In November 2019, the Kansas Department of Agriculture agreed in settling a lawsuit not to enforce the off-farm advertising ban on raw milk sales in the state; the expectation was that the Kansas Legislature would repeal the statutory provision establishing the ban in the 2020 legislative session [see Wise Traditions Winter 2019 issue for background].

What raw milk supporters did not anticipate in the 2020 session was the introduction of Senate Bill 300, legislation proposing to ban the sale of any raw milk product (other than aged raw cheese by licensed manufacturers). Kansas has one of the more favorable raw milk laws in the U.S., allowing the unregulated on-farm sale of all raw dairy products.

Thanks to a big response in opposition to the bill, SB 300 did not make it out of committee.

The bill legalizing off-farm advertising, Senate Bill 308, was introduced but there was a surprise in that legislation as well. SB 308 had labeling and advertising requirements mandating that the following statement be included in each: “This product contains ungraded raw milk that is not pasteurized and, as a result, may contain organisms that cause food-borne illness, especially in infants, young children, older adults, pregnant women and people with weak immune systems.” The warnings were to be the same size as the largest font used elsewhere in the label or advertisement.

Thanks again to a strong response from raw milk proponents, the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources amended SB 308 so that the only required labeling and advertising language for the sale of raw milk and raw milk products was a statement that the raw dairy product is not pasteurized. The bill is expected to become law some time this spring.

This article was first published in the Spring 2020 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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On November 6, 2019, the Shawnee County District Court approved a settlement between dairy farmers Mark and Coraleen Bunner and the Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA) that ends the off-farm advertising ban for raw milk sales in Kansas. Raw milk sales are legal only on the farm in Kansas; state statute previously limited advertising to a sign on the farm premises.

The Kansas Justice Institute filed the lawsuit on October 28 against Mike Beam, KDA Secretary, to end the advertising ban on behalf of the Bunners. State Attorney General Derek Schmidt, whose office represented KDA, stated, “The statute restricting advertising does not comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s modern application of the First Amendment to commercial speech and is plainly unconstitutional.” As part of the court settlement, there is a permanent injunction in place prohibiting KDA from enforcing the advertising ban. The state legislature is expected to remove the ban from statute in the near future. The lawsuit marks the second time in recent years that there has been a successful effort to end a state raw milk advertising ban; in 2016 as a result of a suit filed by the Institute for Justice on behalf of dairy farmer Christine Anderson, the Oregon Legislature passed a law ending its state ban on advertising raw milk sales.

This article was published in the Winter 2019 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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