Hello Folks,
I'm sharing this newspaper article by Dan Sorenson, with Shelby's permission.
I copied the article below. Tawny in TX, (a reunited birthmom since April
2002.)

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----- Original Message -----
From: Shelby Brawley
To: homedairygoats@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 10:10 AM
Subject: [homedairygoats] Buttercup the cow..cover girl



Hello! Well I don't have the real newspaper yet and the online version isn't
showing the photos but Buttercup and I are on the front of the NW section of our
daily paper today, good article..

http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/northwest/56498.php

Shelby
www.Hoofsnhorns.com

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Got controversy? Raw milk will ensure you do


State shuts down two mini-farmers
By Dan Sorenson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Shelby Brawley's got raw milk, but the state of Arizona says neither you nor any
of the growing number of fans of straight-from-the cow dairy products can have
any.

Brawley is one of two Northwest Side mini-farmers recently shut down by the
state for distributing raw - meaning unpasteurized - milk not produced in a
facility meeting Arizona's Grade A dairy standards.

The state says you can drink milk straight from your own cow. To sell raw milk
you must have a Grade A dairy certificate.

Brawley says she's doing the former. The state says she's in violation of the
latter.

Over the last year she's sold shares of her big-eyed, bony Jersey dairy cow,
Buttercup, to about 20 Tucson-area residents who drink her raw milk.

Brawley calls this a "condo cow" arrangement: All 20 shareholders are owners.
Arizona and several other states don't recognize the arrangement as ownership.

Standing outside a pen of cavorting goats with Buttercup at her Picture Rocks
farm, Brawley explains her plight. She says the Arizona Department of
Agriculture slapped her with a cease-and-desist order in mid-December telling
her she can no longer distribute Buttercup's milk to her other owners, unless
she gets a state Grade A dairy certification.

That's put her in a bind, and Brawley says she doesn't know what to do.

She can't afford the Grade A certification; she said certification would require
construction of a new building and many thousands of dollars in special
equipment just to milk one cow.

Nor can she afford a lawyer to fight the state order. Quitting isn't a cheap
option, either - she owes Buttercup's other owners a share of the output from
their cow. She says they each paid $50 for their cow share and pay $40 a month
to cover room and board, vet bills and labor costs in return for about four
gallons of milk a month.

But if she doesn't quit distributing raw milk, says Katie Decker, a spokeswoman
for the department, the case will be turned over to a department attorney.

Raw milk demand

Brawley and Danni Ackerman, another Northwest Side mini-farmer under state order
who quit distributing her goats' milk two months ago, were feeling the demand
generated by two movements advocating consumption of raw milk.

The first and largest is made up of followers of various "raw food" diets and
lifestyles. They promote consuming foods with as little treatment as possible -
from uncooked, unprocessed and organically grown fruits and vegetables to
non-pasteurized dairy products made from the milk of cows and goats that have
not been treated with antibiotics or production-enhancing hormones.

Raw-food diets appear to be an extension of the health-food and organic-foods
movements that blossomed in the 1960s, but demographically they sometimes also
appeal to physical-fitness enthusiasts.

The other main group advocating consumption of raw milk comes to it from a
religious perspective. "The Maker's Diet," which says the Bible instructs
followers to eat unprocessed foods, has been gaining followers in the last few
years.

Judi Dawn, the co-owner of Creme de la Moo, a fledgling bottling and
distribution business for raw milk from an organic dairy-cow herd in Queen
Creek, said demand from both groups was sufficient for her to go commercial. She
expects to begin distributing raw milk commercially at several Phoenix and
Tucson-area locations within the month.

She says she's had inquiries about providing raw milk and raw-milk products from
"close to 500 households across the state, and beyond. I average two to three
contacts a day.

"I would say there are a few, a number, of things that inspire it. 'The Maker's
Diet' is certainly one. More and more nutritional diets advocate" raw-milk
consumption. "There's a growing constituency on the Primal Diet. I'm on it. You
eat everything raw."

Dawn says she used to collapse after extended periods of stress and sought
relief from several traditional and nontraditional treatments. Since she started
following Aadjonus Vonderplanitz's Primal Diet, Dawn says her condition has
dramatically improved.

She worked at setting up a cow-sharing operation for several months last year
before deciding to try a commercial bottling operation. She said investors came
forward, unsolicited, to back a commercial operation.

Many of those most interested in the operation are people seeking raw milk and
related products they say will help them battle diseases, including arthritis,
severe allergies and cancer.

And there are others who just drink it because they think it's good for them.

Chad Poulsen, a Brawley cow-share member for six months, says he's not using raw
milk to treat illness. He says it just makes him feel better. He regularly mixes
up protein drinks using raw milk and eggs he gets from Brawley, adding cherry or
blueberry concentrate, bananas and nutmeg or cinnamon.

