Rotten (2018–2019): Season 1, Episode 5 - Milk Money - full transcript

[moody guitar music]

When I was a kid, having a glass of milk
three times a day was, like, a no-brainer.

[narrator] You're drinking a lot less milk
than you used to.

And your local dairy farmer knows it.

People just don't realize
that we're fading.

You used to be able to be
this big, happy family

that stayed home together all the time,
that worked together all the time.

That's not the case anymore.

[narrator] The great age
of the family dairy farm is over.

[cows mooing]

[narrator] What was once
an iconic way of life



is now more like a money-losing hobby.

If you eat food, this is an issue
you need to worry about.

[narrator] In as little as ten years,
farms like this might well be gone.

So farmers are learning
to follow the money.

Our raw milk sales are like this.
Pasteurized milk sales are like this.

Raw milk, legal or illegal,

there's a huge demand
at a very high price.

That's an incredible phenomenon.

[narrator] But we don't know
exactly where the money leads.

You're playing with fire, doing raw milk.

[narrator] Is raw milk the salvation
of the traditional family dairy?

[man] Raw milk is decisive

in terms of turning off asthma,
eczema and allergies,

and ear infections
and nasal infections for children.



[narrator] Or is it a high-priced fad,

delivering sickness and suffering
to the most vulnerable among us?

Can you live with yourself
when a child dies from your milk?

[tense orchestral music]

[motor revving]

[man] One thing about Pennsylvania,
we have rough roads, here and there.

[mooing]

[mooing]

Come on, girls, let's go.

[eerie folk music]

[man] My ancestors came
to Wayne County in the 1850s

because there was opportunity here
and there were jobs here,

and there was a way
for a better life here.

So that's where our family started
in the United States.

Everything ready to go in there, Nick?

[narrator] In some ways, Brian Smith's
life is much like that of his forefathers.

[Brian] I go to the barn
first thing in the morning.

Let them go, Nick.

Nick is my son in-law.

My dad's day is crazy.

He starts at three o'clock in the morning,

and he's up and going and milking.

Come on, girls.

[narrator] In other ways,
the Smith farm is a very modern affair.

The herd is milked 12 at a time
in a fully-automated milking parlor.

[Brian] Even as a child
I always was up early.

I had my first pony
when I was four years old,

so, you know,
I just took a liking to animals.

I always have liked animals,
so this is kind of a nice life.

We come back here and do this at night,
so it is twice a day that we do this.

[narrator] Each cow takes
only five to seven minutes to milk,

and produces about seven gallons a day.

That's nearly 25% more milk
than her grandmother did,

only 15 years ago.

But even that jump in productivity
will probably not save family farms.

Normally, in a good business time,

you could pay your bills and have
a bit left at the end of the month.

We're coming out of a hard time here.
We're not even out of a hard time.

Hopefully, prices will come around.

It's a little bit discouraging
when you can't make any money.

Come on, girls. Come on.

[machines whirring]

[Brian] I'll scrape down.
You can shut this off.

[narrator] Most family farms
don't sell their own milk.

They pool it with other farms
into cooperatives,

which find buyers and handle sales.

[man] One of the very first arrangements
that were made,

going back to the early 1800s,

was farmers getting together to say,
"Let's market our milk together."

The milk bulk tank
cools the milk down to...

You want to run it between 36, 38 degrees.

If you get up above 40 degrees,
the milk starts to build bacteria in it.

We usually ship just a hair over
5,000 pounds every two days,

and then the milk truck driver
pumps it out of the truck.

Every other day.

[man] The largest dairy co-ops

also have their own processing capacities.

In some cases, they own
branded dairy products.

So, they will take milk from the farm,

take it to their own processing facility,

make it into products and market it.

[narrator] In the last 40 years,

the amount of milk Americans drink
has dropped by more than a third.

But milk is now a global commodity.

The Smith farm's milk might be turned
into soft-serve mix, yogurt, or cheese,

exported to Mexico or South Korea.

Or it may be dehydrated
to a non-perishable powder

and shipped to giant new customers
like China or Indonesia.

What the farmer is paid for the milk
is pegged to worldwide supply and demand.

Strong years of high demand
and high prices are inevitably followed

by years of milk glut,
rock-bottom returns,

and waves of farm closings.

I always tell people
that because I'm a dairy farmer,

I deal with a lot of crap.

[Andrew Novakovic] In farmers' memories,
dairy was the definition of stability.

One of the reasons why you liked being
a dairy farmer is, it wasn't very risky.

[Brian] Come on, girls, don't stand here.

