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Chester, Vt., Dairy Farmer Pushes for Better Milk Regulations

Posted on: Thursday, 25 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Aug. 24--CHESTER -- Lisa Kaimen bristles when talking about the way Vermont regulates raw milk.

"We're the quote 'dairy state,' " said Kaimen, a Chester dairy farmer who says there is no way she can make a living as a small dairy farmer with the regulations they way they are.

"We have good milk," she said. "We can't get a good price. Small farms are closing left and right. Shipping milk is a losing deal. You can only do that for so long." Supporters of farm fresh milk, a term used to describe raw milk, want to repeal the 25-quart daily limit on selling unpasteurized milk direct to the public in Vermont, the only the state in New England with this kind of limit.

The issue will be one of several facing family farms that will be discussed at an ice cream social sponsored by Rural Vermont next Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Chester Town Hall.

Farm fresh milk came before the Legislature this year when 13 representatives sponsored a bill that would repeal the limit on selling grade A raw milk in Vermont. Rep. Kathy Pellett, D-Chester, was the lead sponsor, with Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, also a sponsor. The bill did not get out of the House Agriculture Committee but could be brought up again next year.

Pellett said farmers being allowed to sell as much raw milk as they could would improve their chances of making a living. Kaimen said she is only able to make a living at her farm, which she has owned since 1999, by selling her animals.

"It's just unequitable for small farms," she said. "Twenty-five quarts a day is six gallons a day. Who can make a living off that? And it is arbitrary.

Why 25 quarts? I don't see how they can use a random number." Kaimen is not only complaining about the inability to earn good money from her milk, she is also wondering why Vermont agriculture officials appear to have a dim view of the ability of consumers to decide on the issue (by placing the limit on daily sales.)

"They feel they have to protect consumers," she said. "Is fresh milk bad milk? Ridiculous. We want to give consumers a choice. When they buy it at the farm, they see if the farm is clean, if the animals are clean. They can ask the farmer if they drink the milk they produce. Why do they think our own public is so stupid?"

Milk prices have long been a concern for Vermont dairy farmers, especially since the end of the Northeast Dairy Compact that supported farmers through subsidies. Raw milk is an issue other states have handled, however, and Kaimen wonders why it cannot be as simple as making farmers "earn" the right designation to see healthy raw milk.

"You can get a certificate," she said. "That is how other states do it. You need a certificate in order to be organic."

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Copyright (c) 2005, Eagle Times, Claremont, N.H.

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Source: Eagle Times, Claremont, New Hampshire

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