Page 86 - Fall2011

RAW MILK IN IRELAND
by Elisabeth Ryan

The Irish Government intends to ban the sale of raw milk by the end of 2011. Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney,
acting on the advice of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, has stated that he is fully satisfied that the ban should go
ahead.
Raw milk as a product available for sale is not a familiar phenomenon to most Irish people. Many were reared on it
and if they weren’t, their parents were, but current consumption of raw milk remains largely a practice only within farm-
ing families who drink their own milk from the bulk tank—estimates put this figure at around one hundred thousand or
around 2.25 percent of the population. Over the last few years interest has certainly been on the up, however after a
ban in 1996 on the sale of raw milk in Ireland, it was thought to be illegal to sell it and thus it has been unavailable to the
vast majority of people.
Raw milk is probably most familiar to Irish consumers through its use in cheese. It has been a long battle to get to
where we are today in relation to our thriving raw milk cheese production and a tacit peace has now been achieved
between the authorities and the producers. Threats to undermine this still crop up from time to time, mainly through
the insidious policies of supermarket chains that outwardly appear to represent the interests of the artisan producer but
show the opposite through their internal practises. They employ, for example, badly worded warning labels which by
best practice should not be exclusively limited to the raw milk cheeses, and they issue ill-researched rules about in-store
separation of even pre-packaged products. Notwithstanding this, all is well, in fact all is wonderful with raw milk cheese,
and it has found a rightful pride of place in our food culture. For the most part, these days our cheese makers find their
inspectors to be helpful and co-operative and most encouragingly see a new-found understanding of their product coming
from government departments. Raw milk cheeses such as Durrus, Cooleeney and St. Tola, to name but a few, are well
known to the Irish consumer and cheese fans actively seek out raw milk cheeses.
Raw fluid milk is an entirely different matter. A 2007 EU directive removed the legal basis for the 1996 ban that had
prohibited the sale of raw cow’s milk for direct human consumption. Regretfully, this went unnoticed in Ireland until late
2010. At this point three producers, Aidan Harney, David Tiernan and Darina Allen, began to sell raw milk from their
farms and in Tiernan’s case through a number of specialist retailers also. Having only been available for such a short time
and in such limited quantities, raw milk has not gotten the foothold in the current culture that it certainly would given
half a chance. Farmers who would be keen to explore the possibility of selling their raw milk direct are put off by the
impending ban. The awkward reality is that as soon as we knew it was legal, we were also told it would be banned.
The three reasons given for the ban are the protection of public health, the cost of regulations, and the possible
reputational damage to the Irish dairy industry. The same answer has been wheeled out on several occasions in response
to a multitude of questions posed both by politicians and the public: “While public health is the overriding consideration,
it is also worth noting that legislation required to allow the sale of raw milk on a restricted basis would be much more
complicated and would impose very significant extra cost on my Department in relation to oversight and enforcement.
Failure to adequately oversee such high-risk business operations could result in serious national and international repu-
tational risk." So wrote Minister Simon Coveney in response to parliamentary questions posed July 2011.
When looking at the issue of international reputation it is worth pointing out that many other countries allow the
sale of raw milk including our close neighbours in England, Wales, Italy, France, Holland, Belgium and Germany as well
as New Zealand whose dairy industry we often seek to learn from and who are similarly reliant on exports—there has
been no resulting damage to their reputations internationally.
The ban of raw milk is set to be introduced as a Statutory Instrument (an amendment to existing legislation) which
can be enacted by the relevant minister. This requires no discussion in the Dáil (parliament) and has been subject to no
public consultation.
The Campaign for Milk Ireland was established in May 2011 and consists of a number of businesses, food organisa-
tions and members of the food and farming community who have joined together to offer to the government an alterna-
tive option of a system of regulations. We have been encouraging the public to raise the issue with their local politicians
which has resulted in a number of questions being put to the Minister for Agriculture in the Dáil. Two of the three national
broadsheets just published a detailed letter to the editor signed by members as well as some high profile chefs and food
celebrities. We are active on social media and have been featured on the radio several times. We have been promised
a meeting with the Minister for Agriculture and debates have been taking place at food events around the country. We
organised a large public debate held on 6th September in Dublin which had on its panel representatives from the scientific
research institute Teagasc as well as members of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland who are recommending this ban.
Further details on www.rawmilkireland.com

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