[Andrew] If you took care of your cows,
they'd produce milk. You could sell it.

Prices wouldn't make you rich,
but you would be fine.

A lot of these smaller farms may net ten,

$20,000 a year, on average,

so that would put them half of what
the median household family income is.

[Andrew] If you're a small farm,

you can probably get by with family labor

especially if you've got kids at home.

It's basically a family enterprise.

Ever since I can remember,
we were always in the barn.

If we weren't doing chores,
we were running around, playing.

When we got old enough
to be able to do chores,

we would feed calves
or scrape down manure,

bed cows, clean calf pens...

Just odds and ends things
that Mom and Dad needed help with.

[Brian] Come on.

Hurry it up.

Come on, girls, let's go.

Come on, bully.

[Leslie Lopatofsky] There have been
ups and downs over the years.

I would say more ups than downs.

The biggest memory that I have

of a down,

is, farming got so tough to maintain
that we sold our cows.

Definitely a very sad day.

For everybody.

Fortunately, a few years later,

we were able to bring cows back on.

[Brian] OK. You're good to go, Nick?

So, I'm going to head up, alright?

Alright.

[motor revving]

[Brian] I've always had another job...

to pay for the farm that I bought,

to have the family that I wanted to have,

to have the quality of life
I wanted to have.

That wasn't going to happen
from just milking cows.

It's fairly typical for one member
of the household to have an off-farm job

to provide income
to support the family.

[Brian] I started driving a school bus,
like, back in 1985.

And we're off.

I've had other jobs off and on,

but the school bus job is something that,
once I became a contractor,

I just continued to be an owner-operator,
and drive every day.

[Andrew Novakovic] It's not feasible
to make a living with milking 50 cows.

You can probably get your health care
through that job you have on the side,

and make ends meet.

[narrator] But even the willingness
of farm families to sacrifice

is no longer enough.

Since the year 2000,
around 30,000 dairy farms in the US

have sold their cows
and closed their doors.

In Wayne County alone,
where there used to be 1,200 dairy farms,

now there are fewer than 60.

Most table milk is now produced
in so-called "factory farms,"

containing hundreds
and even thousands of cows,

where the economy of scale
makes the operation profitable.

[Brian] I used to see
hundreds of dairy cattle.

Off to our right here
there was a dairy farm,

back the road, there, was a dairy farm,

back in here, there was a dairy farm...

all of which have closed up now.

It doesn't seem to matter
which road I take.

There are dairy farms
that are no longer in operation.

[narrator] For much of the 20th century,

the federal government used
generous price controls

to protect dairy farmers
from volatile milk markets.

[Charles] Back in the 1980s,
the heyday of price support in the US,

we were actually setting a minimum price

that made it very profitable
for the vast majority of dairy farmers.

Cheese! More than a quarter
of a million tons of cheese.

Mountains of surplus cheese
piling up in refrigerated warehouses.

Other products as well, bought
under the Dairy Price Support Program.

[narrator] With their profits safe
from market fluctuations,

farmers produced
more and more surplus milk.

The government agreed to absorb all of it.

By the 1980s, the US was spending
over $2 billion a year,

holding up the dairy industry.

Stockpiles began to rot.

[newsreader] A growing number of dairymen
say high government prices

are a form of welfare for dairy farmers.

It keeps
inefficient producers in business by...

paying an inflated price on their product.

[Andrew Novakovic]
That terminated around 1990.

And that's actually driven a lot
by a political philosophy

that says we should be
less involved in the marketplace.

[Andrew] And then in 1996,

the WTO opened up dairy markets
in the US quite a bit,

and in so doing,

exposed us not just
to the ebb and flow of US markets,

but actually the ebb and flow
of world markets.

[Charles Nicholson] Twenty years ago
we were a very minor player

in terms of our sales to export markets.

Fast forward,
we've exported in recent years

as much as 15% of our dairy production,

and we're a much bigger player
in terms of,

we're supplying the world market.

[Andrew] We started to see
a very dramatic increase

in the volatility of milk prices.

Prices changed by a large amount,
from high to low.

They changed somewhat unpredictably.

You couldn't really tell
much more than six months in advance,

make a guess what the price would be.

[narrator] Today, milk prices are set
using a unique, government-created formula

that fluctuates
along with commodity markets

and is then adjusted according to
market demand, region and other factors.

It's so hard to predict
that most farmers don't even try.

It's milk roulette,
and a lot of farmers lose.

Bad years in 2009 and 2012 helped
drive many farmers out of the business.

Then, to everyone's surprise, came 2014.

In 2014 we had a confluence of events

that gave us a record high.

