Could Bitcoin be a solution for the raw milk market?

[Herodes]

the fact remains that raw milk is a big market. There is no denying that.  Regardless if you believe in it or not, it's there.

There are farmers that are willing to sell it, and people willing to buy it, but can't.  Can bitcoin help with this situation?  I think so, but you have to do it just right to meet the requirements of the law.

How do you think we could make it work?

How to make it work? It depends what the laws are. How much is this being cracked down on ? It's not like it's wildly profitable like the drug business. Could not a farmer just sell by using word of mouth ? Then only accept new customers that are vouched for by long time trusted customers, and build up a customer base slowly ?

I mean, if you put ads online or in a news papers, everybody can see it, and that's spelling problems if you want to avoid law enforcement.

Also I think many people want to see ther farmers eye-to-eye, to see who they're dealing with.

What are the consequences for 'breaking the law' in this regard ? And do the police really care about it at all ?

[axus]

Nice job!  What I take away from that is "drinking raw milk is safer than driving".  So, if I ever get the chance to try raw milk I'll take it.  I'm fine buying my overpriced organic pasteurized milk everyday, tastes good to me.

Why, yes! There is a such a study!

From the CDC's nice little wrap-up on it

• During 1993–2006, 121 outbreaks reported to CDC were caused by dairy products where the investigators could determine if the dairy product was pasteurized or unpasteurized (raw). These outbreaks included 4,413 illnesses, 239 hospitalizations, and 3 deaths.
• 73 outbreaks (46 from fluid milk and 27 from cheese) were caused by raw milk, and 48 outbreaks (10 from fluid milk and 38 from cheese) were caused by pasteurized milk.
• Probably no more than 1% of the milk consumed in the United States is raw, yet more outbreaks were caused by raw milk than by pasteurized milk.
• If you consider the number of outbreaks caused by raw milk in light of the very small amount of milk that is consumed raw, the risk of outbreaks caused by raw milk is at least 150 times greater than the risk of outbreaks caused by pasteurized milk.[/li

If you want to go by outbreak count, it means you are 150 times more likely to become sick.

Not good enough?  Then let's go by illnesses count(sick/hospital/death) The study (which you can read in full here http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/3/pdfs/11-1370.pdf ) says

Source	Illnesses	hospitalizations	Deaths
Raw	1,571	202	2
Pasteurized	2,842	37	1

First thought? "See! Pasteurized milk is more dangerous! More people got sick!" Wrong. More got sick in the same sense that three people got sick at a high school and two got sick at home for home school, does that make home school safer? Hell no. But back to numbers. For the sake of simplicity let's say everyone drinks milk in the US(US pop 313,914,040), 99% drink pasteurized milk, 1% drinks raw. The percent of people who have been harmed by pasteurized milk is 0.00089629% or about 9 per million users, but at the same time, the percent of those who have been harmed by raw milk is 0.0500455% or about 500.4 per million users

If you go by illness count, drinking raw milk means you are 55 times more likely to become sick

Want to go by hospitalizations next? 540 times more likely to end up in the hostipal

How about deaths, surely you don't want to die, becuase you are 198 times more likely to die

This study was conducted by a group who are accredited by the ACCME ("ACCME? who the hell are they?!") which is a council who set the standard for continuing medication education Founded by the lovely people at the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Medical Association (AMA), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the Association for Hospital Medical Education (AHME), the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), and the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB)

You're turn. You have a study saying it's safer?

[Sukrim]

I find it generally weird that people are so eager to extrapolate from their own experiences to a whole market. Of course raw milk can be made safe and as already said for both raw and pasteurized milk it's really unlikely that you get sick. Also if you consume the stuff at home yourself from your own goats I guess you have a higher interest in keeping everything clean.
As also shown though is that the risk is far higher in raw milk that IF something is contaminated, it might be worse than in pasteurized milk. The data that supports this was posted too.

Comparing this then and claiming "it's safer to drink raw milk than to ride a bike" is however a wrong conclusion. Take another bad example: "No human has died while staying on the moon, ever. This means we should all go to this totally safe environment in outer space and live forever!".

