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Introduction
Background
What is pasteurization?
Pasteurization issues
Weighing the Benefits and Risks of Raw Milk
Local Economies, Small Farms and consumer Choice
Who is doing the research and who gets to decide?
Decision makers and funding
Raw Milk Research
Ethical Implications
Recommendations
References & Links
Comments & questions to:
Rebecca.harnik@gmail.com
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Local Economies, Small Farms, and Consumer Choice
The protection of the rights of small farms is
critical to maintaining local economies and food production. As
scholar and writer Wendell Berry writes, protecting the local economy
allows consumers to have an “influence over the kind and quality of
their food, and to preserve land and enhance the local landscapes. They
want to give everybody in the local community a direct, long-term
interest in the prosperity, health, and beauty of their homeland”
(Berry, 2001). Purchasing local food such as raw milk cheese can be
seen as an assertion by locals that they have confidence in their own
communities; buying locally is seen as a counter to globalized,
large-scale farms.
Because cleanliness is critical, raw
milk is often a more practical endeavor on a small farm; this kind of
production tends to be linked to local economies. Many state
legislatures only permit the purchase of raw milk in “incidental”
sales. This means that the raw milk is purchased directly from the
farmer, thus facilitating small networks, and
local connections.
Pasteurization and ultra-pasteurization
are measures for germ eradication that are important for large farms
that are unable to take good care of their cows and their milk
treatment. Yet processing need not be a one-size-fits all
approach. A common concern among small farmers is that regulation
policy is seen as inflexible. Small farms tend to have a higher likelihood
of having safe policies, better ability to monitor animals, and
stronger vigilance to implement safety procedures; thus, these farmers
should not have to comply with the same regulations as large-scale
farms. Imagine an elementary school teacher being told to
approach class lessons in the same way for a class of five students and a
class of one hundred students. Approaches must change on
different scales, because of resources, abilities for vigilance and
attentiveness, and different types of problems that occur in larger
settings.
This rootedness of small farms
within local interests is a critical background to the local foods
movement and the debate surrounding food policy. Small farmers
interested in restoring local rural communities “want to see raw-milk
cheese become a cornerstone of a ‘civic agriculture’” (Lyson 2004 as
written in Paxon, 2008).
Civic agriculture is a an important
component of the raw milk cheese debate. It "embodies a
commitment
to developing and strengthening an economically, environmental, and
socially sustainable agriculture and food production system that relies
on local resources and serves local markets and consumers” (Lyson, p.
102, 2004). Large farms—the kind that need to pasteurize—are often
unable to provide this community link and investment because they’re
catering to wider markets and consumers. Small farms are able to
connect to their neighbors, and offer a stronger, engagement within the
community.
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The Milkman represents days of local economies and close producer-consumer relationships
Small scale, localized agriculture lies at the heart of the raw milk cheese movement
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Last updated: 5/06/10
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