Selling Raw Milk Has Risks
Producers should consider carefully before deciding to sell raw milk.
John Vogel
Published: Oct 13, 2009
With dairy farmers struggling to make ends meet worldwide, many are turning to selling raw milk – straight from the cow and unpasteurized. In Pennsylvania, the nation's largest raw-milk permitting state, 122 farms have permits.
"Another 35 are in the permitting process right now," reports Bill Chirdon, director of Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Food Safety. "Some farmers are selling 1,000 gallons a week at $3 a gallon. That's powerful incentive," he adds.
But hold everything!
In American Agriculturist 's November cover story package, one of the state's one-time largest raw milk producers warns of the risks involved. Chirdon seconds that concern.
 Besides milk quality, the food safety bureau chief stresses that there are many issues to deal with: drinking water quality, new animals coming onto the farm, milking equipment troubles, milking procedural errors, packaging and storage, to name a few.
The biggest concern may be liability. "It's an enormous risk." And he adds, "There are times when insurance companies don't even know producers are marketing raw milk. Producers need multi-million-dollar coverage, and it's very expensive.
"Today, our bureau spends considerable time with raw milk producers. We're pulling more milk samples than ever before, and doing more producer education to reduce consumer health risks."
And it's working. "In 2007, 8.4% of (Pennsylvania) raw milk tested positive for pathogenic bacteria. So far this year, less than 2% have tested positive. That a huge improvement!"
What you need to know
Not all states permit raw milk sales. Some permit selling raw milk only from the farm. A number of states are grappling with whether to allow sales as well as how to regulate and police them.
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has published guidelines to help educate prospective raw milk producers. It's downloadable from the Web at:
www.agriculture.state.pa.us/agriculture/lib/agriculture/foodsafetyfiles/rawmilk_guidance_doc.pdf.
Key points from that document include:
* Animals must be brucellosis-free and tuberculosis-free, and pass an annual veterinary exam.
* Farm well water must test bacteriologically safe at least every six months.
* Bacteria (plate count) cannot exceed 20,000 per milliliter.
* Coliform counts cannot exceed 10 per milliliter.
* Somatic cell counts cannot exceed 1 million per milliliter.
* Sample and test raw milk at least twice a month for pathogens and drugs.
* No pathogenic bacteria: Salmonellae, Campylobacter, Listeria or E. Coli 0157:H7.
Those are the legal limits. But Chirdon wouldn't advise producers who have trouble keeping SCC counts, for instance, under 400,000 and closer to 200,000 to seek a permit.
Company to Change Garbage into Ethanol
First large-scale project slated to open in 2011.
Officials at Pleasanton, Calif. based Fulcrum BioEnergy say they have successfully demonstrated the ability to economically produce renewable ethanol from garbage. Fulcrum President and CEO, E. James Macias says by demonstrating first the clean and efficient conversion of garbage to syngas, and now syngas to ethanol, they have demonstrated that the technology is ready for deployment at their first large-scale project.
That plant, the Sierra BioFuels Plant, is located approximately 20 miles east of Reno, Nev., and is scheduled to begin operations in 2011 and will be one of the nation's first large-scale waste-to-ethanol facilities. The project will convert 90,000 tons of post-recycled municipal solid waste – the amount of trash produced by a city with a population of 165,000 – into 10.5 million gallons of ethanol per year. Fulcrum expects its cost of production to be less than $1 a gallon, significantly below that of today's conventional ethanol production.
Fulcrum's process will create a much needed low-cost, reliable and environmentally clean renewable transportation fuel lowering our Nation's dependence on foreign oil, reducing the need for landfills and stimulating economic growth with a new industry of green jobs. By utilizing MSW as its feedstock, Fulcrum will produce a biofuel that reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 75% on a lifecycle basis.
Grass Hedges Do Protect Water
Research shows sedimentary runoff can be greatly reduced by grass hedges.
Planting grass hedges could be the answer to successfully bringing some Conservation Reserve Program land back into production. Researchers at the Agricultural Research Service have found that grass hedges can help farmers preserve soil and protect water quality by trapping sediment that would otherwise be washed away by field runoff. Their findings are based on a series of studies conducted over 13 years to assess the effectiveness of grass hedges for erosion control in wide or ultra-narrow-row conventional tillage or no-till cotton systems.
The researchers established single-row continuous swaths of miscanthus, a tall perennial grass, across the lower ends of 72-foot-long plots with a 5% slope. The hedges eventually became a yard wide and were clipped two to three times every year after the grass was 5 to 6.5 feet tall. The scientists found that the ability of the hedges to trap sediment increased as the hedges matured.
The hedges were more effective at intercepting sediments that washed out of conventionally tilled fields, possibly because the eroded materials from no-till fields were composed of smaller particles. The hedges captured approximately 90% of eroded sediment from ultra-narrow-row conventionally tilled fields, and only about 50% of sediment from no-till fields.
The team also found that hedge effectiveness was enhanced when clippings were allowed to accumulate uphill of the hedges. But even if all the clippings from grass hedges over 1.5 feet tall are removed for livestock feed or bioenergy production, the hedges can still help protect against field erosion.
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