Talks ease ill will over milk raids
Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor has asked raw milk producers to put together a proposal for Cabinet and the Ministry of Health on how to address issues with the current regulations.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) compliance staff conducted raids on unregistered raw milk suppliers in Southland, Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu¯ , Horowhenua and Nelson on December 3 and shut them down.
The sale of raw milk became regulated in March 2016, when the Raw Milk for Sale to Consumers Regulations came into effect.
Under the regulations, farmers who sell raw milk must register with MPI and follow hygiene rules regarding the bottling, storing and distribution of the milk.
Farmers Paul Ashton and Angela Brooks of Lindsay Farm, along with Raw Milk Producers Association chairman Mark
Houston, travelled to Wellington last week to meet with O’Connor to try to resolve a standoff with MPI over the current regulations.
The raid had taken an emotional toll, Brooks said.
‘‘It’s been very stressful for all three families,’’ she said, referring to her parents, her brother’s family and her own family.
Many of the registered raw milk producers also supplied Fonterra and were able to offset the costs imposed by the regulations, Brooks said. Lindsay Farm, which is certified organic and runs a herd of 100 A2 jersey cows, was too small to do the same.
Raw milk producers want MPI to work with them to ensure the safety, quality and sustainability of small-scale farming enterprises that are meeting the increasing demand for the product.
The main sticking point between producers and regulators was the use of collection points to distribute the milk.
O’Connor asked the farmers to put together a proposal outlining how to best address the problems.
‘‘It went quite well from our perspective. [The minister] was very relaxed with us and spoke of drinking raw milk growing up,’’ Brooks said.
‘‘We spoke very openly about how we have set up our partnership and that we had to because the rules created by the raw milk scheme made it impossible to run our business model.’’
Last month Paul Ashton, who had the support of the Raw Milk Producers Association, said the group would not register with the current regulatory framework as it was ‘‘unfit for purpose’’.
Officials say unpasteurised milk carries more risk of food poisoning and has been linked to disease outbreaks in the past.
Farmers had set up limited liability partnerships as a workaround to the regulations, which threatened the viability of many raw milk businesses because they no longer allowed collection points. Milk had to be bought at the farm gate or delivered to customers’ homes.
Ashton said that in the 12 years the farm had been producing raw milk they had sold 12 million servings (at 250 millilitres per serving) of raw milk and had never had an illness outbreak associated with it.
Lindsay Farm intended to hire a policy adviser to help with the proposal for improved distribution, and would start a Givealittle campaign to fund it, Brooks said.
One contention with the rules was that raw milk delivered to a customer’s home could be left sitting on a porch, unchilled, while producers using collection points put the milk into chilly bins or fridges, which she said was safer.
A statement provided by MPI last month said the regulator expected raw milk businesses to organise delivery times with customers so that the product was ‘‘delivered in a way that doesn’t allow the highly perishable item to spoil’’. This was in line with other food delivery services using this model, the statement said.
Collection points made the supply chain longer, which increased the chance of something going wrong, it said.