MEDIATION SET FOR DAIRY RULES
Publication: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Byline: Greg Edwards
Date: 08-20-2003
Edition: City
Section: Business

Small farmers opposed to extending state dairy-product regulations from cows to goats and other mammals milked a bit of support yesterday from a General Assembly commission.

Two members of the Joint Commission on Administrative Rules have agreed to mediate differences between the small producers and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which enacted the dairy regulations in May.

The commission, made up of 12 members of the General Assembly, reviews new regulations to determine if they comply with the intent of state law. It can make recommendations to the assembly and suspend regulations with the governor's concurrence.

Commission Chairman Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, said the mediators - Dels. Michele B. McQuigg, R-Prince William, and Christopher B. Saxman, R-Staunton - would try work out an exemption that would allow the farmers to continue their small-scale dairy production. If a compromise cannot be reached, the commission will vote the rules up or down at its next meeting, Wagner said.

The small farmers' dairy products are generally sold directly from the farm or at farmers markets. Farmers said the regulations would be overly burdensome, costing a farmer as much as $50,000, and that the agriculture department never presented evidence that the rules are needed to protect public health.

In its economic analysis of the regulations, the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget said "it appears that the risk of life-threatening illness due to the consumption of noncow-milk products in Virginia is small." The agency said that while the risk of lesser illness such as diarrhea appears greater, people takes similar risks all the time - for example, eating raw fish or rare steak.

Representatives of the agriculture department, which believes the new rules are needed to protect the public, were unhappy with the commission's mediation decision. If the regulations, which are set to take effect Jan. 1, are undone, it will be a first in his 22 years in Richmond, department Commissioner J. Carlton Courter III said.

The new rules, which would make Virginia consistent with U.S. Department of Agriculture recommendations, are supported by the State Dairymen's Association, the Farm Bureau and the Virginia Agribusiness Council.

But Joel Salatin, an Augusta County farmer and president of the Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, said the call for mediation was "an extremely positive thing." Large and small food producers should be able to co-exist, and consumers should have a choice from which to buy, he said.

Subject: BUSINESS; AGRICULTURE; STATE; REGULATION; FOOD COMMISSION

Keywords: BUSINESS; AGRICULTURE; STATE; REGULATION; FOOD COMMISSION