The P.A. Bowen Farmstead at Brandywine, MD, less than one hour south of Washington, D.C., has been licensed by the Maryland State Chemist to sell raw milk to the public — but only for pets. Bowen Farmstead is owned by Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) President Sally Fallon Morell and her husband, Geoffrey Morell. The new offering at the farm store was noted Oct. 18 in an article by Peter Kennedy, the Sarasota, FL, attorney who serves as president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, where Morell also serves as a board member. The fund is an offshoot of the raw milk-promoting WAFP. In his article posted on the Farm-to-Consumer website, Kennedy wrote that the license to sell raw milk as pet food provides “legal access to raw milk in Maryland, one of the most anti-raw milk states in the U.S.” “The sale of raw milk has long been illegal in Maryland,” Kennedy wrote. “In 2006, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (MDHMH) issued an emergency regulations banning herdshare contracts; a court challenge to the herdshare ban was unsuccessful. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the center of opposition to raw milk in this country, has its headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, and major offices in Rockville and College Park.” Kennedy notes that, in recent years, attempts to open Maryland to the distribution or sale of raw milk for human consumption have been blocked by State Delegate Peter Hammen (D-Baltimore). Chair of the House Health and Government Operations Committee, Hammen has killed all raw milk bills for the past decade. Morell’s first-of-its-kind license to sell raw milk for pets in Maryland puts the state in line with a handful of others that permit such sale, including Florida, Georgia, Indiana and North Carolina. The farm’s website states that sales were starting on Oct. 15 and that the “same strict sanitary procedures” were being followed for the raw milk meant for pets as for the farm’s raw cheese. The site also noted that there is a one-gallon limit per family.

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