[narrator] Demand at the supermarket
pushed shelf prices

to more than $3.5 a gallon.

Mexico's appetite for cheese
and milk powder soared.

China bought almost twice as much
American butter as the year before.

2014 was a record-setting year

for dairy prices in the US.

There was great rejoicing

and people were saying,
"Yeah, this is really how it should be.

This is the profitability
that we should expect."

[narrator] Farmers sell their milk
not by volume but by weight,

a hundred pounds at a time,
or a "hundredweight."

In 2014,

the money a farmer got per hundredweight
jumped by almost a quarter.

The future looked bright.

My husband and I
decided to start our own farm.

I'm excited that my children
are going to grow up on a farm.

It teaches you
everything you need to know for life.

The beauty of life.

It teaches you the bad,
because you see it all.

It teaches you life and death...
everything.

It teaches you how to work.

It teaches you
that you have responsibilities,

no matter what's going on.

It keeps you grounded, it really does.

That calf there is really young,

so she doesn't know enough
to come over and get fed yet.

I have to grab another bottle for her.

And she's two days old.

[narrator] Leslie and her husband bought
at the height of the market in 2014.

But half a world away, trouble was brewing
for American farmers.

China's economy slowed,
and Chinese buyers imported less.

And plenty of what they did buy,
they got from nearby New Zealand,

a dairy powerhouse.

And then the news got worse.

[muffled talking in Russian]

[narrator] Russia invaded Crimea:

a geopolitical crisis with surprising
implications for the milk world.

[Andrew] The Western world reacted
very strongly to that,

imposed embargoes,
and Russia, in a counter move, said,

"We're not going to buy your dairy,"
and shut the door.

And suddenly Lithuania loses
its biggest customer.

Today, the biggest customer for Lithuanian
butter is the United States of America,

and this is because Lithuanians
had to find new markets.

So you have Russia tightening up,

you have China cooling off,

you have Europe growing,
you have a good year in New Zealand,

and the next thing you know,
we've got a supply-and-demand imbalance.

[narrator] Some regions saw
a radical drop in profits.

In New England,
the profitability of a small farm

fell 99 percent in a single year.

The shock was worldwide.

Protests broke out across France,
some of them violent.

[sirens blaring]

[yelling]

[Leslie] We were getting paid
almost $29 a hundred.

Our last paycheck for milk that we got
was $18 a hundred.

That's a huge profit loss. Huge.

[atmospheric guitar music]

[narrator] It's generally agreed
that a small farm needs to earn

about $22 a hundredweight
to stay in the black.

It's been two years
since milk brought in that much.

Families are supporting farms.
Farms are no longer supporting families.

Which is part of the reason
that it's so tough.

[mooing]

[Leslie] You used to be able
to be this big, happy family

that stayed home together all the time,
that worked together all the time.

That's not the case anymore.

[narrator] In a last effort
to save their farm,

the Smith family has combined
two businesses into one.

[Brian] Leslie and Nick
will be staying with us.

We brought their herd in.

I think that that will help cut costs,

to the point where, if possible, we can
sustain this business for some time.

It used to be,

if you were a hard worker,
you could be a dairy farmer.

Get up early, get calluses on your hand,

work until the job is done,

you'll be OK.

Working hard isn't enough.

Now, you also have to work smart.

These are the cows.

[narrator] In 2016, Chaz Self
and his wife Megan leased a dairy farm

in New Holstein, Wisconsin.

[Chaz calls the cows]

[narrator] They knew exactly what
they were getting themselves into.

There has to be someone
that's willing to keep the fight alive,

and we're willing to keep the fight alive.

[boy babbles]

Yeah. Yes, say hup, remember?

And I am doing this based on the fact

that I have the leverage of proving
that you can do this successfully.

The smart farmer thinks about ways
of positioning his product

not just as milk from a cow.

Producing something they make on a farm
and can command a higher price for.

We are certified organic.
We have our grade A license.

The drive for organic is huge right now.

I think most people know
that organic is the future of farming.

Am I saying organic is going to solve
the world's problems? Absolutely not.

But it is a step in the right direction.

[narrator] Organic milk commands less
than ten percent of the fluid milk market.

But even as our fluid milk consumption
is dropping,

consumer trends
favoring foods seen as healthy

are steadily growing the organic sector.

Come on, beautifuls, hup!

Selling organic milk actually tends

to return you a much higher price.

[narrator] For organic milk, Megan and
Chaz can get more than twice the revenue

that conventional milk brings in:

up to $45 per hundredweight.

And the price Chaz gets
is locked in with his distributor

for two years at a time.

