Massachusetts Scene of a Modern Day Rebellion

Teat Party Held by Raw Milk Network

Teat Party Raw Milk Fund Raiser

by Joseph Heckman, PhD

On Thursday, August 12, 2010, I had the pleasure of attending the Massachusetts Teat Party, a fundraiser for the NOFA/Massachusetts Raw Milk Network. It was held at the Cook Farm in Hadley, which sells raw milk from its farm store, just a few miles away from the University of Massachusetts where NOFA was holding its summer conference.

Dairy herd on pasture at Cook Farm

I drove up early from New Jersey to be a speaker on Soil Fertility in Organic Farming for the NOFA conference. When I arrived I had a chance to see the dairy and take pictures of the cows as they headed back out to pasture after their evening milking. Besides shooting photos of cows, I a captured a interesting photo of a car from Massachusetts coming to the event with vanity license plates: RAWMLK. The owner of the car, Kim Hennessy, is a genuine raw milk enthusiast as were about 50 other people attending this fundraiser. It was a pleasure meeting and mixing with the crowd and hearing the personal stories of what this special food choice we share means to each of us.

Raw Milk Enthusiast Sports Vanity Tag

The fundraiser featured great local food – including a local cheese tasting. It was an opportunity to meet NOFA conference keynoter Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation and Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Tickets for the event were just $50 with proceeds going to benefit the work of the NOFA/Massachusetts Raw Milk Network.

This event set the stage for the NOFA sponsored symposium on raw milk that followed the next day at the University of Massachusetts. Special thanks Winton Pitcoff, Coordinator for NOFA/Massachusetts Raw Milk Network, for organizing the event. Also, thank you to the Massachusetts raw milk farmers who donated food and nourished the participants.

Winton Pitcoff, Coordinator for NOFA Raw Milk Network

Dr. Joseph Heckman

Dr. Joseph Heckman is a soil scientist with the Rutgers New Jersey Agriculture Experiment Station. He grew up on an organic dairy farm, and has helped to organize the Rutgers Raw Milk Seminars. Heckman has written a number of articles on organic farming for Wise Traditions, the quarterly journal published by the Weston A. Price Foundation. See his recent blog post about his family trip to visit a raw dairy farm.
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Another article by Joseph Heckman is In Defense of Living Organic, published in That Natural Farmer.