On the topic: How is Bitcoin better suited for this than just sending USD by wire/Paypal or paying in cash? Also farmers probably will want USD on their accounts, so they have to use something like BitPay which has Terms of Service that might not like this business or they have to learn how to do some kind of Forex trading on MtGox et. al. just to be able to afford the next bag of food for the cow...

Oh, and something else: How high are milk prices in the US anyways? To compare: In my country organic milk costs 1.05 EUR per liter (or more), cheaper (still local) non-organic one down to ~85 cents.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

You should all watch this movie:

http://farmageddonmovie.com/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1609113/

From imdb:

Farmageddon is the story of a mom whose son healed from all allergies and asthma after consuming raw milk, and real food from farms. It depicts people all over the country who formed food co-ops and private clubs to get these foods, and how they were raided by state and local governments

Incredible that peaceful people obtaining and making healthy food is raided by anyone.

Try planting a seed that didn't come from Monsanto.

[Herodes]

If you referred to my post, I didn't make a scientific conclusion, neither did I claim to do so. My aim was to demonstrate that the 'danger' that raw milk presents to the health of it's consumers is not all that much of a big deal, not to the extent where it can be justified to outlaw it for instance.

Likewise, I would be more than happy to enter a plane without the ordinary safety controls done on the passengers. I would be happy to accept the risk of 1 to 25 million to die because some terrorist fucked up the plane.

Also, it's stretching it to use such outlandish claims as we should go to a planet and live there without an atmosphere, because statistics shows nobody ever died there. Everyone can readily see that this is a stupid thing to do.

On the other hands, statistics compiled regarding the chances to suffer certain fatalities/accidents are more interesting, as that says something about the chance of it happening to you. While drinking raw milk could be dangerous, statistics shows that the chance of it happening to you is negligble, and that there's a lot of other things that is much more likely to happen to you.

[redbeans2012]

After reading how much puss and fecal matter is in pasturized milk I dont drink it at all.  I hear raw milk is better but just stopped drinking milk completely I've been scarred. 

[Herodes]

After reading how much puss and fecal matter is in pasturized milk I dont drink it at all.  I hear raw milk is better but just stopped drinking milk completely I've been scarred. 

- Just imagine how many of those you shake hands with don't wash their hands after going for a toilet visit.
- Just imagine how much of the fastfood you're served have residude of sweat, feces and dead skin cells from the workers that doesn't wash their hands after going to the toilet
- Nearly all fruits and vegetables have insects inside them, that you eat when you consume them.
- Your bed is most likely an infestation of different parasites that feed off you when you sleep.
- Your keyboard, your cell phone, they're all infested with bacterias.
- Imagine you sitting on a public seat in a bus, then using the same pant sitting in your bed, and proceeding to sleep there naked, it's quite likely that there will be leftovers of some hobo's urine in your bed.

And the list goes on and on and on... There's so many things that's 'grose', but that we don't think much about. But get this: We have immune systems, and we can deal with all these kind of things. So it's nothing to be afraid of or to obsess over.

Sweet dreams!

[Matthew N. Wright]

Years ago, Mathis Dairies in Atlanta was forced by the FDA to put a label on the milk that came right from the cow, bottled then delivered to local residents. Label read "ARTIFICIAL MILK"

This pissed me off, so I did some research and found this comment among other things. According to someone else who claims to have lived in Atlanta and drank that milk, the FDA had attempted to do that due to the lack of adding vitamin A and D to the milk, not because it was raw. Just the same, this individual claims the FDA has been unsuccessful. What is your source?

[notig]

I find it generally weird that people are so eager to extrapolate from their own experiences to a whole market.

It may not be a good idea... but I think raw milk is more about common sense. Think of all the indigenous people that have lived off of raw milk without problems. So thats extrapolating others experience to a whole market.  On the same vein I find it a little bit weird that people are okay with legislation that is based off statistics. Considering that studies are largely flawed and inadequate and biased. They aren't controlled experiments. How easy is it to manipulate statistics your way? Pretty easy I think.  For instance of those who got sick from raw milk... what was the diet of the cows that they drank the milk from? What were the cows living conditions? That information is crucial and yet it's not there.  The same thing goes with meat... You hear studies all the time about how meat is bad for you and yet there are societies on earth... that have lived happily for thousands of years eating meat(and raw milk). So in these studies do they account for the diet of the animal? You are what you eat but you also are what you eat eats. Do they account for how the meat is cooked? Rare meat is healthier than overcooked meat. Raw milk from a healthy cow is actually more resistant to bad bacteria contamination than pasteurized milk is. So if someone does get sick from raw milk there is probably another reason.... the health of the cow.