That might be a winning formula
for small farms nationwide,

except converting from conventional milk
to certified organic

is costly and challenging.

[Charles] You would actually
need to have some financing,

to be able to allow you
to make that kind of transition.

That's one of the big impediments.

[narrator] Chaz and Megan bought
into a farm that was already organic.

Looking the way I am, most
don't think I'm a dairy farmer!

I was a vegan.

I realized that I had no idea
where my food was coming from.

I enrolled in a farm management degree,

as well as getting employed
on a 350-cow dairy herd.

I remember,
and I will always remember the feeling

of having the ability to feel like,
"I'm actually taking care of something."

That was really the most important part,
to me, to become a dairy farmer.

Most young farmers that get into it,
if they do want a dairy farm,

inherit it from Mom or Dad,
or Uncle or Aunt.

[Megan] We didn't inherit a farm.

The loans that we took out
are low-interest loans,

but they're still substantial.

We do iodine first, the first thing.

Then we take towels
and we wipe the iodine down.

If it's really dirty
or it's a really wet season,

you dip them twice, depending.

That milk has been sitting in that nipple,
so we clear the nipples out,

to make sure that first couple squirts
doesn't go in the tank.

Currently we're milking 35.
All Jersey cows.

CJ is my favorite.

She's just the nicest,

and if you don't pet her in the morning
she gets all ornery at you,

and she's just a very friendly cow,

great milker,

really good with her babies.

She's just, all around,
just a wonderful cow.

Hi, Choppies!

Good boy. Good boy.

[Chaz] With organic
you get paid significantly higher,

almost always, compared to conventional.

And then the real thought behind that
was to allow

the most nutrient-dense product,
directly right to the customer.

It really came and stemmed
from the fact of the viable cash flow.

Let's just get down to it.

[narrator] But Chaz and Megan
are not relying only on organic milk

for their long-term security.

For any dairy farmer, there is always
the lure of a highly profitable product,

a milk that is guaranteed to bring in
an even higher price than organic.

And every farm is overflowing with it:

raw milk.

The milk gets pumped
through the double barrel system,

and so cold water rushes
against the pipe inside,

and that cools the milk
on the way to the tank,

so that milk stays as fresh
as it can be, right in the tank.

[narrator] Raw milk is not a new product.

It's simply milk straight from the cow.

It's also considered a vector for disease
by public health officials.

Selling it is illegal in 15 states,

and it's banned from being sold
across state lines.

[Andrew] There is a great deal of concern
about the safety of raw milk,

and an absolutely unequivocal assessment

by food scientists
and food safety specialists,

that you're playing with fire
when you're doing raw milk.

[narrator] At the turn
of the 20th century,

milk was a leading cause
of foodborne illnesses:

tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria,

scarlet fever, anthrax.

As people moved from the country
to the city, they brought cows with them,

and the danger increased.

A key food for very young children
was killing them.

In some cities,
infant mortality was as high as 30%.

[man] 150 years ago, we started
to realize this concept of germ theory.

There are these little tiny,
living organisms that are out there,

that cause disease.

There is contagion in milk.

Well, what do we do about it?

The idea of heat
started to gain real merit.

We realized that we could eliminate this
threat of the disease-causing organisms

in milk and other dairy products.

This was a solution.

[narrator] Louis Pasteur patented
his heating techniques in 1873,

and gave his name to the process.

The science of pasteurization has remained
much the same for 150 years.

So we receive raw milk

from trucks that deliver it
three to five times a week,

and we pump it
into these large vessels here.

So these tanks essentially hold raw milk
that we're going to eventually process.

For the strawberry milk, you're heating
the milk up to 161 degrees Fahrenheit,

minimally,

and you're holding it minimally
for 15 seconds.

[narrator] The heat kills
virtually all of the dangerous bacteria

in raw milk.

The first municipal laws
requiring pasteurization in the US

were passed in Chicago in 1908.

After the 1930s, milk went from causing
25% of food-borne illness, to 1%.

But in spite of the efforts of public
health officials,

the sale of unpasteurized milk
was never banned nationwide.

And now, it's enjoying a comeback.

More than that, really.
It's something of a movement.

Some raw milk buyers say they drink it
for its richer and creamier taste.

But many believe that
raw milk has unique health benefits.

That it contains enzymes and bacteria
which can fight asthma,

allergies,
and skin conditions like eczema.

It's so enjoyable to have someone
come to the farm and be,

"Oh, I love raw milk.
I want to try raw milk.

I want to be part of this movement.
I want to nurture it."

