The battle over pasteurized cheese has come to BC. Here’s the skinny: all milk and dairy sold in Canada has to be pasteurized, unlike in Europe, where you can get all kinds of Artisan cheeses worth weeping over.

In recent years, co-ops have sprung up in Canada that allow you to buy proportional ownership in a cow. Dividends come in the form of milk, that the co-ops make into Artisan cheeses and butter and other treats. These are small organizations that take good care of their livestock and produce some outrageously delicious dairy products. This has been getting around the pasteurization laws, because owning the cow means you own the milk, which takes the government controls out of the picture.

However, the government and the dairy board lobby groups have been taking this head-on, with a public fight in Ontario, which they just lost. The fight has now come to BC, and one of the local co-ops, www.homeontherangefarms.com, is organizing a rally on Monday Feb 1, 9am, in front of the New Westminster Supreme Court. If they can get enough people confirmed as attending, Michael Schmidt will attend too, the Dairy Farmer who just successfully defended his co-op in Ontario.

Certainly this issue is a contentious one, with the associated health issues and the issues of scale and precedent. But if you have ever had a proper farmhouse cheese from France or Britain, chances are you have little patience for the uptight position of the Canadian government.

update: Michael Schmidt will attend the rally, and homeontherangefarms.com is holding a meeting monday night with Michael (inlcuding a cheese tasting) – contact Jackie for information and to RSVP: Jacki from bcfoodies, 604 306 7720, jackie@bcfoodies.com

LINKS

www.homeontherangefarms.com

contact homeontherangefarms here

Articles:

CBC , More CBC

Medbroadcast

Great long article from 2008 in Harper’s Magazine (thanks karl!)

Photo credit: scpgt on Flickr CC NC ND