Raw milk farmer isn’t giving up

From Megan Ogilvie on The Toronto Star’s Healthzone.ca:

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“One day after an Ontario judged ruled his cow-share program is, in fact, illegal, raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt vowed he would soldier on.

“I will stay the course,” Schmidt said from his farm in Durham, Ont. “We will continue to build.”

The decision, released Wednesday,overturns a 2010 lower court ruling that found Schmidt’s cow-share venture did not break laws against the sale of unpasteurized milk.

For the past 21 months, Schmidt has been operating in the open, regularly providing those who purchased shares in his cows with jars of raw milk.

“It was a nice feeling, these last two years, to have a sense of security,” said Schmidt, who promises the blue bus, from which cow-share owners pick up their milk, will continue to park in a Richmond Hill church lot on Tuesdays.

Michael Schmidt starts hunger strike: local area paper covers the big story

From Paul Jankowsky, in the Owen Sound Sun Times:

Trick or treat -- Michael Schmidt with his four year old son William. Photo by James Master at the Owen Sound Sun Times

Michael Schmidt has started a hunger strike in his latest challenge to what he calls “unjust laws” against individual rights.

“As a result of the recent legal developments in British Columbia and Ontario I will once again enter into a hunger strike as of today, to activate and encourage more and more people to openly join this battle for our fundamental rights and freedom to choose our food and our health,” Schmidt said in a “Food Rights Declaration” posted on his thebovine.wordpress.com blog Thursday and forwarded to reporters on Friday.

Contrasting Michael Schmidt’s pro-raw milk campaign to Women’s Institute founder’s pro-pasteurization campaign

From Tracey Tyler, Legal Affairs Reporter, in the Toronto Star:

Raw milk crusader Michael Schmidt at his Durham, Ont. farm, after a judge on Sept. 28, 2011 found him guilty of distributing raw milk. TRACEY TYLER/TORONTO STAR

“Before Michael Schmidt and his raw milk crusade, there was Adelaide Hunter Hoodless.

She isn’t mentioned in this week’s court ruling that convicted Schmidt of violating Ontario public health laws by selling unpasteurized milk. And her name leaves some of Schmidt’s followers looking perplexed.

But more than a century ago, after her youngest son, John, died from drinking contaminated milk as an infant, Hoodless embarked on a campaign to have all milk heat-treated — pasteurized — to kill potentially harmful bacteria, making her one of Canada’s earliest food safety proponents.