How Now Maine Cow?

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how now maine cow

The Maine Sunday Telegram (and associated newspapers) published a good overview of the present state of Maine’s 307 (currently) dairies this past Sunday. It is NOT a bright or positive story, but it is an honest look at a critical keystone of Maine agriculture and the federal and state programs that control much of what dairy farmers are (or are not) paid.

One fact left out of this excellent article is that Maine now asks the Oxford Casino to help fund its price support program. How sad that we depend on gambling revenue to keep fresh local milk in the grocery stores? We need to wake up and be willing to pay the TRUE price of our food, and stop hiding the true cost, which really hides the value of our hard working and dedicated Maine farmers. And if dairy farming doesn’t make economic sense, we should not be surprised that most young Mainers don’t want to go into that field…

Meeting: April 8 at Silvery Moon, Westbrook

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Our April meeting was hosted by Silvery Moon Creamery at Smiling Hill Farm at 781 County Road (Route 22) in Westbrook on Monday, April 8th between 10am and 2pm.

We focused on Marketing issues at this meeting, and welcomed representatives from Native Maine Produce to the meeting to discuss what they look for in cheeses to distribute, how they handle those cheeses, and the various ways they’re able to market them to a wide or select set of customers.

FDA Draft Report on Soft-Ripened Cheese Production

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The Cheese Reporter reports in their February 8th issue that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), working in conjunction with Health Canada, has released a draft report on their risk assessment of soft-ripened cheese production using pasteurized and raw milk specifically for L. monocytogenes (Listeria). This risk assessment will be used by FDA risk managers to inform their food-safety decisions as they re-evaluate the FDA rules around cheese production.

According to the assessment raw milk cheese presents a higher risk of Listeria contamination than pasteurized milk cheese.

A major finding was that although testing bulk milk used to make raw milk cheese DID reduce the risk significantly, it did NOT reduce the risk as much as testing raw milk cheese lots (which is the current Canadian requirement for raw milk cheeses).

This draft assessment is submitted for comments beginning February 4th, 2013 for 75 days. Comments may be submitted to www.regulations.gov. The docket number is FDA-2012-N-1182