"I kid you not, it tastes better than egg nog," says Poulsen.

He says he quit consuming milk products as a youth because his severe allergies
seemed to improve when he quit. He started getting raw- milk products from a big
certified California firm early in 2004 but found out about Brawley six months
ago, bought a Buttercup share and says he's been saving money. He says he'll
have to go back to paying $19 shipping for each order of raw milk from the
California dairy if Brawley shuts down.

Regulators concerned

But Dawn, Brawley and Ackerman are also feeling the effects of another national
movement, this one by federal and state regulators concerned that consumption of
raw milk can be extremely unhealthy. Although the federal government prohibits
the transportation of raw-milk products for sale to consumers across state
lines, it is also concerned that many states still allow the sale of raw milk.

After a 2002 salmonella outbreak traced to raw milk, the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention released a statement saying much about the
government's attitude toward raw milk: "Because 27 states still allow the sale
of raw milk, and organizations continue their efforts to allow marketing and
sale of raw milk to the public directly from the farm, consumer education about
the hazards of raw milk and a careful review of existing policies are needed,"
according to the CDC Web site.

Listeria, in particular, is a concern since it frequently causes pregnant women
to spontaneously abort. The FDA reports there were five stillbirths, three
premature deliveries and two infected newborns among 10 women who were infected
with Listeria traced to Mexican-style white cheese made from raw milk during a
2001 North Carolina outbreak.

Decker, of the Arizona Department of Agriculture, said the concern is that raw
milk can carry tuberculosis, salmonella, listeria and other diseases. She says
pasteurization - heat treatment - kills those germs, and regular inspection of
Grade A-certified dairies and their herds assures that diseases won't be spread
by the milk produced there.

Raw-milk advocates say disease outbreaks are rare and can be prevented by proper
handling of milk. They say pasteurization kills much of the nutritional value of
milk.

When asked how Brawley's operation came to the department's attention, Decker
first said there was a complaint from someone who got sick from milk obtained
from Brawley's Horns 'n' Hoofs Farm. But when pressed for details, Decker said
there were no allegations of illness. She said there had been a call from a
Brawley cow-share owner who said he or she was concerned about the sterility of
the containers used by Brawley. She declined to release the name of the person
who contacted the department.

Brawley said she was unaware of any complaints by her cow-share owners regarding
sterility of use of recycled containers. Brawley, a part-time paramedic and
full-time farmer, milks Buttercup twice a day. A couple of times a week she
loads up milk in gallon containers and delivers it to Buttercup's share owners.

Brawley says she doesn't have any "customers," that she's just doing what is
being done many places in the country to get raw milk to people who want it.

But the Grade A certificate is not a guarantee that milk will not be
contaminated. The CDC reported that in 2001, 70 people who drank unpasteurized
milk from a Wisconsin Grade A organic dairy with a cow-share program contracted
Campylobacter jejuni, a bacterial infection that often causes diarrhea,
abdominal cramping, fever and nausea.

"I don't even drink milk"

Brawley said selling raw milk was never her idea. "I don't even drink milk," she
says. But, like Dawn, she was approached for raw milk regularly after people
found out that she had goats and a cow.

Brawley says some of her customers have severe diseases, including cancer and
cerebral palsy, and say consuming raw milk has helped them.

Like Brawley, Ackerman says she never saw raw milk and animal sharing as a big
moneymaker. In Ackerman's case, it was a way to subsidize maintaining her herd
of breeding and show goats. She sold about 20 goat shares for $20 a share per
month, giving each share owner four gallons of goat's milk.

"We make cheese," says Ackerman. "We drink the milk. But each goat produces one
to two gallons a day. There's only so much milk you can use yourself in the
house."

Ackerman says she "dried her goats up" in late November and quit distributing
any raw milk weeks before Department of Agriculture agents showed up to close
her operation down.

She and Brawley are the only Southern Arizona sources for raw milk listed on
www.realmilk.com, a Web site dedicated to the virtues of consuming raw milk. The
site says raw milk cures many diseases and carries a reprint of a 1929 article
from "Certified Milk Magazine" in which a doctor lauds the results of a "milk
cure" - with daily doses of up to 10 quarts of raw milk and enemas given to
bed-rest patients. The doctor says consumption of raw milk is effective in
curing "tuberculosis, diseases of the nervous system, cardiovascular and renal
conditions, hypertension, and in patients who are underweight, run-down ."

Whatever the reason, Brawley and Ackerman say many people want their product and
the demand won't go away.

"I think eventually somebody's going to fight this in court and get to the
bottom of it," says Ackerman.

? Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at 434-4073 or dsorenson@....





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