Raw milk producer wins legal battle to sell cow shares

NEWMARKET — The one-time pariah of the dairy world, Michael Schmidt, has become a hero to grassroots farmers looking to get into the milk and egg business without buying quota.

The Durham County dairy farmer was acquitted last month of 19 charges related to the distribution of raw milk and cheeses. The crafty entrepreneur defended himself in court against five lawyers from the province. Small farms are interpreting the outcome as a greenlight to now sell cow-shares to non-farmers who want a share of the unpasteurized milk. Based on the health risk, it is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in Canada but not illegal to buy a share in a cow or to drink unpasteruized or unsterilized milk.

Spencerville farmer Shawn Carmichael, who was at the centre of a highly publicized standoff with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in 2006 when he didn’t have quota for thousands of birds, told The Brockville Recorder and Times he is now considering a chicken-share program.

Schmidt, 54, was operating a successful cow-share operation when the province set up a sting operation and undercover officials with the Ministry of Natural Resources bought shares in Schmidt’s business. Almost 200 people had paid $300 annually to join his club and own shares in his 30 cows

The province now has the option of appealing the 40-page judgment. Lawyer Karen Selick, who has followed the case closely, says that Ontario should "do the right thing" by taking up Schmidt’s offer that he made 15 years ago: work together with the province "toward a regulatory regime" to provide certified raw milk as they do in the state of Michigan.

The court overturned a previous ruling and the fine of $55,000 for failing to stop distributing raw milk. "That’s a shame," says Dr. Anne Carter, medical officer of health for Leeds, Grenville and Lanark counties. "Pasteurization still saves a lot of lives and raw milk is a dangerous product," she said. Unpasteurized milk can contain pathogens such as Listeria, Salmonella and E.coli, the same pathogen that had been found in the water at Walkerton, she said. The Ontario Ministry of Health says there were 145 reported enteric illnesses associated with unpasteurized milk between 2005 and 2009.

Carter remembers a case from 1985 when an Ontario farmer gave raw milk to a visitor and the visitor died. "You could see how devastated the farmer was. What people don’t realize is that milk is the perfect medium for growing bacteria," she said. Tuberculosis, Listeria, Salmonella and E. coli are all bacteria. A cow can appear to be perfectly healthy and carry the deadly bacteria, she said.

"I find this decision difficult to understand," she added. "Milk can be made safe so easily."

She understands that people are getting tired of manufactured and processed food and want to buy more locally. But milk and meat are different and need inspection, she said.