A majority of the Louisiana House agriculture committee decided it couldn’t stomach a bill that would have allowed some dairy farms to sell raw milk to customers and killed the proposal with a 7-8 vote today.
Senate Bill 29, by Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, had previously won Senate approval; but in a crowded committee room today, the bill’s supporters and opponents spoke of the health benefits and risks of drinking raw milk.
LaFleur passionately defended his bill, saying consumers have the right to choose which products they buy. He also noted that the bill only allowed for small-scale production and sales.
“Don’t tread on me, get out of my hair, government, and let me buy raw milk,” LaFleur said at the close of his opening statement.
Mike Strain, Louisiana’s commissioner of agriculture, presented the committee with studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that illustrate the health risks associated with consuming raw milk.
Pasteurized milk is 150 times safer than raw milk and results in 13 times fewer hospitalizations, Strain said.
The state’s agriculture chief said passage of SB 29 would begin to reverse the strides the United States has made in public health over the last century, comparing the problem to the discovery of brain-eating amoebas in several Louisiana water systems.
“With the amoeba problem, everyone was saying, ‘We have to do something about this,’” he said. “On this, my friends, we have to stand firm.”
Louisiana dairy farmers did not present a united front on the issue. While some testified raw milk had improved their health and championed the right to choose, others said opening the market would hurt those who have worked to comply with existing regulations.
James Clyde, the owner of what he called a “micro-dairy” in St. Francisville, said raw milk cured his children of health problems they suffered from when they were young. Clyde said he and his wife had been forced to buy raw milk in Mississippi and bring it to Louisiana until they were able to buy a cow of their own.
“The core of this issue is food freedom,” Clyde said.
Under current Louisiana law, selling raw milk is illegal, but possessing and drinking raw milk is legal.
Marguerite Constantine, owner of WesMar Farms in Moreauville, said the bill would “create
an uneven playing field” for farmers selling milk for pasteurization and distribution.
Constantine said she and her husband installed machinery and implemented procedures to ensure her farm follows state and federal regulations, and that the bill would allow other farms
to bypass those.
Constantine also said she believed that widespread selling of raw milk would result in disease
outbreaks, and under those circumstances, her own business would suffer even if she doesn’t sell raw milk.
“People are going to see it’s milk from a small Louisiana farm, and they aren’t going to buy it and we’ll go out of business,” Constantine said.
—Gordon Brillon
Jeremy Alford and Gordon Brillon will publish a daily update throughout the legislative regular session on Daily Report PM. Alford reports on Louisiana politics at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
