New Jersey legislators in raw milk stalemate

By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor

TRENTON — Legislation which would permit the in-state sale and distribution of raw milk is stalled, and may sour, in the New Jersey State Senate.
Assembly Bill 743, which won lopsided 71-6 approval on March 14, has not been scheduled for a Senate Committee hearing, reportedly because of some opposition by dairy farmers.
The legislation also has drawn the opposition of Farm Family Insurance, which administers the group policy of the New Jersey Farm Bureau.
Farm Family Insurance fears the liability which it claims raw milk presents.
The state General Assembly is now recessed until mid-November, after the general elections and when it returns it will be a “lame duck.”
State House observers give it little hope of Senate attention in that legislative environment which means, one said, that “the process will have to begin all over again.”
Despite New Jersey’s apparent reluctance to legalize the sale of raw milk, the demand for it is increasing across the country and more than half of the states allow raw milk sales.
In Pennsylvania, farms with raw milk permits increased from about 25 to 150 over the past decade.
In Maryland, the Farm Bureau annually debates raw milk production and sales in its policy review and each time, its current thumbs-down policy is allowed to stand.
Dr. Joseph R. Heckman, a professor of soil science in the Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, argued that “government agencies universally opposed to raw milk fail to draw a distinction between risks associated with carefully produced legitimate food-quality raw milk intended for direct human consumption, and poor quality milk that cannot be safely consumed by people in raw form.”
Citing two notable cases from the Journal of the Ameican Medical Association, he said, “as a soil scientist, I became embroiled in the milk controversy as a result of hosting a university seminar series concerning raw milk and informed consumer choice. 
“A careful review shows that pasteurization does not guarantee food safety — any food, including (raw or pasteurized) milk can be linked to food borne illness.”
Interestingly, New Jersey currently allows only the owners of the cow to drink the milk directly from that cow.
And the families of most dairy farmers, as they always have done, do just that.
Noted Heckman: “In Europe, raw milk is sold in vending machines.”