Three agents wearing HAZMAT masks and gloves arrived at the restaurant on 1600 MacKay Road in North Vancouver flashing badges. They demanded that the staff lead them to the back. They seized some samples, and dumped the rest down the drain and down the toilet.

The agents were from the Fraser Health Authority, and the place was Barbara Schellenberg’s Ethical Kitchen.

The contraband was milk. Raw milk.

Click to read the full feature at The Tyee

I’m amidst the early the stages of crafting a feature article on the raw milk community in Vancouver. You may recall I wrote this news story for The Thunderbird last spring. But this time around I’m hoping to delve deeper into why there are so many people into this stuff, and more importantly, who is trying to prevent them from getting it.

If you drink raw milk, or know somebody who does, I’d love to hear from you. evan@evanduggan.com or tweet me.

Raw milk is prepared at Home on the Range dairy in Chilliwack.

Paul Stothart is excited.

Last year, iron ore and coal alone accounted for nearly $1.6 billion in Canadian exports to China. This represented $1 billion more than in 2008, continuing a trend that has become a major boon for Canada’s mining sector.

“Everything in our industry is driven by China,” said Mr. Stothart, vice-president of economic affairs at the Mining Association of Canada, explaining that world mineral prices for copper, nickel, zinc and uranium are largely set by—increasing—Chinese demand for raw minerals.

The Middle Kingdom looms just as large for Andrew Casey, vice-president of foreign affairs and international trade at the Forestry Producers Association of Canada.

“It’s been a brutal couple of years,” he said, adding that the ongoing downturn in the US housing industry has had a dramatic impact on Canada’s forestry industry. He predicts that long-term economic sustainability for the sector will ultimately arrive only from diversification. A comprehensive approach to selling Canadian forest products, he said, includes Asia.

Click here to read the rest of the story at Embassy magazine.

What began with a single cow in her back yard has now erupted into a legal and personal headache for Home on the Range operator Alice Jongerden.

“I have nothing to hide,” said Jongerden, seated on a bale in her hayloft. “Our intent was never to be in the black market or to be under the table.”

Alice Jongerden finds herself caught in a battle over the control of raw milk

The Fraser Valley Health Authority initiated a cease and desist order after an inspection at the Chilliwack dairy farm two years ago. The authority concluded that Jongerden was violating the provincial Public Health Act by packaging and distributing a hazardous product: raw milk.

Provincial Supreme Court Justice Gropper upheld the injunction in March determining that the Public Health Act did not require proof of a specific health hazard.

“There is no dispute that Ms. Jongerden, doing business as Home on the Range, has breached the Public Health Act, and its regulations,” wrote the judge. “The remedy for the petitioners (Home on the Range) is to convince the government to change its legislation.”

Home on the Range “is community-supported agriculture” said Jongerden, pulling at straws of hay as she spoke. “It’s just a group of members that cooperatively come together, own these cows, pay me to take care of them, and they get the dividends (milk) from the cows.”

Jongerden continues to provide approximately 1,800 litres of raw milk to nearly 400 shareholders on a weekly basis. In order to respond to the health authority’s concerns, Home on the Range now marks its unpasteurized milk as “not for human consumption.”

Click here to read the rest of this feature at TheThunderbird.ca