Charlotte Smith & Mark McAfee: cheap raw milk is dangerous raw milk

You gotta see today’s video.

Doesn’t matter if you produce raw milk or not, nor what kind of Ag related biz you own, you’ll be inspired.

Mark McAfee has been a raw dairy farmer for 20 years and is first and foremost a humanitarian.  That clearly shines through in this conversation we had a few weeks ago.

After building the world’s largest raw milk dairy he went on to be the founder of the Raw Milk Institute, an organization that provides national standards for safe raw milk production.

Make sure your raw milk is safe.

After our talk I prepared a free guide for you titled, “6 Steps to Assure Your Raw Milk is Safe.”  Click here to gain immediate access.

This is one of the most inspirational and powerful interviews I’ve seen — Mark has been a good friend and mentor over the years and has broad and brilliant perspectives on farming that he shares here.

I ended up watching the video half a dozen times in order to edit and take notes for this blog, and even though I conducted the interview, I still learned something new and absorbed something deeper each time I watched it!

So I hope you’ll try to watch more than once, too.

One thing that applies universally to farmers or really, any business selling a product, is you must  be truly connected to your consumers and really care that their outcomes are good.  Watch the video below for more wisdom and inspiration:

http://farmgal12.wistia.com/medias/7feyf14x71?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=760

Here’s a sampling of just a few gems you’re going to uncover:

• What drives Mark and what lasting and very important change for humanity he is making
• What 3 things does he look for before advising a raw dairy farmer
• The 8 keys to producing a great product
• The 5 most important things you can do first if you want to start a raw milk dairy
• A serious discussion on raw milk testing

How To Price Your Raw Milk

When I ask Mark about how raw milk should be priced, we have an eye-opening discussion!!

He explains that as soon as people realize that raw milk kefir cures diseases such as Crohn’s and they won’t have a $100,000 medical bill for their colostomy bag, then of course they will be willing to invest in high-quality raw milk and support their small farmer because raw milk becomes priceless at that point.

Mark is very sensitive to people’s ability to pay for raw milk but at the same time you’ve gotta be willing to pay enough for the farmer to produce it safely.

McAfee also advises, “if you’re a raw milk producer, don’t cheat yourself, don’t cheat your cow and don’t cheat your consumer”.

Because you will be cheating your consumer if you don’t test once monthly, if you don’t take care of your cow, and you don’t take care of your pasture and you don’t pay your milker well.

You don’t sell raw milk, you TEACH raw milk

And lastly, you don’t sell raw milk, you teach raw milk.  Find out what that means, why it’s true.