Farm Bill. Excerpts:

Overwhelming opposition from a strong coalition of dairy farmers, processors, consumer groups, food safety advocates, federal and state public health regulators, the medical community, and other key stakeholders led to the defeat today of an amendment to the 2018 House Farm Bill that would have allowed the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk.

As raw milk legalization is bipartisan, so is the effort to suppress grassroots dairy producers.

In a May 14 letter to House leaders Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) insisted that Massie’s proposed amendment to the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (H.R. 2) represented “an unnecessary risk to consumer safety and public health.”

They lean into narrow, hand-picked statistics that obfuscate the bigger picture.

According to the dairy coalition letter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that unpasteurized milk is 840 times more likely to cause foodborne illness than pasteurized milk, and nearly 75 percent of raw milk‐associated outbreaks have occurred in states where the sale of raw milk was legal.

Raw milk is allegedly 840 times more likely to be blamed for causing illness than raw milk, according to experts who work in or alongside the dairy industry. Pasteurized milk is less likely to be investigated as a cause of illness, while raw milk is immediately suspected if present, but we’ll leave that to the side considering how small the numbers actually are in total and per consumer.

Current statistics estimate only 1‐2 percent of reported foodborne outbreaks are attributed to dairy products.

In recent legislative hearings, numbers were brought by opponents to the legalization to raw milk. The Ag Commissioner of Louisiana stated that 3.2% of the US population consumes raw milk – greater than 10 million people. He went on to state that 761 get sick per year, with 22 cases requiring hospitalization (for any period of time), and no deaths. (pubmed)

That’s a 1 in 14,250 (or 0.007%) risk of getting something as mild as a stomach ache, and a 1 in 500,000 (or 0.0002%) risk of greater severity. Compare this number with the 1 in 144 (or 0.69%) of leafy green eaters who fall ill from leafy greens each year.

The disagreement is not whether or not a risk exists, but whether or not the real occurrence of foodbourne illness related to raw milk qualifies as too risky and deserving of exclusion. Growth in the market of raw milk demonstrates that many people do not find a sense of urgency in these numbers.