Raw Milk Issue Comes to Head

(File photo of Mark Nolt and his family in 2003)

Chris Torres
Staff Writer

Pennsylvania’s most recent move against an unpermitted raw milk seller has evoked strong reactions on all sides of the issue.

“This whole thing just angers me,” said farmer Jonas Stoltzfus on his friend Mark S. Nolt’s latest confrontation with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) over his refusal to get a permit to sell raw milk.

Last Friday at around 11 a.m., PDA officials, accompanied by a handful of Pennsylvania State Police troopers raided Nolt’s Newville, Pa. farm, taking with them over $20,000 worth of dairy products and equipment.

It was the second time in less than a year that Nolt’s farm was raided by PDA officials.

Last Aug. 10, a search and seizure warrant was executed at the farm after it was believed Nolt had been selling raw milk without the state required permit. A state-issued injunction was filed against Nolt last June, which ordered him to stop selling raw milk from his farm after he refused to renew his raw milk permit in August of 2006.

Bill Chirdon, director of food safety and lab services at PDA, said the issue centers around two things: fairness to other farmers who legally sell raw milk with the state required permit and keeping people safe.

“It’s not fair for other people to do that and Mark not do it,” Chirdon said. “I’ve used every resource possible. Mark refuses to work with the laws of Pennsylvania.”

He noted 114 farms have permits to sell raw milk in the state, while another dozen or so choose to do it without a permit.

Chirdon defended his department’s decision to raid Nolt’s premises, stating the Cumberland County farmer has misunderstood current state laws regarding commerce with customers and that he, along with the state’s other farmers, fall under the jurisdiction of PDA’s laws regarding milk sanitation.

Nolt, 45, has been farming for about 20 years and claims he has sold raw milk for the same amount of time. He formerly held a Pennsylvania permit to sell raw milk, but has since repeatedly said that he does not intend to renew the permit to sell raw milk and aged cheese — the only products that can be sold lawfully in the state — claiming it is contradictory to what he wants to do, which is to sell other “raw” products including yogurt, kefir and various varieties of cheese.

Nolt and his supporters also interpret Pennsylvania’s original Food Act of 1935 to exempt his type of private, farm-based business and to supersede the Milk Sanitation law (Chapter 59) first adopted in 1970 and amended in 1982.

He wrote an account of last Friday’s events that was delivered to Lancaster Farming this week. The letter stated that he and his wife were talking to customers in his cheese house when several police cruisers and unmarked cars arrived at the farm.

Within minutes, he said, he was in handcuffs and whisked away by a constable to a local magistrate’s office. He said an officer cut him off when he asked the reason he was being taken away and whether there was a warrant to search his farm.

After appearing at a brief hearing, Nolt said he came back to the farm to find his entire walk-in cooler empty of cheese and dairy products. Several jugs, he said, were missing and a number of stainless steel tools were taken.

Nolt said he questions the state’s rights to get involved in private farmer-to-consumer sales, which he does on his farm with what he said is the full trust and knowledge of his customers.

“I wanted to fully operate in the private sector. If I would take a permit, than I would be required to do pasteurization on the other products, which is something I don’t want to do,” Nolt said. “Raw milk is much, much safer than pasteurized milk. Too many of us believe something to be the truth that isn’t.”

PDA spokesperson Chris Ryder said two separate incidents in which undercover food safety employees purchased raw milk from Nolt’s farm led the department to believe the farmer had once again been selling raw milk without a permit. Ryder said the employees purchased milk and butter on March 8 and April 17, both of which were tested and confirmed to have come from raw milk.

Nolt, who last summer was cited for five summary violations by the department for illegally selling raw milk from his farm, was taken into custody on a bench warrant for not responding to the citations.

He later appeared before a District Justice in Mount Holly Springs and was ordered to appear in court on May 5 for a hearing. He was then released.

According to a legal secretary from the office of Magisterial District Judge Susan K. Day, the citations total $5,100 in fines.

Ryder said Nolt may face additional citations in connection to this latest raid. He has 30 days to appeal.

Reaction to Nolt’s second run-in with PDA has been one of outrage from his close friends and customers. It has also brought up questions about the state expanding raw milk sales beyond fluid milk and aged cheese.

Stoltzfus, of Perry County, a close friend of Nolt’s and president of the Communities Alliance for Responsible Eco-Farming (CARE), blasted the raid, comparing it to actions of the Gestapo (Nazi Germany’s secret police during World War II). According to Stoltzfus, the state is trying to make an example of Nolt, who he said is a trusted and responsible farmer.