And one of the things
that a lot of researchers come to,

which they're going to say is not true:

how healthy people become.

And so when you're constantly giving
your immune system bacteria

that is good for you,

your immunity starts to build up
like crazy.

And a lot of the greatest things for us,
when we sell raw milk,

is a lot of the old-timers.

"Oh, I grew up with raw milk
and I'm healthy as can be."

[Scott Rankin] So, if we take
a thousand raw milk drinkers and said,

"Look, what are the benefits from it?"

we would have a long list of things
that they would say.

But if we take that anecdotal evidence

and apply it towards
mainstream engines of science,

we just don't find evidence.

[narrator] The health benefits
may be unproven,

but a farmer can charge
as much as $9 a gallon for it.

And that money can make a family farm
a viable financial enterprise.

[Chaz] Dairy has always been
a part of what I love.

I just didn't see
how I could honestly do it.

The option was there because of raw milk,

as well as our on-farm store.

[Megan] I focus on the store
and the customers.

We have customers who come
for multiple different reasons.

-[Megan] How was your drive?
-[lady] Not too bad.

It's a nice day to drive today.

Medicine has failed them
and they're sick.

And they view that raw milk
will help and benefit them.

This little girl is Samaya.

She's my one-year-old daughter.

She was under three pounds
when she was born at 27 weeks,

and I knew that I didn't want to have her
on commercial formula.

I couldn't produce hardly anything.

So I've been giving her,
since she's been out of hospital,

formula that simulates breast milk.

Raw milk is the basis of it, so...
It's been going on a year.

As you can see, growing,

and thriving, really well.

Yeah. She's almost...

She's basically off of the premature chart
and now in with the term babies,

so I hold a lot of that
to the raw milk formula

and all the benefits that come from it.

You're growing so big and strong!

Yeah.

What a cutie.

[Toyin] Say hi.

[narrator] Today's farm is much cleaner
and safer than a century ago.

But pathogens like salmonella,
campylobacter, and E. coli

can still thrive
in the dairy farm environment.

A US government study found that only
3% of milk consumers drink raw milk.

But four out of five
milk-borne pathogen outbreaks

are linked to raw milk.

So there are about a dozen or so bacteria

that we routinely encounter
human pathogens in raw milk.

So it causes real illness.

Who is most likely to succumb
to these illnesses?

The very young, the very old,
immuno-compromised individuals.

So these are not...
stories that you want in your history.

And so that's the risk.

[Chaz] I think raw milk can hurt people
if it's not done properly.

Not being all on the farmer,
also on the consumer.

If you're going to walk up
to some random person,

then I think it can hurt people.

I don't see anything on our end
to worry about,

because I deal with how we are
making and producing the milk,

and our cows are getting
the most nutrition possible to begin with,

and they're healthy.

And so that product
is also a healthy product.

[narrator] Eleven states permit the sale
of raw milk at retail stores.

Wisconsin is not one of them.

[interviewer] Is what you're doing
in Wisconsin legal?

Currently, what we are doing...
can be thought as legal.

Yes.

Would we have a nightmare if we
have to go to court? Absolutely, yes.

[narrator]
And the state has shown its willingness

to send gun-toting health agents

to shut down raw milk sellers.

[eerie guitar music]

[Chaz] The fear is always there.
We call it the cloud.

Everyone has the cloud.

If there would be some way
for the state to work with us,

which we've approached them about,

it would save our business.

If I could come back and start promoting
what we do and how we do things,

and educate people legally,
my sales would double.

I know they would.
But I can't go those routes yet.

Every day, I worry!

I'm a worrier by nature.

I'm a worrier. I'm a mother and a worrier.

But I believe it's right.

I really do believe it's right,

and the people that come,

they want it, they need it,

and they're passionate for it.

[Chaz] We're a big target,
and we know we're a big target.

Why take this step?

The fact that I know what I'm doing
is helping people.

I know I'm nourishing,
and I know I'm doing the best at it.

I am not in the wrong, and I know
that that's the key factor to this.

I'm not dealing cocaine.

I'm not moving drugs.
I'm not doing anything.

I'm providing a product
that people can choose,

if they want, to nourish their body with.

[Scott] We just don't see this difference,

this huge advantage to raw milk,

that in any way competes
with the real risk,

the very known risk,
very well-defined risk

of someone succumbing to a pathogen.

[narrator] Raw milk has
long been popular in Europe,

a fact which advocates here in the US
point to as proof of its safety.

[in Spanish] I love fresh milk. I love it.

[narrator] But in the last few years,

European health agencies have been
tightening regulations of raw milk,

and some public milk dispensing machines
now carry warnings

to pasteurize before drinking.

