Raw milk continues to grow in popularity, despite bird flu in dairy cattle bringing increased scrutiny from health experts.
Customers boarded a refurbished shuttle bus one by one on a summer afternoon, carrying colorful cooler bags and grocery sacks to pick up their orders of raw milk.
Be Whole Again Farm sells and delivers around 700 gallons of unpasteurized milk per week, making dozens of stops around the Kansas City area. Co-owners Scott and Rachel Moser started the operation over a decade ago in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
“Some of our customers come two or three times a week,” Scott Moser said. “They want it that fresh.”
One of their loyal customers is Tara Huffman, who’s been buying milk from the Mosers for years and drinking raw milk for more than a decade.
“It’s a superior product, that’s really what it comes down to,” Huffman said.
Many of the people who drink raw milk are steadfast in their support, saying it’s healthier than pasteurized milk and makes them feel better. Yet most health experts warn there are risks to drinking it, especially with the emergence of bird flu in dairy cows. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is encouraging states to monitor or even halt the sale of raw milk products, citing risks of human exposure.
The farmers who produce raw milk say they are closely watching their herds and milk.
At Be Whole Again Farm, Rachel Moser said the team tests milk from each quarter of each cow’s udder everyday. Missouri has had no reported cases of bird flu in cattle.
“Most of my customers trust that we are doing everything in our power to keep our product extremely safe … and that we’ve got their best interest at heart,” she said.
Risks with raw milk
Raw milk is chilled straight from a cow and doesn’t undergo the heating process that pasteurized milk does — and it’s not available everywhere.
States regulate how or even whether raw milk can be sold, while interstate sales are prohibited.
With rising interest in raw milk in recent years, more and more states are allowing its sale. Selling raw milk became legal in Iowa, North Dakota and Georgia last year.
Yet health experts warn that raw milk can contain pathogens that the pasteurization process kills – including e-coli, listeria and salmonella. In June, raw milk from a farm in California was connected to the largest salmonella outbreak from the product in over 20 years.
Bird flu was detected in dairy cattle for the first time in March. Since then herds in 13 states have tested positive, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While there’s no evidence that humans can contract bird flu through drinking raw milk, Nicole Martin, an assistant research professor in dairy foods microbiology at Cornell University, said there are unanswered questions about how the virus can spread.
“We don’t know enough yet to say there is no risk. And therefore the approach at this point is there should be increased caution,” Martin said.
Four people have contracted the virus from dairy cattle, but they were all farm workers working closely with infected cattle.
Researchers know that bird flu is present in sick cows’ milk. Recent research from Iowa State University shows that the virus is abundant in the mammary glands in the udder of sick cows, said Rahul Nelli, a research assistant professor at the university’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab who worked on the study.
He said influenza is known to replicate in the intestines of birds, so drinking infected milk could infect someone.
“There’s a likely chance, if that’s the case, there is a potential there,” Nelli said. “But we have to explore more.”
Nelli emphasized that health officials advise only drinking pasteurized milk, as the process has been proven to kill bird flu.
Dedicated demand
Still, the demand for raw milk is strong.
Retail sales of raw cow’s milk over the past few months have increased, according to data from market research firm NielsonIQ. The amount of raw cow’s milk sold during the four weeks ending on June 15 was 42% higher than the same time last year.
Fourth generation dairy farmer J Schanbacher produces both pasteurized and raw milk in Iowa, a state where there have been several cases of bird flu in cattle. News of the virus caused a slight dip in his farm’s raw milk sales in May, he said, but they picked back up again.
With bird flu cases in the state, he’s monitoring his herd and speaking with his vet each week. He also increased biosecurity measures on his farm.
“The last thing we want to do is give raw milk a bad reputation, right?” Schanbacher said. “So, you know, we don’t want people getting sick from our product. We’re doing everything we can to make the product healthy.”
Melanie Chapman sells raw milk in western Nebraska. Her farm is listed with the Raw Milk Institute, an organization in California. As part of that designation, she tests her milk regularly for standard plate count and coliform counts. She even purchased testing equipment with a grant from the institute to run her samples on her property.
There haven’t been any bird flu cases in cattle in Nebraska. But if her cows are showing signs of sickness, she said she doesn’t put their milk in the raw milk tank.
“My customers out here are not concerned,” Chapman said.
Looking ahead, Chapman expects raw milk sales to grow as long as states continue to allow raw milk sales. She does worry about the federal government stepping in and stopping raw milk sales altogether.
And, as bird flu fear rises, Rachel Moser said this is a concern many of her customers share.
“A lot of them, they’re more worried that we’re going to get shut down than worried that they’re going to get sick,” she said.
The Mosers are seeing strong demand from both new and returning customers, and they’re considering adding home delivery. But that could bring more customers than the farm can currently handle, Rachel Moser said.
“My fear is that as soon as we add home delivery that we’re actually going to grow so much and I won’t be able to keep up with the demand,” she said.
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
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