“Mark Nolt is not going to quit. We have to put a stop to this,” he said, adding that Nolt was selling raw milk to eager customers soon after the raid happened.

Don Whittlinger, a customer of Nolt’s from Littlestown, Pa., called the raid “outrageous.” He claims he started drinking raw milk after he had severe stomach problems three years ago and started purchasing milk from Nolt’s farm. Whittlinger, 71, said drinking Nolt’s product helped him get better and saved him thousands in potential hospital bills. He was devastated to hear Nolt, who he said he owes his health to, had been apprehended last Friday.

“I got well with raw milk when I was severely sick with stomach problems,” Whittlinger said. “I was absolutely devastated when I heard the news. Mark’s a horse-and-buggy Mennonite. This is un-American. It’s all about money. They need to go after violent criminals, not him.”

Holly Budd, a former customer of Nolt’s from Calvert County, Md., said she has fed her kids raw milk for years without any incident of sickness or infection. She heard of Nolt through a mailing list and started purchasing his products a few years ago.

Raw milk sales are banned in Maryland.

While she prefers Nolt operate with a legal permit, she said Nolt is an honest farmer who never caused problems with her family.

“Farmers in general are upstanding good people,” Budd said. “It’s terrible to put raw milk in the same kind of category as drugs.”

Judy Mudrak, a customer of Nolt’s from Southhampton, N.J., said she gladly drives four hours one way to get raw milk from Nolt since it is banned in New Jersey.

Mudrak grew up drinking raw milk in Switzerland and said it has done wonders for her health. So much so, she has started her own Website, reversemydisease.com, which chronicles her fights with cancer and how natural foods, such as raw milk, can benefit people fighting deadly disease.

“The milk is absolutely out of this world that he is able to produce,” Mudrak said. “We depend on that raw milk here. I know Mark Nolt personally and he is a fantastic man. I don’t want to be told by the government that I have to buy pasteurized milk.”

But Logan Bower, who serves as president of the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania, said the incident would hurt the dairy industry more than help it.

“The unfortunate part is that it gives milk a bad name,” said Bower, a dairyman from Perry County. “Whenever we have an event like this, to me, it’s bad for everybody because too many consumers take that and look at milk as a bad thing. If you’re going to do it, at least follow the rules and the guidelines. He sets a bad example.”

Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation, an organization that supports the sale and distribution of all raw milk products, said the organization is putting out an action alert, urging people to donate money to help Nolt get back on his feet.

Fallon, who testified last summer at a heavily attended raw milk hearing in Harrisburg, Pa., said the state is too restrictive in the way it allows farmers to sell raw milk and has criticized the state’s testing procedures, which she claims give a lot of “false positives” and is designed more for pasteurized milk.

Chirdon defended the state’s use of testing, including it’s use of VIDAS 30 testing, stating the department only relies on it for preliminary confirmation of bad pathogens and that much more lab testing is done to confirm possible pathogens.

“Our job is to protect the public. It’s not like we’re picking on raw milk,” he said.

Debbie Stockton, executive director of the National Independent Consumers and Farmer’s Association, said farmers like Nolt have a constitutional right to engage in commerce with customers through private contracts without government intrusion.

“Mark has private contracts with customers who trust him and they (PDA) have no right to interfere with those transactions,” Stockton said. “It’s not about safety. It’s a scare tactic to try to maintain control.”

Brian Snyder, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA), thinks Nolt is in the wrong for not operating under a permit.

He added Nolt’s situation is taking attention away from expanding raw milk sales to yogurts, soft cheeses and ice cream, to imposing newer, tougher rules on farmers who abide by the law.

“In this case, we happen to think it is correct that PDA has standards and issue permits,” Snyder said. “This is a huge opportunity that we have to do this correctly and people are willing to drive into Pennsylvania to get it. But nobody wins when a farmer gets arrested for producing a product that everybody wants.”

Chirdon said the law was never updated to include other products because when the law was created in 1935, it was thought that things such as butter and ice cream would be more susceptible to pathogens because of their longer shelf lives.

He said he would support expanding raw milk sales, as long as good science supported it and good dairy practices were put in place.

“We’ll do what the state lawmakers want us to do,” he said. “Any raw ag commodity, you have that risk of pathogen being present. You can do a lot of things to minimize the risks. Raw milk, unless you have real good herd health and good science, you can have a lot of problems.”