If raw milk
is a serious public health risk,

then the Self family is small potatoes.

There are dairies in America

that are putting much more raw milk
in the marketplace.

And they're not doing it
under a cloud of fear.

This beautiful place
is our new milk barn,

which we've been dreaming about
for 15 years,

and now we're finally done.

We're starting to milk
in the next two days.

We're on a hill,

so the manure and the water flows away
from where we're milking the cows.

So the water goes down the hill
to a sump-pump,

which gets back to the pastures.

[narrator] Mark McAfee
is the founder of Organic Pastures,

the largest raw milk dairy in the country.

He has roughly 1,200 cattle

and is milking about 500
at any given time.

They produce about 90,000 gallons
of milk a month.

The first thing they walk into
is a sprinkler pen.

Where they get a nice little shower,
and that keeps them very clean.

It also completely disrupts
the belly flies,

so there's no belly flies on our cattle.

In an organic environment
you can't spray them

or give them some kind
of medical treatment.

[machines hum]

[Mark] When we started we had
five employees. Now we have 105.

[narrator] California is one of the states
which places few restrictions on raw milk.

McAfee can sell his product, retail,

as fast as his cows can make it.

If you look back at the 1870s, 1880s,

yes, raw milk was very dangerous
in certain areas,

New York, Boston, Philadelphia,

where cows were milked
in filthy conditions.

No hot water, no cleansers,
no stainless steel, no rubber.

And the people
that were milking the cows were ill.

Some had tuberculosis, typhoid fever.
The milking conditions were horrendous.

Those cows made a lot of people sick.

A lot of people died
when consuming that raw milk.

But that was in 1870s
and '80s and '90s.

That was over 130 years ago.

[narrator] Like Chaz and Megan Self,

McAfee started his farm
as an organic dairy.

But he quickly saw
that the market was ripe

for a large-scale purveyor of raw milk,

and that customers would pay.

Alta Dena, the biggest raw milk producer
in North America,

selling raw milk in Los Angeles,
went out of business.

So people started showing up at our dairy
saying, "We want your milk raw."

When we heard this, we realized,
"You know what?

Why don't we take raw milk to Los Angeles
and meet a whole lot of people?"

So we took our Suburban
we had at the time.

We filled an ice chest
with half gallons of raw milk

that we bottled by hand out of our bulk
tank, and we drove it down to Los Angeles.

By the time we got to Los Angeles,
literally every gallon of milk was sold.

People were calling us on cellphones,
saying, "We want some. We want some."

We went to a little place called
The Garage in Venice Beach.

And as we pulled up, there were at least
a hundred people, maybe more.

It's hard to imagine how excited people
were about this shipment of raw milk.

And so when we left,
my wife and I looked at each other.

"What just happened? What just happened?

We have thousands of dollars in our hands
and we have so many happy people.

People want raw milk."

[boy wheezing]

[machine beeping]

[woman] Chris was seven and a half
when he became ill.

It was spring of 2006.

We went into the health food store
that we had been shopping at for years.

And they had these large signs
hanging in the window,

banner-type, on vinyl,

advertising that they were
selling raw milk now,

and that if you had digestive issues,
allergies, asthma,

that the milk would help with that.

So that's what gave me the idea
of maybe switching

to trying the raw milk for Chris,

because he was congested all the time.

So the first week,
I bought a quart of milk.

He's such a picky eater,
I wasn't sure-- would he like it?

So he did.

Bought it the second week,
he still liked it.

So the third week, I bought a half gallon.

He got a little headache and wasn't
feeling good after taekwondo.

And then that Wednesday,

he stayed home from school,
and he just... didn't feel great.

Thursday, he went to my mother-in-law's,

and in the morning,
he threw up and had diarrhea.

So the next time,
I had lined the toilet with a plastic bag

so that he would go and I could look.

And the next time he went,
it was all blood.

[machine beeping]

[Mary] The first couple of days
in the hospital,

they put us in an isolated room

with a sign to let people know
he could be contagious,

because they did not know what he had.

And then the doctor came in and she says,

"Your son is very, very ill.

He has developed something
called hemolytic-uremic syndrome,

and we are going to flight-lift him
to Los Angeles,

and this is something
that he could die from."

So that's when things just...

turned.

So they had to put a catheter in him.

And...

that was horrible.

He was going into kidney failure.

And they immediately did
emergency kidney dialysis on him.

He had to have chest tubes
put in his side to drain fluid.

And of course, they were
extremely, extremely concerned.

And he lasted another day
before they had to intubate him.