[Beepbop]

Also, it's stretching it to use such outlandish claims as we should go to a planet and live there without an atmosphere, because statistics shows nobody ever died there. Everyone can readily see that this is a stupid thing to do.

It's a perfectly valid argument, called "reductio ad absurdum". When you compare incidence of disease and death associated with raw milk and pasteurized milk you need to take into account the relative numbers of the populations who consume it. 0 deaths on the Moon, is just because we haven't settled it yet. And there would be a whole lot more health problems with raw milk if we drank it to the same extent as pasteurized milk.

Think of all the indigenous people that have lived off of raw milk without problems.

Except for that they have had problems with raw milk, and that they've adapted to that by various strategies such as extra attention to hygiene .... or boiling it.

For instance of those who got sick from raw milk... what was the diet of the cows that they drank the milk from? What were the cows living conditions? That information is crucial and yet it's not there.

This is an excellent point, except it work the other way: If you control the statistical analysis such that pasteurization is the ONLY variable (hygiene, diet of cow, length of storage, etc. is kept equal for both raw and pasteurized milk), I think you'll find that pasteurized milk comes out even better.

[velacreations]

You can advertise to sell anything, that's not against the law, as far a I know.

I guess i need to go through each state and see what each law says.

I think the word of mouth model is currently how it is done.  And I agree, people want to see the farmer eye to eye, but I don't see that as a problem.  Especially if gifting is legal, then you "gift" the milk to customers, and then take bitcoin donations beforehand.

It is hard to say how much it is being cracked down on, but I know of at least a dozen cases int he last year alone.

Apparently, the cops do care, but it is not the normal police, usually it is like State Health or FDA equivalents.

Breaking the law consequences are different for every state, but usually amounts to seizing assets, seizing equipment, destroying product (milk).

[velacreations]

For instance of those who got sick from raw milk... what was the diet of the cows that they drank the milk from? What were the cows living conditions? That information is crucial and yet it's not there.

This is an excellent point, except it work the other way: If you control the statistical analysis such that pasteurization is the ONLY variable (hygiene, diet of cow, length of storage, etc. is kept equal for both raw and pasteurized milk), I think you'll find that pasteurized milk comes out even better.

Unfortunately, this would not be accurate, either.  Because living conditions (hygiene) for most pasteurized milk producers is quite terrible (literally standing in their own shit).  So, the comparison is not equal:

If you drank raw milk from a cow eating pesticide feed standing in their own shit getting constant antibiotics (typical commercial setup), you probably have a much higher chance of getting sick vs drinking pasteurized milk from the same cow.

However, if you had milk from a rotational grazing system (grass fed), in organic and sanitary systems (typical raw milk setup), then the difference would be negligible.

Still, I think we are focusing on the wrong thing, here.  It's not whether or not raw milk is more dangerous or better for you, it is the fact that people want it and there are other people that can provide it.

[velacreations]

On the topic: How is Bitcoin better suited for this than just sending USD by wire/Paypal or paying in cash? Also farmers probably will want USD on their accounts, so they have to use something like BitPay which has Terms of Service that might not like this business or they have to learn how to do some kind of Forex trading on MtGox et. al. just to be able to afford the next bag of food for the cow...

Oh, and something else: How high are milk prices in the US anyways? To compare: In my country organic milk costs 1.05 EUR per liter (or more), cheaper (still local) non-organic one down to ~85 cents.

I think bitcoin might be better suited because money would not have to change hands at the specific time and location of the milk exchange.  also, it's anonymous, so gives the farmer a bit of protection.  The consumer doesn't really need protection, it is not illegal to buy or consume, it is illegal to sell and especially over state lines (Fed law)

You could easily set up a Farmer service with someone to help them manage the stuff and exchange for $$$ when needed.

