Where can legislators across the political spectrum find common ground? It turns out on House File 394, the raw milk bill, which would “allow certain milk and products using milk to be transferred directly by operators of dairy farms.” In Iowa it is illegal for a farmer to sell raw milk directly from his/her farm and Francis Thicke of Fairfield wants to change that. Thicke is advocating for the bill and lobbyists are lining up against it in large numbers. Why is raw milk an issue at all?

Maytag Blue Cheese is well known among Iowa foodies and around the country. Hand made in Newton, Iowa since 1941, it is aged twice as long as many other blue cheeses and provides a distinct taste to meals. Around our house we crumble it on spring salads, even if at $15 per pound, we can only afford to buy it for special.

What many people don’t know is that Maytag Blue Cheese is made from raw milk, and it is the bacteria in raw milk that give it the distinctive flavor. If Maytag Blue Cheese were made with pasteurized milk, well, it wouldn’t be Maytag Blue Cheese. It was grandfathered to allow raw milk to be used in its manufacture.

Francis Thicke is an organic dairy farmer, soil scientist and author of A New Vision for Iowa Food and Agriculture: Sustainable Agriculture for the 21st Century. This year he is advocating for HF 394 which was voted out of the Economic Growth/Rebuild Iowa Committee with recommendation for passage.

“Iowa is one of about 10 states that have no allowances for raw milk sales,” said Thicke. The bill “only would allow sales directly from farmers to consumers… the general public would not have access to it unless they sought it out…”

He said, “People want it, and it’s a matter of principal actually… giving people the freedom to that opportunity to buy what they want to buy.”

Thicke wrote in an e-mail to Blog for Iowa, “It is interesting that the bill is being sponsored by conservative Republicans and Libertarians as an issue of freedom – freedom of choice. Liberal Democrats also support it as a matter of allowing informed citizens the opportunity to choose for themselves. As one liberal Democrat said to me on the phone, ‘The government has no business telling someone they can’t buy raw milk.’ It reminds me that both words, libertarian and liberal, come from the same Latin word ‘liber,’ which means ‘free.’”

In an interview with Ed Fallon on 98.3 WOW-FM‘s Fallon Forum, Thicke indicated that the dairy industry opposes the bill as they are worried that if there is tainted raw milk it will affect sales of pasteurized milk. A representative of a pediatrician’s organization also spoke against the bill in committee. According to Thicke, the speaker cited poorly founded data in an effort to put fear in the legislators about the bill. Since the passing out of committee, 36 lobbyists have registered against the bill, representing a who’s who of powerful interests among industrial agriculture, retailers, medical groups and government. Said Thicke on the Fallon Forum, “We don’t have any lobbyists.”

Whether the raw milk bill will become law is an open question. With bipartisan support, HF 394 has a chance, and it represents one area of society where government could be less intrusive. The author does not anticipate drinking raw milk, and Francis Thicke does not anticipate selling any, but it is a choice Iowans should have and the sales of raw milk should be decriminalized.