Dairy farmer Donald Dell opened the lid of his 2,000-gallon milk tank, peering at the creamy white liquid inside. The tank is kept full by tubes that run to the nearby pumping station, where his 150 Holstein cows come to be milked.
The Dells drink nothing but raw, unprocessed milk, straight from the tank. The family thinks that consumers should have the right to buy and drink nonpasteurized milk, too, and that the idea could help revive the state's ailing dairy industry, which has lost half of its milk producers in the last 15 years.
"The milk you buy at the store is hardly milk," said Dell's grandson, Gary Dell, who oversees operations at the family's 470-acre Cranberry Meadows dairy farm just outside Westminster. "It's been beat up, burned up, torn up and mixed back up again. I wouldn't be opposed to selling [raw milk] at all. [The industry] can't get any worse than it already is today."
Other dairy farmers say that selling raw milk to customers poses too much of a liability to their financially drained industry. And health advocates have concerns about the purity of milk that has not undergone bacteria-killing pasteurization.
A bill that comes up for a General Assembly hearing today would allow farmers to sell raw milk and related products.
The bill's lead sponsor, Del. Mary Ann Love, an Anne Arundel County Democrat, is joined by 15 other co-sponsors, including Republican Del. J.B. Jennings, a part-time beef producer who co-owns a Baltimore County feed store.
Unprocessed milk can be legally sold in 28 states, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation, a raw milk advocacy group based in Washington. Five other states allow raw milk to be sold as pet food, and a few of the remaining states, including Virginia, allow multiple owners to purchase a cow and share its milk. Maryland law forbids selling milk that has not been pasteurized. Neighboring Pennsylvania allows licensed farms to sell raw milk directly to customers and through retail.
Salmonella bacteria were detected about two week ago in raw milk sold by Stump Acres Dairy in Harrisburg, Pa., and three consumers were infected, according to a Pennsylvania Health Department spokesman who said no other raw milk contamination cases have been reported in the state in at least three years.
Stump Acres cannot sell milk again until laboratory tests and new inspections prove the product is safe, a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture spokesman said.