Milk prices are low in the US, but raw milk is expensive...

Just looking online, it can range at about $5-15 a gallon.  If we take the low end of $5/gallon, and I saw a figure of about 3-4M people drink it in the US, then the market is worth at least $15-$20M.

[redbeans2012]

After reading how much puss and fecal matter is in pasturized milk I dont drink it at all.  I hear raw milk is better but just stopped drinking milk completely I've been scarred. 

- Just imagine how many of those you shake hands with don't wash their hands after going for a toilet visit.
- Just imagine how much of the fastfood you're served have residude of sweat, feces and dead skin cells from the workers that doesn't wash their hands after going to the toilet
- Nearly all fruits and vegetables have insects inside them, that you eat when you consume them.
- Your bed is most likely an infestation of different parasites that feed off you when you sleep.
- Your keyboard, your cell phone, they're all infested with bacterias.
- Imagine you sitting on a public seat in a bus, then using the same pant sitting in your bed, and proceeding to sleep there naked, it's quite likely that there will be leftovers of some hobo's urine in your bed.

And the list goes on and on and on... There's so many things that's 'grose', but that we don't think much about. But get this: We have immune systems, and we can deal with all these kind of things. So it's nothing to be afraid of or to obsess over.

Sweet dreams!

Right some things you cannot avoid, but there are some you can avoid.  Like drinking liquids known to have high levels of cow puss and fecal matter. 

[Sukrim]

[...]and yet there are societies on earth... that have lived happily for thousands of years eating meat(and raw milk).

I bet that these people living in these societies did NOT have a life expectancy that comes even close to the ~80 years that are the norm is western countries these days.
Also their cancer rates were probably much lower... This does not mean that raw milk helps against cancer, but that people died before getting old and degraded enough to get cancer.

Don't get me wrong, I come from a country with a lot of cows and I guess it won't be too hard to convince farmers here to just hand me a couple liters of milk without pasteurization (and yes, I just looked it up, it seems legal here, but only if the farmer sells directly from the farm - probably to get over issues with long transport routes). It's just that nearly nobody wants to do that, not even the organic-hippie kind of people I know. Also it would probably be cheaper than pasteurized milk, because farmers get only ~25-35 € cents per liter for their milk, so if they sell me 1 liter for 60 cents, I pay twice as much as the market and it's still cheaper than buying at the supermarket.

Strangely it seems that rather people in the US want to go "back to the roots" in some kind of romantic "good ol' times" fantasy with raw milk. Even googling raw milk in german brings up several translated US pages on the first page telling you how evil pasteurization is instead of people asking in forums where to buy the stuff (and the forum posts are generally like "US americans seem to be really into raw milk, WTF? Is there anything to it?").
Maybe US milk from the supermarket just sucks (I generally wasn't impressed with food quality in the US at all when I was there) and the few farmers offering raw milk would also produce great pasteurized milk compared to the average product? Of course making a great mystery and whatnot around raw milk then helps their marketing and enables them to create such ridiculous prices. Over her by the way farmers would rather go the organic route, get certified and approved independently and prove their "worthyness" that way instead of offering raw milk and proving that they "dare" to sell the stuff and showing this way that they are confident that their product is good.

The farmer would still need to sell received BTC for USD by the way and then get tax issues...

[velacreations]

I bet that these people living in these societies did NOT have a life expectancy that comes even close to the ~80 years that are the norm is western countries these days.

not necessarily.  Most of the west's life expectancy can be attributed to health care, not diet.  In fact, life expectancy dropped considerably when agriculture was born, changing the diet to one primarily based on grains.  Only recently (last century or so) did life expectancy get back to to the level it was before the onset of agriculture, and the diet has not improved much.  Some would argue that it has decreased considerably in quality.  

"Primitive" cultures, like North America in the late 1400's had longer life expectancies than their Western counterparts.  In fact, something often noted by early explorers of America was how large and healthy the natives were compared to Europeans.

