Urban devotees of raw milk soured by health raid on farmer
MARGARET PHILP - Globe and Mail
TORONTO -- It was an early-morning drama with all the hallmarks of a big
drug bust: Ontario Provincial Police cruisers blockading the lane while
armed officers swooped onto a farm, herding the farmer and his workers
into the kitchen of the old house.
But this dairy farmer was no drug kingpin. In the century-old barn of the farm northwest of London, Ont., were 30 cows and the stainless-steel equipment used for milking, separating the milk and manufacturing dairy products such as cheese and yogurt. And the contraband confiscated in last week's raid at Glencolton Farm consisted of dozens of glass jars of unpasteurized milk, fresh from the cow.
Michael Schmidt, a maverick dairy farmer who has openly provided raw milk to hundreds of families for more than a decade since his last brush with the law, faces a charge of operating a milk plant without a licence and could be slapped with more.
The raid has unleashed the powerful outrage of sophisticated, health-conscious, political-minded urbanites who are willing to a pay a premium for natural, unadulterated food straight from the farmer -- and insist that their right to choose healthful food is at stake.
Mr. Schmidt has celebrity chefs such as Jamie Kennedy and Michael Stadtlander among his supporters, and a history of providing unpasteurized milk to the family of a senior Ontario cabinet minister whose ministry is involved in the investigation. The raid seems poised to thrust the most motherhood of all issues, milk, into a spotlight likely unintended by the government.
The raid on Mr. Schmidt's farm pushes him back into court 11 years after he switched from selling milk outright to a shareholder system designed to circumvent the Ontario law that has banned the sale and distribution of unpasteurized milk since the 1930s. Under the program, customers purchase a share of the herd for $300, paying Mr. Schmidt $2 a litre to milk and feed their cows.
"The whole battle, which started with the simple fact that people wanted unaltered milk, turned into the question, 'Are people able to be responsible for their own informed decision they make?" he said in an interview.
Until now, provincial authorities have turned a blind eye to Mr. Schmidt's very public operation. His following has grown to nearly 200 families -- there is a three-year waiting list -- who drive to the parking lot of the private Toronto Waldorf School in Thornhill, north of Toronto, every Tuesday morning to exchange empty milk jars for fresh refills. Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara and his family were among Mr. Schmidt's early cow shareholders. According to his son, Lucas Sorbara, a teacher at the Waldorf School who purchases raw milk each week, the Sorbara family lived in British Columbia for a time, owning a cow named Bossy that the elder Mr. Sorbara would faithfully milk.
Chef Mr. Kennedy, who purchases organic meat from Mr. Schmidt's farm, will play host tomorrow to a news conference at his downtown restaurant on the subject of Mr. Schmidt's battle with the government and a hunger strike he launched six days ago.
Mr. Kennedy said that from a gastronomic perspective, raw-milk cheese offers "more subtleties, more nuance" to the palate than cheese from pasteurized milk. "As long as he practises a very high level of cleanliness, then there should be no issue. It's not like he's doing something no one in the world is doing. These are culinary traditions set for centuries and nobody's getting sick."
Indeed, unpasteurized milk can be purchased in many European countries and in more than half of U.S. states. In some states, notably California, raw milk is sold on store shelves and there have been few, if any, disease outbreaks.
Across Canada, raw milk is condemned by public-health authorities as laden with disease-causing bacteria such as salmonella, campylobacter, and E. coli O157 -- the infamous deadly strain that poisoned the drinking water of Walkerton, Ont. Drinking milk that has not been pasteurized -- usually by heating to at least 72 degrees for 16 seconds or longer -- can lead to severe, sometimes bloody diarrhea, stomach cramps, vomiting, fever and even death.
But those who insist on drinking raw milk aren't convinced.
Megan O'Neil and her family moved to Canada last year from California, where she purchased raw milk at the grocery store. In those days, she was breast-feeding her daughter. After moving north, both mother and daughter suffered digestive problems on a diet that included pasteurized milk until Ms. O'Neil switched back to raw milk.
"It wasn't until I moved to Toronto that I really learned the importance of raw milk and saw with my own eyes my daughter and how she thrived," she said, adding that when her husband's contract ends and the family returns to the United States, they will choose a state where raw milk is legally sold.
Bill Murdoch, Mr. Schmidt's MPP for Grey-Bruce-Owen Sound, plans to introduce a resolution in the provincial legislature next week calling for a new study of the issue.
"I'm not a lawyer or a scientist," said Mr. Murdoch, who was raised in small-town Ontario. "We've heard all the things that are bad about it. But we know people are drinking it."
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