Committee advances bill to allow sale of raw milk products after labeling amendment

Representative Dawson Hawley (District 31) introduced House Bill 11 31 to allow sale of raw milk products directly to consumers. Hawley and multiple proponents argued the change would help small farms create new revenue streams through products such as cream, butter, cheese and yogurt produced on-farm.

Proponents included raw milk producers and small-farm advocates. Leanne Harner, a raw-milk goat producer, said the cottage and direct-sale model is important to rural producers and told the committee that, in North Dakota since 1988, Department of Health data show "there have only been 12 people in North Dakota that were sick because of raw milk," while 24 people in the same period became ill from contaminated water. Harner and other producers described small, farm-to-consumer operations as a willing-buyer, willing-seller arrangement in which customers choose producers and producers have incentives to keep products safe.

Sam Wagner of the Dakota Resource Council supported the bill and proposed several optional amendments drawn from the state's cottage-foods framework to add consumer notice and a complaint-investigation path for health officials. John Avard, a producer selling raw milk, said his operation has 40 customers and a waiting list of about 50 and described producers' use of written information sheets and farm visits to inform consumers.

Committee members discussed product safety and the bill's prohibition on donations (line 13 of the draft). Hawley said the donation prohibition stemmed from a prior-session amendment proposed by the Department of Agriculture to reduce the risk that a donated product used in a group setting could cause an outbreak that would be harder to trace. Harner noted that the bill would exempt these sales from some dairy-code provisions but said the Administrative Rules Act could still allow rulemaking by state agencies under other chapters.

The committee considered and adopted an amendment requiring that "raw milk or raw milk products shall be clearly labeled as raw milk or made with raw milk." A senator moved the amendment and the committee voted in favor. Representative Hawley said he had no objection to that labeling amendment; he opposed other proposed regulatory limits such as production caps or requirements that might be used to restrict small producers.

After the amendment passed, the committee moved a do-pass recommendation on House Bill 11 31 as amended. The clerk recorded affirmative votes from Senator Marsalais, Senator Weston, Senator Weber, Chairman Lueck, Vice Chair Myrdal and Senator Lem; committee members announced the do-pass motion approved.