MCMINNVILLE, OR – People have been consuming “raw,” or unpasteurized, milk for thousands of years, since the practice of raising and keeping livestock became a common custom in modern civilization. Not until the late 1800’s was the process of pasteurization advanced to address health problems caused by the increasingly intensive, confined, and industrialized farming practices of the day.
Today, however, more and more farmers and consumers are returning to tradition. Small-scale, family farmers such as Christine Anderson of Cast Iron Farm in McMinnville, Ore., are rediscovering traditional farming methods. Coupling these methods with modern quality controls, they are producing raw milk in a humane and safe manner. Consumers, in turn, are rediscovering the benefits of raw milk—from its unique taste to the beneficial enzymes, vitamins and bacteria it provides, which are degraded or destroyed by pasteurization.
Oregon, like a majority of states, allows farmers to produce, and consumers to purchase, raw milk. Bizarrely, however, the state prohibits farmers from advertising it. That means a conscientious farmer like Christine cannot inform would-be customers about the farming practices she employs and the testing procedures she follows to provide the safest product possible. In fact, she cannot even post the selling price of her milk. In late 2012, the Oregon Department of Agriculture ordered her to remove price information from the Cast Iron Farm website. If Christine attempts to advertise her product again, she would be subjected to a fine of $6,250 and civil penalties as high as $10,000—plus a year in jail.
Oregon’s raw milk advertising ban harms farmers like Christine, who can’t run a successful business if they can’t talk about it. It also harms consumers by preventing them from obtaining accurate information about legal products in the marketplace. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that censorship of this sort is unconstitutional. The First Amendment protects not only political and artistic speech, but commercial speech, as well, and government therefore cannot prohibit entrepreneurs like Christine from advertising a perfectly legal product. [contextly_sidebar id=”05ca345a1772dc9986a0c05facd18025″]
Oregon’s farmers have a constitutional right to promote the products they offer. That is why the Institute for Justice is joining with Christine to take on Oregon’s dairy censors. On November 19, 2013, they filed a First Amendment challenge in federal court to strike down Oregon’s raw milk advertising ban so that farmers can freely and proudly speak about the wonderful products they have to offer.
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