His heart rate got up to like, 180,

and he just couldn't fight anymore.

This was, I believe, day nine.

He just... he had nothing left in him.

So the machines took over.

And they intubated him
and fed him intravenously,

and he was like that for five days.

[wheezing]

[narrator] Hemolytic-uremic syndrome,
or HUS,

is the most common cause
of kidney failure among children.

And it is usually caused
by infection with the E. coli bacterium.

I was down in the waiting room and
I overheard a mom talking on her phone.

And what she was describing
was hemolytic-uremic syndrome.

So when I got off, I went up to her
and I said, "Does your daughter have HUS?"

And she says, "Yes."

This was the same time
the spinach outbreak was happening.

The spinach outbreak
just was coming on the news.

The 14th of September.

And I met her on the 17th and I said,
"Did your daughter eat the spinach?"

And she says, "No, raw milk."

And I said, "My son drank raw milk too.
Is it Organic Pastures?"

And she said, "Yes."

[narrator] The California Department
of Food and Agriculture

closed Organic Pastures'
bottling facility for eight days,

and ordered a recall
of all raw milk and cream.

[Mary Martin]
Mark McAfee came down to visit.

He saw me in the hallway
and we had a discussion.

I really had a lot of compassion for him,

thinking what he must have
been going through,

realizing that his dairy
probably got the children sick.

He was sure that it was not his milk.

[Mark] They never found
E. coli O157:H7 in our milk here.

So there was never any connection,

but it was circumstantial enough.
It appeared that it was.

And looking back on it, it probably was,

because it was not the same fingerprint
in the spinach.

Same E. coli, but different fingerprint.
So it wouldn't be the same.

And so the children that had E. coli
did not have matching fingerprints either.

One didn't have any fingerprint, one did.
Both drank raw milk.

So circumstantially, I have to own it.

[narrator] In all, six children got sick

after drinking
Organic Pastures milk in 2006.

Two of them developed
life-threatening cases of HUS.

Both survived.

[father] What are we doing today?

[Mary] He's not speaking.

[father] Is today the day we go home?

It's just pieces of memory.

Just... some of them,
I can't pinpoint what time they were,

but some of them I can,
depending on how well I was doing.

I remember learning to walk again,

because I was in bed for a month,

and my body just kind of... was weak.

I didn't remember how to walk.

I remember the physical therapists
walking me a little bit,

and I remember
walking out of the hospital.

-[Mary] The timing couldn't be better.
-[friend] Exactly.

[father] Can you wave, Chris?
Hey, go stand under your sign.

[Mary] Yeah, will you go
stand under your sign?

[father] Look at that!

[Mary] We've just got to get you in there.

Please, stop!

-[father] Turn around.
-[Mary] See you!

I stopped being really interested
in a lot of stuff.

I had a lot of panic attacks,

and what I called flashbacks
from the hospital.

Like, little things would remind me
about being in the hospital,

and I would just start crying.

And I still hate the smell of hospitals
and that would just set me off.

[Mark] I regret that it happened.

But at the same time,
it's spawned an entirely new generation

of awareness
and also consciousness and science

about how you do raw milk properly.

We weren't testing our milk,
but we learned from that,

and I no longer deny
that raw milk can make you sick.

So, that led...

to me also filing a claim against him.

I knew it was his milk
that made these people ill,

and I wanted to prove
that it was his milk.

[Mark] We now use BAX-PCR testing.

It's one of the tools we have
to test for pathogens.

And also, we test for coliforms, which
is an overall indicator of sanitation.

So we have very sanitary milk
and pathogen-free milk.

And together that makes it
a low risk food product.

[atmospheric music]

[Mary] More outbreaks started happening.

In 2011, they had
their second E. coli outbreak.

It was very similar to the 2006,

in the number of children ill
and developing HUS.

And then they had another outbreak in 2016

and more children became ill.

Every test we have, negative.
Thousands and thousands.

One popped up positive,
but for some reason we did not detect it,

because that cow snuck into a bulk tank

that for some reason,

that we either had
a false return on a negative,

or the sampling technique
somehow did not detect her.

But it caught her on the next milking,

and we isolated her immediately
and everything stopped.

But that one milking, we did not catch
that cow through our testing program.

And that milk escaped
on one of the routes.

[interviewer] You tested for E. coli
but didn't pick it up?

Correct.
But it did pick it up the next day.

So these tests are not perfect.

They're very accurate, but not perfect.

[narrator] Organic Pastures has settled
at least four lawsuits against them.

When I hear about another kid...

getting sick from raw milk,

I feel really sad.