That doesn't mean it was raw milk as the cause of that. (correlation does not equal causation)  We do tend to assume that their diet probably had a lot to do with it, though.  And it is debatable how much milk those cultures actually consumed, anyway.  They were not eating frosted flakes with raw milk every morning.

There are "primitive" cultures in Europe that traditionally had longer lifespans than "civilized" Europeans.  One that comes to mind were cultures in the Swiss Alps that raised goats and cows.  They consumed raw milk and raw milk products regularly, and had better overall health than conventional Swiss people.  Again, the raw milk was probably not the only cause of their health, but it MAY have played a role.

Maybe US milk from the supermarket just sucks (I generally wasn't impressed with food quality in the US at all when I was there) and the few farmers offering raw milk would also produce great pasteurized milk compared to the average product? Of course making a great mystery and whatnot around raw milk then helps their marketing and enables them to create such ridiculous prices. Over her by the way farmers would rather go the organic route, get certified and approved independently and prove their "worthyness" that way instead of offering raw milk and proving that they "dare" to sell the stuff and showing this way that they are confident that their product is good.

most raw milk producers in the US have customers that inspect and visit the farms directly.  So, really, it is the ultimate credibility, the consumer can see for themselves the condition, etc of the facilities and farm.  Raw milk production requires a much higher level of sanitation and feed systems than conventional dairy to be successful.

The farmer would still need to sell received BTC for USD by the way and then get tax issues...

unless feed stores, etc or services that the farmer requires take BTC.  I think that if a lot of farmers in an area started taking BTC, the suppliers to those farms would be quick to follow.

In my mind, it doesn't matter why people want something.  If they want to purchase it and someone wants to deliver it, then there is an active market.  And where's there's a market, there's a way.

[hashman]

After reading how much puss and fecal matter is in pasturized milk I dont drink it at all.  I hear raw milk is better but just stopped drinking milk completely I've been scarred. 

Most mammals stop drinking milk at a certain point in their childhood.  This is how we were built / evolved. 
A few others are pretty fucked up and drink it all the time despite the obvious health problems that result. 

[bitfair]

Raw milk is illegal to sell in most states.  But still, because the demand is high, farmers still do it.  To get around the laws, they offer ownership "shares" in a cow or similar methods (gifting).  Raw milk is often sold over state lines to avoid the laws in one state to makes the sales in a state that is legal.

Raw milk is one of the biggest black markets in the US.  In fact, it ranks right up there near drugs.  Check out some of the FDA raids on YouTube.

So, the demand is there.  The supply is there.  How do we get the two together legally (or pseudo-legally)?

I'm thinking that because bitcoin is anonymous, a farmer could sell milk online for bitcoins, people purchase it and have some sort of receipt of transaction.  Then, they go to a pick up location, get their milk, and everyone is happy.

Now, because no cash is being exchanged and because bitcoins are anonymous, it might be possible to get around the laws here.  I know that in some states, gifting milk is not illegal and the whole cow "shares" thing is legal in some areas, too (you can drink the raw milk of your own cow).

What do you guys think?  Is there a possible solution here?

Milk Road?

[franky1]

i read these threads where people think there is a massive difference between raw milk and pasteurised milk, for raw milk to be so dangerous, or not tolerable by many people.

the difference is this:

its been heated

.. and thats it! no special chemicals or additives are needed for the pasteurisation process. so if you cant tolerate raw milk.. just boil it up in a saucepan and then pour it into a container.

raw milk is cheaper then pasteurised milk so if i could get a regular supply of it, id buy it by the gallon.

[Phil21]

How is replacing "BTC" with "USD" any different than the status quo?  Unless you lie about it, which you could just as easily do with cash.

While you can certainly trade with people not using US Dollars (aka barter), and likely get away with that for a long time, eventually the IRS is going to want their cut of the dollar value of the bartering.

How is bitcoin any different?  Perhaps a little easier to conceal, and that's it.  If you are having problems concealing your giant phat piles of illicit cash from your illegal raw milk operation, then that market got to be a whole lot bigger than I remember.  I think the whole act of you giving product (milk) in exchange for consideration (bitcoin) makes it a sale.

If you want to pretend it's not an actual transaction - do so - but bitcoin really has nothing to do with it.