Southland dairy farmer says raw milk regulations need 'a little bit of flexibility'

Farm Fresh South is a boutique dairy farm at Woodlands, specialising in raw milk sales.

Owned by Logan and Melissa Johnson, they milk about 30 cows, and calve four times a year on their 21ha farm.

While they are not certified organic, they operate organically.

The milk they do not sell goes to their calves or gets made into butter for their own use.

They also took part in the Ministry for Primary Industries' (MPI) recent survey of suppliers and clients' views on current regulations around the supply and sale of raw milk.

Logan Johnson said for the most part, the regulations and their intent were good and worked well, but some of the requirements inhibited small business growth.

''We want our business to be successful, and there has to be room for small businesses to grow,'' he said.

''A little bit of flexibility is needed.''

He would like to see changes to the requirement that a wordy health warning be included in every advertisement.

''I have no issue with the warning display required on advertising on the bottle or point of sale,'' Johnson said.

''However, at present, if we wanted to support the local school and put a wee ad in their newsletter, the whole ad would be only the warning.''

They would also like to be able to sell their milk from the farmers' markets but are unable to do so.

Customers can either have it delivered to their door or buy from the vending machine at the farm.

''We would like to deliver milk to customers' work for them to take home, but we can't as only home deliveries are allowed.''

He would like to be able to sell raw milk to cafes for use in coffees and would be keen to set up a ''Milk Lovers Club'' type system where cafe customers who want raw milk receive a card and they can only get that milk when showing their card.

''That allows traceability.

''The customers get what they want and the cafe gets what it wants.

''It can be done properly but at the moment the regulations do not allow that''.

He would also like to see the ministry's information about raw milk to be balanced and in context.

''The information MPI puts out about raw milk on its website talks about cases where raw milk was a risk factor in health breakouts, but doesn't clarify whether it was direct from a vat intended for pasteurisation, or what other risk factors were.

''At the moment it is not balanced,'' he said.