I feel sad for the child, for the parents,

I feel sad for everybody
that knows that child and that family.

I mean, I get a little angry,

just that that is happening again
to somebody else,

but yeah, that's how I feel
when I hear about that.

[Mary] Even though
his kidneys are working,

we don't know how many of his filters
were scarred and damaged.

Does he have the kidneys of a 50-year-old?

So he will always
have to monitor his kidneys.

He'll always have to have a good diet.

We talk to him. You can never afford
to drink alcohol in your life.

So he will always have this
for the rest of his life.

I am angry at Mark.

Even though I understand his perspective,
it still isn't right.

[interviewer] What would you say to him?

I would say to Mark, please stop.

Please.

Don't...

make another person
have to go through what I went through.

We're not going to stop, no way.
We're helping many other children.

You've got thousands of moms saying,
"Don't you ever, ever,

not let my children have raw milk,

because they get ear infections,
nasal infections,

all kinds of flare-ups
when they don't get raw milk."

What Mary says... I love her to death,
give her a kiss and a hug...

is not representative
of a balanced approach to what's going on.

Her family was affected. She was affected.
Her son was affected.

She's got to be a passionate,
pissed-off mom. I get that.

I respect that.

I would be passionate and upset
if my child was affected the same way.

But you have to take this in balance,
and if you're gonna produce food,

realize there's rare cases
where somebody's going to get sick.

[narrator] According to
the Centers for Disease Control,

with every new state
that allows raw milk sales,

the number of outbreaks increases.

And drinking raw milk
is 150 times more likely

to result in some form of illness
than commercial milk.

Today, Organic Pastures'
estimated annual revenues

are over $10 million.

I don't have anything against people
getting to the value-added product

of raw milk.

I don't have a problem with that.

I don't have a problem
with any farmer doing anything

that adds value to their operation
and makes them successful.

I really don't.

[narrator] Brian Smith ran for County
Commissioner of Wayne County in 2007,

in hopes of giving a dairyman
a say in government affairs.

He won.
So now, he has three jobs.

[Brian] I feel like
we need representation,

and I was looking at the people
who were running for office

and didn't feel as though
that representation was adequately there.

Have a good day.

When you begin to look
at the crippling financial situations

of people who can
accurately represent farmers,

they certainly can't afford
to run for a political office.

Hey. How are you?

My goal is to continue to talk to people,

continue to talk to our legislators...

It is a shame that when you work so hard,

the money is not there
to sustain that business.

If your measure of the vitality
of the dairy industry

is something like sales,

I'm very optimistic.

I think the industry's gonna
continue to grow.

If the question about,
"What's the future of the dairy industry,

and how optimistic should we be?"

hinges on maintaining
a certain kind of a farm

with a certain kind
of production technique,

OK, then maybe we have to recalibrate.

[atmospheric guitar]

[chattering]

Mammy.

[narrator] For more than two years,

milk prices have been below break-even
for the family of Brian Smith.

That puts pressure on them
to cut their losses

in a way that is both reassuring
and troubling.

The dairy herd in the United States

is one of the biggest beef herds
in the world.

We're all raising beef.
We just milk cows for beer money.

[narrator] For many years,
bull calves born on dairy farms

have been sold for veal.

But recently, consumers have developed
a taste for older dairy cattle.

It is no longer impossible
that the burger on your plate

was putting milk in your glass
just a few weeks ago.

As much as 11% of the beef in the US
now comes from dairy farms.

We have to separate those calves
out of that pen tomorrow.

And I think we should think
about selling some of them.

[Brian] What about that bull?

[Leslie] He's huge,
so I didn't think he was going for beef.

He's young.

[narrator] In a pinch,
a milk farmer can sacrifice an animal

for the good of the farm.

It means cash, as well as
one less mouth to feed.

But it's a hard decision for those who
have spent their lives caring for animals.

[Leslie] I thought
the cattle dealer was buying him.

He doesn't want him.
He's too big for him.

If he was half the size,
he would take him.

So he's going to go for beef either way.

He's part of the beef herd.

Let him go. What difference does it make?

Well, it's just the thought.

[Leslie] We don't want to sell our cows.

We raised most of them
from the day they are born,

until the day they have to go.

You don't give up on things that you love.

[Brian] You do what you do
because it's something you can do.

Come on, Daddy. Your turn.

[Brian] And it's something
that you can pass on.

It's something that,
you can go out in public

and feel like you're real,

and that you're providing something,
and that you've achieved something,

and that you are working
for the greater good.

[excited laughter]

She took, like, four steps!

[baby giggles]

[tense music]