Texas farmers tout new raw milk rules as a major victory
The state now allows delivery of raw milk directly to consumers.
FILE 2010 Raw milk is carried to car at a Collin County farm.(ANDY JACOBSOHN/Staff Photographer)
2:46 PM on May 19, 2021 CDT
Buying raw milk just got a whole lot easier in the state of Texas. The Texas Department of State Health Services published a new set of rules that legalize the delivery of raw milk anywhere in the state and allow small farms to more efficiently get their product into the hands of consumers.
Such changes have long been lobbied for by groups like the Cameron, Texas-based Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance that advocates for independent family farms in Texas. Raw milk is milk that has not been put through the pasteurization process that kills most bacteria.
Related Carolina Mueller and her partner were starting crops ranging from onions to broccoli in their greenhouse and tending to a collection of winter crops growing at Middle Ground Farms, their small, diversified organic vegetable farm outside of Austin, when the unprecedented snowstorm and deep freeze hit last month.
All the crops they had in their fields parsley, purple sprouting broccoli, radicchio and chard were lost in the freeze. And because the storm overwhelmed the state’s deregulated power grid, triggering widespread blackouts, their irrigation pumps shut down, so Middle Ground Farm lost access to water.
They weren’t able to water the plant starts and lost a whole round of young plants, setting them back by weeks if not months, and likely creating gaps in production for their wholesale clients and the community supported agriculture (CSA) subscription they provide in the Austin area. In total, they estimate they lost $30,000 worth of output.
Small Ranchers, Big Problems Jan 25, 2021
Some farmers are pushing for a bill that would allow states to set their own regulations for the retail sale of meat. It has failed to pass Congress five times. Some states have a shortage of meat processors that are USDA-inspected, limiting how much livestock farmers can raise. Photography courtesy of Grace Pond Farm
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When Rhiannon Hampson’s dairy herd births a male calf, she jumps on the phone that week to schedule its slaughter two years away. She crosses her fingers that the date she books will work or she’ll be able to trade with another farmer for the eight-hour round trip to the USDA-certified processing facility, one of only five in Maine.